1. The way i understand the means of production and labour is that labor makes the productions and gives it its value. The time it takes to build an iphone including the materials that are used to make it, under normal circumstances gives the phone its expensive value. Production is nothing without labour. If you don’t put time into making something your not producing any products therefore there is no value being put into anything that your doing.

2. What makes something valuable is the time it takes to make it.

3. Labor and value are related because of the labor theory of value. The amount of labour used to make a product makes its value. The connection between the two is that they go hand in hand. The more labor it takes to make the product the more its value increases. The less time it takes to make it, the lesser its value.

4. Labor is what increases the value of what you have. Labor power is when you get paid less then what your labour is actually worth.

5. Surplus value is when you make profit off of a product that is privately owned and made by laborers and the company keeps the profit. The surplus value goes to the company not the workers. I think this is important to know about in the study of social classes because it will show how different social classes go through different experiences when it comes to labor and values. One can argue that different social classes can have different ranges of labor power and also products being made in un normal circumstances due to social class. An example would be products that are made in china. A lot of our products are made in china in factories and many different companies profit off of them that we don’t even know about and its only what we see we can interpret. How can we be so sure that the labor being put in to make all these products are actually being paid fairly amongst the workers?

1. The distinction that reading 4.3 makes between owner and employees is that the Owners live mostly off of investments while the employees live off of wages, salaries and fees. Their income is also different.

2. I understand that the quote “labor … is alone the ultimate and real standard by which the value of all commodities can at all times and places be estimated and compared. It is their real price; money is their nominal price only” talks about labor being the reason why a company is flourishing. Its not the money that makes the company great its the labor put into it.

3. My thoughts on the main argument that class is not an identity is that social class shouldn’t be an identity at all regardless of race or economic status.

4. i understand the argument in reading 4.4 about “class structures are built around a close form of dependency” by understanding that being a “worker” means that you are dependent on your firm for a job. This close form of dependency is that the worker needs the employer as much as the employer needs workers.

1 There are some similarities in social class that are discussed in Readings 4.1 and 4.2. For example, the income for Lower to Upper class in 4.1 is seen in reading 4.2 New York income. The only difference i have seen in both readings on social classes is that “Reading 4.1” is talking about America as a whole while “Reading 4.2 ” talks about New York’s social class based off of location of residence.

2. i live by the 2 and 5 line “Flatbush ave Brooklyn college” and the social class that live in my neighborhood is “Working class.” Im not Surprised by the answer because i feel like its an accurate representation of the people living in the neighborhood.

3 In the reading 4.2 i realized that the Middle- upper class people reside in either downtown Brooklyn or Manhattan.

1. Repressive state apparatus controls you through the state of violence and fear. Althusser calls this repressive because its something that is forced due to misconduct. An example would be the police being violent towards protestors that are trying to challenge the authority in a violent way, such as destroying property or being violent towards the authority.

2. Ideology state apparatus is when you control a group through structural order. The ideology state steps in when when the repressive state fails to control the group.

3. The repressive apparatuses and ideological state apparatuses are different from each other because the repressive apparatuses is meant to control the group through violence and fear while the ideological apparatuses is meant to prevent change to their status quo meaning to keep things the way they are political and socially.

4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQI5JG4q7vY This is an example of an repressive apparatuses.

1. Ideology is a belief system that can influence the structure or development of different groups of people. For example, Abortion is an ideology amongst woman/ feminist. Some woman believe that abortion should be illegal while others believe that it should not be legal. This ideology can come from there individual beliefs through religion and personal experience.
2. Conservative ideology supports individual rights while liberal ideology supports multiple groups of people and wants everyone to be equal. The big difference between conservatives and liberals is that conservatives care more about liberty while liberals care more about equality. Conservatives believe that the government poses a threat to their liberty so they want to reduce spending towards the government and focus more on individual values and social issues. Liberals believe that the government can solve problems and boost equality so they increase taxes and regulations to benefit minorities. They believe that we spend more than enough on the military so the budget should be cut for necessary social programs.
3. Althusser’s definition of ideology is a belief system that is needed to maintain order amongst groups of people through status quo. An example would be school. School teaches you to follow a schedule and theirs a lot of discipline and correction when you fail to obey the schedule given by the authority. This type of system trains you to be respective and to respect your authority and to avoid rebellion.

I think that the southern racial politicians used “Law and order” to hide their defense of racial segregation because for them it was easier to demand law and order than to publicly announce to continue segregation against black people. Given this special advantage they were able to depict black people as criminals as a result of achieving civil rights. They used Martin Luther Kings philosophy as the leading cause of crime.

Yes, the southern strategy is still influencing American politics. For example, today we still show signs of the strategy when trying to make decisions to better us as a whole. Some decisions made by the current political parties are either for the minorities or against it. Even though its not exactly like how it use to be, there isn’t any signs of genuine equality.

1. M. Alexander claims that the main explanation of why so many people are sent to jail In the U.S. today is deeply wrong by explaining that President Ronald Reagan announced the drug war in 1982. Reagan administration hired staff to publicize crack cocaine in 1985 to build public legislative support for the war. Overnight the media portrayed the worst negative racial stereotypes . During this same time period a war was declared causing arrests and convictions for drug offenses to skyrocket, especially among people of color.

2. Racial disparities cannot be explained by rates of drug crimes because studies show all people of color sell and use illegal drugs. White youth are most likely to be engaged in the drug crime.

3. i understand the phrase ” The American penal system has emerged as a system of social control unparalleled in world history” in a way that the penal system is defined largely by race. The penal system doesn’t help stop the crime significantly.