If we dig into the pages of history, there we find always that society is divided by some references. Coming out of the caves, the man started to live in a community, in which power, and physical strength was the dominating factors. People only knew was hunting. With the discovery of iron and steel cores now the traditional weapons were replaced and more agricultural tools were built from them. At this phase, society started to experience oligo racy, the ruling peoples were feudal. This led to a road to feudalism. Coming to the 16-17 century society was found to be divided based on taxes, one was forced to pay while others have leverage.
After the war of independence in the USA and the French Revolution, the second-class people tricked third-class people and all powers were concentrated on first and second-class people. For example, there was a limitation on franchises. But with the huge participation of third-class people in a world war, the second-class people being afraid of losing everything, made third-class people a stakeholder in governance.
When there is a debate on the economy and the division of society, Karl Marx can not be ignored, as per him, society is divided into two groups "Haves" (the rich) and have-nots, the poor. There will be always conflicts that go on between these classes and he further claims that true equality at the economic level helps to eradicate the prevailing conflicts, which can be achieved through the revolution of have-nots
Coming to the present day, our society is divided into three classes based on the economy as it used to be. And on this division, it is always confusing for some people without the knowledge of who first-class people are? Second-class people? And third-class people?
The first-class people that always history talked about are those people who have considerable assets, enjoy the powers of the state, and directly influence the authority. The best examples in past were nobles, feudal and in today's world the richest people like Elon Musk, Donald Trump etc.
Now, who are second-class people? Second-class people are those who have some private property. And they have the capability of starting a new business firm. They have less comparable to first-class people.
And third-class people are those who don't have any private property, can not initiate any business, does not have any influence on governance. But they making living by selling their time or by remuneration. These are the people who work for others.
This is how history has been understood on the issues of different classes.
Today's world is in the phase of financial capitalism, and the world is experiencing a new type of system where the number of second-class people number has been diminished. These numbers were added either to first-class people or the third-class people creating a much gap between the first-class and third-class people.
Thank you, ...