Class is concerned with a society's economic structure which encompasses the systems of wealth creation and distribution while power entails how politics is expressed. Nonetheless, the two distinct social factors are features of agency and structure in a complex society in which they create causally interlinked configurations. Class structure provides a means for the powerful and privileged to exert and maintain their power over the powerless and underprivileged but this relationship can be altered through community organizing.
Class-based separation of American society cannot be denied. In "Class in America – 2006", Gregory Mantsios discusses the way American society is stratified on class grounds. He argues that class distinction does not feature in Americans' conversations, despite their division into wealth-based categories consisting of lower, middle, and upper classes (182). He adds that class separation is also evident in politics in that political leaders seek to appeal to the lower and middle class populations to obtain more supporters. Moreover, Mantsios mentions that class distinction extends into education and employment as evidenced by higher SAT scores and incomes of the upper class compared to those of lower and middle classes. Similarly, it is impossible to ignore class distinction in society because it is reflected in the media. In "Framing Class, Vicarious Living, and Conspicuous Consumption", Diana Kendall observes that the media is powerful because it influences public opinions and perceptions of upper, working, middle, and lower classes. They are depicted differently so that the audience develops a skewed view of each class but there is not differentiation of reality and fiction so that people can take the upper class as their role model and avoid the other classes. The media influences people to "emulate the upper classes and shun the working class and the poor" (Kendall 211).