This question reminded me of a novel I read in my youth. It was about a future earth with a very organized power structure where people are ranked (I believe it was 1-100) by their power/wealth.
The protagonist is a nobody (rank 100?) who by sheer will and desire never to be controlled by anyone rises through the ranks, eventually making some kind of deal with aliens to take control of everything.
For completeness, I think this book is The Man Who Used the Universe by Alan Dean Foster. I have given a detailed description of the book in my answer to Story ID - ruthless criminal; legal/illegal citizen ranks.
To address your specific points, the rankings you mention are called class:
There were a hundred classes of citizenship, both legal and illegal. Of course, you could hold both, depending on your profession and avocations. Loo-Macklin was an eighty-third-class illegal and had spent two years in that status. He was tired of it. Any twenty-two-year-old would have been. But Loo-Macklin was very patient, which the average citizen his age was not. Patience was a prerequisite in his chosen line of work.
Loo-Macklin makes a deal with an alien race called the Nuel:
However, I have been able to persuade sufficient of the Heads of the Families (from his studies, Loo-Macklin knew that in Nuel society, a "Family" might consist of several hundred thousand individuals, a Great Family of millions) to allow me to make this contact with you. We occasionally find the rare human with whom we can work."
"Work how?" Loo-Macklin leaned forward, interested.
"I have what amounts to a business proposition for you, Kee-yes vain Lewmaklin. Would such coming from me interest you?"
At the time Loo-Macklin's deal appears self serving, but his ultimate aim is to (spoiler alert!):
Save both mankind and the Nuel from another warlike alien race called the Tremovan by bonding mankind and the Nuel into single unit strong enough to fight the Tremovan.
