The Witnesses have no paid clergy, and the congregations are led by elders. A typical congregation has about 10 °C of witnesses, including six elders and six ministerial servants. If a congregation becomes larger, it is divided into a number of congregations.

Twenty congregations of Jehovah's Witnesses make up one circuit, and ten circuits make up a province. Spiritual leadership is exercised by circuit and district overseers (the Greek word bishop literally means "overseer"). Overseers of Jehovah's Witnesses regularly visit congregations in their circuits and provinces, visiting them at least twice a year (and spending a week in each), which is why they are called "traveling overseers."

Special pioneers, missionaries, and traveling overseers are maintained at the expense of the religious organization. In 1998, the Watch Tower Society spent about $64.4 million to support them. [135]

In all, about 5,000 people work at U.S. Bethels, and more than 20,000 work at Bethels around the world. Most of them were trained at the "School of Theocratic Ministry" in Gilead (Pennsylvania), the main educational institution of the sect. The governing body located at Brooklyn Bethel anonymously makes all decisions regarding the management of the sect and the direction of its further development. In addition to the buildings described above, the sect owns at least ten skyscrapers nearby - in Brooklyn Height, one of the most prestigious and expensive areas of New York. In these buildings lives and works an apparatus consisting of more than three thousand people – the executive link of power (and absolute power) in the sect. But all decisions must be communicated to ordinary sectarians, and therefore the Brooklyn Bethel is first of all a publishing house in which all the propaganda products of the sect are created: articles are written, illustrations are drawn, music is recorded, laser discs are stamped. Products are printed here, and multi-million copies are immediately loaded onto transport for shipment to various countries of the world.

The living conditions of the Bethelites are the most spartan: the working day is not actually regulated, there are really no days off. Both single and married couples live in dormitories, the only difference is that married couples receive a separate room. As a long-time Bethel staff member assured me, each of his married colleagues had made the decision "absolutely voluntarily and without any coercion" not to have children. Since abortion is not officially recognized by Jehovah's Witnesses, there are two ways for married couples: contraception or surgical sterilization. Since the Bethelites earn only $100 a month for pocket money (they are fed in the common dining room and washed in the common laundry), and contraceptives are expensive, it can be assumed that the Watchtower slaves "voluntarily and without coercion" go to sterilization operations (since each of the Bethelites can declare a very low income, the cost of the operation can be covered by government social welfare funds).

Eyewitnesses tell about the difficult atmosphere of universal earphones and denunciation in this top of the "world theocracy". Most employees strive to forget at least for a while and switch off from this rat lifestyle. In Bethel there is heavy unrestrained drunkenness and other things that in the Soviet party committees (surprisingly similar to the Jehovist upper circle) were called by the capacious word "immorality": "... We drank a lot there. I learned to drink at Bethel. If you go there not drinking, then by the time you leave, you will be drinking." [136]

Alcohol abuse is generally a big problem for "witnesses" of various levels: "Life under the close supervision of the elders devastated me; Nothing and no one, not even my children, who brought me so much joy, could make my life complete. Often my wife and I drank excessively, looking for at least some relief. But it all ended in one emptiness." [138]

This theocracy, scattered throughout the world, has about 6 million subjects[139] who are active members of the sect. Subjects regularly pay contributions that are very much higher than the taxes paid by citizens of any secular state. This gives an idea of the income of the Governing Corporation. Its expenditures are incomparably less than those of any government.

The main press organ of the Jehovah's Witnesses is the Watchtower magazine, and the second organ is the Awake! magazine. The Watchtower is published twice a month with a circulation of more than 23 million copies[140] (that is, more than 46 million copies per month) in 139 languages. Between 1920 and 1996, more than 9 billion copies of books, magazines and brochures were published and distributed worldwide in more than 200 languages. In 1986-1992 alone, the total circulation of Jehovah's Witness literature amounted to about 2 billion 715 million copies. About 5 million copies of various Jehovah's Witnesses and magazines are published annually in Russian.

The printing center serving Russia is located in Germany. From a professional printing point of view, the publications look great: catchy, bright illustrations, high-quality paper; Magazines and brochures inspire confidence and catch the eye. Members of the sect are obliged to distribute these publications. They buy them back with their own money, and then distribute or sell them. Thus, for the Governing Corporation, the publication of magazines and books is not only an absolutely win-win business, but also brings fabulous profits: each book of multi-million copies is sold out even before it is published. Until recently, sectarians were instructed to buy every new book and magazine for each member of their family, not to mention copies for distribution. Now in a number of countries this procedure has been somewhat changed: sectarians on a weekly basis on a "voluntary-compulsory" basis donate money that at least covers, or even significantly exceeds the cost of the magazines distributed in Brooklyn.

In this sense, Jehovah's Witnesses can be viewed as a commercial cult or a commercial and financial pyramid with an ideological and pseudo-religious superstructure, existing for the sake of distributing the written and printed products of the publishing house. We compose, illustrate, publish, and deliver non-competitive products around the world, which cannot be sold without strong ideological support: no one can buy them in an ordinary kiosk. And accordingly, everything must be done to ensure the sell-out, from which the organization receives hundreds of millions of dollars of net income.

That is why in the overwhelming majority of European countries, Jehovah's Witnesses have never been considered a religious organization at all. In early 1999, the sect was stripped of its religious status in France. The French authorities have ordered the Witnesses to pay more than $50 million in taxes over the past few years. Until then, all the property of the sect in France has been seized.