Below are a few quotes from Cecil's thesis:

"If all societies were as rigorously hereditary in status, position, and honor as was the Aztec, there would be no occasion for this dissertation concerning social class rigidity. The Aztec social hierarchy offers no difficulties of interpretation, only details of degrees of status." p. 99.

"Brutality creates or cultivates the desire for protective super-ordination." p. 120.

"Wealth is a stabilizer of social status, and social class stabilizes the distribution of wealth. In the extreme case of mobility, such as represented by the Vanderbilts and Astors, wealth not only secured high social standing; it has also stabilized the social positions of four consecutive generations.
Property is related to social class status both positively and negatively. Those without property must choose between coming to terms with a property owner or sleeping in the streets or jumping in the ocean, as George Bernard Shaw once said. Property is not only the creator and perpetuator of higher standing; conversely, it is the creator and perpetuator of misery, social disability, and social class disqualification. 'Those who are poor become dependent upon the rich . . . . ' 'We should all like to live on the Avenue facing the Park, and do business opposite the Post Office. If we are not rich enough to do so, we yield to force and law and go off peacefully to live and do business where the monopoly is not felt,' wrote Sumner, but he did not live to see what it was like when men sought ultimate shelter in the dumps of Hoovervilles." p.127.

"One of the means by which each social class excels the one below it, and perpetuates this distance through careful training of the child, is by specializing in etiquette and fashion." p. 133.

"A sound sociology has to recall the fact that class formation in historic times did not take place through gradual differentiation in pacific economic competition, but was the result of violent conquest and subjugation." p. 140. (Franz Oppenheimer).

The disintegration of Roman civilization: " . . . the base of the social pyramid shrank, and the economic power behind the social positions of the upper and middle classes weakened. A great economic burden was placed on the shoulders of the middle classes (the senatorial class was both rich and tax-free), and they were literally crushed under it." p. 194 (Melvin Knight). [Would a similar fate await nations that close their borders to immigrant labor?]

"These facts lend still more credence to the principle of social class, namely, that persons or groups with an initial start or advantage tend to rise, if anyone does. To them that have, more is given". p. 238.

"In the evolution of social opportunity and human institutions under agricultural feudalism one disruptive movement entered, commercial and industrial capitalism." p. 241.

"'although anyone might now rise in the world . . . it was necessary that not every one should rise.' Property, experience, connections, education (particularly the last-mentioned item) all worked to hold the masses of men down." p. 280.

"Under the system of extensive and wasteful cultivation by slave labor, the rich coastal plain was quickly occupied [in Colonial America], forcing small farmers in search of homes to flock into the upland regions." " . . . the poor [freedmen] are by this means deprived of employment, while a few families acquire vast estates" p.339.

"Wertenbaker's obituary of the American Dream is summarized in these words: 'The glorious promises which the country had held out to him [the Virginian yeoman] in the first fifty years of its existence had been belied. The Virginia which had formerly been so largely the land of the little farmer, had become the land of masters and slaves. For aught else there was no room.' " p. 339.

"[Most] emancipated slaves and their descendants . . . lived an outcast, neglected, and insecure existence. Their state was often more miserable than that of many slaves -- it was a state of existence somewhat similar to that of the least fortunate poor whites." p. 342.

"The American Dream is a figment of the imagination -- a masterpiece in distorted fact. It is truly a schoolbook fiction." p. 390.

Many other sociologists of that time (1941), such as Bancroft, Beard, Dollard, Duprat, Fahlbeck, Gonnard, Hobhouse, Landtman, MacIver, Mombert, Mosca, Mumford, Schumpeter, See, Sorokin, and Weber, are frequently quoted in this thesis. Other authors, whose works are quoted in this thesis, include Theodore Roosevelt, Benjamin Franklin, and Edward Gibbon. A full list of authors can be found in the Bibliography.


More notes:
Social stratification is maintained by the use of taxation and interest. In America, the main mechanisms of enforcement are hunger, homelessness, poverty, evictions, foreclosures, and unemployment.
1. The rich pay cash for their homes. The rest pay mortgages or rent, which are interest payments you make when you borrow assets from another person or corporation. Thus we have the owner class and the non-owner class. The owners supplement their income by lending some of their assets to the non-owners, who forfeit a portion of their income to pay interest to the owners. Interest presents an additional burden on borrowers. For lenders, interest is like getting free money because they do not have to work for it. The rich can take advantage of the circumstances of the poor, who do not have the shelter they need.
2. When mortgage payers see homes being foreclosed, they pay the mortgage because they do not want the same to happen to them. They pay property taxes for the same reason.
3. When renters see their neighbours evicted, they willingly pay rent.
4. If evictions and foreclosures are stopped, then everybody stops paying rents and mortgages.
5. The presence of homeless people in the community encourages the rest to pay their rents and mortgages. These represent only the tip of the iceberg, however, since the majority of homeless people can find shelter among their relatives and friends. Only the truly disenfranchised actually find themselves on the streets.
6. The homeless do not receive adequate help. This is deliberately so. Once you become homeless, you struggle to meet the requirements to qualify for a place to sleep at a shelter, meals, medical needs, etc. Being homeless becomes a full-time job as you must not be allowed to get too comfortable. Getting out is an uphill battle because you cannot get a job if you do not have an address and you cannot get an address if you do not have a job. You also need a shower, a shave, clean clothes, transportation, and so on.
7. Mortgage payers are not home owners yet. However, they must still pay mortgage interest to the bank, plus rent to the government (also known as property taxes) if they do not want to lose the homes they think they own.
8. Mortgages are so long that many do not get paid off. The likelihood that someone in your family will not face a financial crisis, caused by job loss or car accident or long-term illness, over a thirty year period, is probably zero, so you borrow against your home's equity to get through the financial crisis, making your mortgage longer then before. The intention is to keep you paying interest for the rest of your life. Nobody should consider getting a mortgage for longer then 15 years for this reason. Credit cards, by the way, are also intended to keep you paying interest for the rest of your life. Pay off your credit cards in full every month.

This is how the governments and banks use mortgages, rents, foreclosures, evictions, and homelessness to keep the majority of the population paying interest. These are all necessary to keep the population working.

9. Any people who are not financially prepared for loss of employment are always at risk of losing their homes.
10. If corporations regularly have layoffs, they cannot be sued for improper termination or discrimination. If your boss does not like you much, you may find yourself on the list for the next round of payoffs. You become submissive.
11. When a few workers lose their jobs in your office or factory or school every so often, you will probably not be asking your employer for a pay raise. You will not complain about working hours or conditions because you cannot afford to lose your job. If you are in constant fear of losing your job, you become eager to perform and to obey because you do not want to become like the hungry and homeless people you see every day at the traffic lights and under the bridges as you drive to work. You work harder and for less pay because the conditions at your job have made your servile.
12. High levels of unemployment push down wage levels as enemployed workers compete desperately for existing jobs. Poverty causes the desperation that employers want to see, so that workers become willing to perform any task, however menial, for whatever pay they can get, however menial.
13. Slavery is illegal because it is involuntary servitude and compensation is not paid to the workers. However, if the system makes circumstances exceptionally awful for those who do not or cannot participate, then they will come voluntarily to work, and they will voluntarily pay much of their compensation as taxes and interest, leaving them, in the long run, probably, with nothing (no savings). Voluntary servitude in a system that takes away most of your compensation, however, is legal, and it keeps you dependent on that system. You could argue that the servitude and the partial forfeiture of compensation would not, under these circumstances, be entirely voluntary in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, where anything goes.
14. The legal system and the police exist primarily to protect property and infrastructure, to prevent those who want to take them away from those who have them. If you cannot pay for what you need, but you take it because you need it, the Department of Corrections will provide you with work, shelter and food, at least for a while. You must play their game by their rules.
This is how the system keeps the population working for the corporations and for the government. It is not unusual for people to pay 75% or more of what they earn for taxes and interest. The governments and the corporations of the world want moderate levels of homelessness, unemployment, foreclosures, evictions, poverty and hunger. These conditions keep the majority of the population fearful, compliant, servile, and working for those in power. It is all about power and control.
15. The following quote is from Cecil's autobiography, which he wrote in 1975, reflecting upon the years he spent teaching around 1936 at Washington Square College in New York City. He shows how we are brought up to submit to and serve the system:

"One can see the nature of college courses and discipline - a student works carefully within the limits of the assignments and little by little adds up enough credits to earn a degree. The reason employers seek people with reasonably good college records over self-educated people is that they want to find submission and obedience and cooperation in the new employee. The knowledge he possesses is incidental."

There are two things you can do to escape (partially) from this system:

1. Become self-employed.
2. Buy a home that you can pay for in 15 years or less. Then pay it off as quickly as you can. Keep driving that old rustbucket while you pay off the house.

More photos of Cecil Headrick: click here.