1. Means of production refers to the all the other stuff that goes into the production of something. These include things such as tools, natural resources, and a system that helps with how they will distribute or sell the product and they could do this through stores or even the internet. Let use a pizzeria for example the tools they use are the dough mixers, digital scales, pizza cutters and the brick ovens. The natural resources they use could be the tomatoes, water, peppers, anchovies etc. Then the way they distribute or sell the product is through their restaurant. Labor refers to the actual human employee doing the work such as getting the dough ready, preparing the pizza, tending to customers, etc.
  2. Value is how much something is worth. A products value is measured by how much labor it takes to make something under normal circumstances. What makes something valuable is how much time and effort went into the making of a product.
  3. Labor and value are related because the more labor a product needs the more valuable it will be.
  4. Labor is how all wealth is created under any mode of production. It’s humans interacting with nature in order to create the wealth of society which is pretty much all the material stuff we see around us. Labour power is when labor is turned into a commodity. It’s when workers are forced to sell their own labor for a wage in order to survive.
  5. Surplus value is the additional value created by workers beyond what they are paid for. It is important to know about in our studies of social class because this explains to us how the wealthy are able to stay wealthy and why the poor tend to stay poor. An example I could give of surplus value is me for example I go into work at 8am and I am pretty much done with my work by 12pm but I am not allowed to leave until 5pm, so then I am told to help a coworker with their job, and I am not getting paid extra for doing the extra work.

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