Good point wrt BB; I think "pyramidal" was referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_and_Practice_of_Oli...

(I have a friend who is a PRC citizen; I don't know her background precisely but her habitus reminds me of nothing so much as the slightly younger women I'd met at a boarding school in Palo Alto, so I think it's safe to say that socialism with chinese characteristics has at least one non-prole class :-)