Dscrimination & Private Education

As an Englishman, and as the Welsh ploughboy I would have been 200 years ago, I have always been a bit confused at the British class system: especially as my father unaccountably paid for my education. I suspect I live in two worlds - the world of privilege and the revolutionary world of the peasants.
Many top Republican Americans also seem to have been to private schools in the USA, although why this is different from the British system I am not sure. Perhaps many WASP Americans never quite escaped from King George III after all and remain faithful to an aristocrat class system without quite realising it.
Then there is the caste system in India! Again I was never quite clear why apartheid was wrong in South Africa, but the caste system in India seemed quite acceptable to British and American governments. Certainly the high-caste Hindus I met were very pleased with their position in life and very affable people. Perhaps the British were a bit ashamed of saying anything at all against their old Indian Empire?
In some countries, old feudal systems still seem in operation. This seems to consist in a top-down authoritarian system whereby orders 'must be obeyed without question' and retired generals are often government ministers.
Now quite where democracy fits into this sort of description of modern society is also obscure. If those in command in the old democracies of America and Britian depend on large sums of private money and private education to reach the top, it suggests most of us do not get much say into what happens. I hear many British governments get elected on a minority vote of the total electorate, and then claim a mandate. It is a puzzling old world.