1. When I read through “Concentration of Capital: Who Owns America” by M. Parenti (page 29) , personally it was quite shocking to learn that the top 1% of wealthy Americans own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90% of Americans combined. This stark difference highlights how wealth is extremely concentrated in the hands of very few, which is a big concern. This disproportionate share of wealth highlights the issue of economic inequality and the system through which wealth is concentrated and maintained in the hands of a few. 
2. Huge gaps in wealth can lead to a society where there’s a clear line between the wealthy and everyone else, creating feelings of disconnect and unfairness. When most of the wealth is with the very rich, everyday people have less to spend, which can hurt businesses and slow down the economy. Those with wealth often have more say in politics, which can lead to laws and policies that favor them, making it even harder to address inequality. You can see these issues in real life, for example, in cities where only the very wealthy can afford to buy homes while others struggle just to pay rent. Or in schools in wealthy areas that have more resources compared to underfunded schools in poorer neighborhoods, affecting the quality of education and future opportunities for those students. These examples can be seen clearly especially in New York City.

1, M-C-M’ is the capitalist’s approach to the small scale commodity production value chain. M, represents Money, which is the money that the capitalist puts into making something. This M’s consist of the machines used to make the product, along with the raw material, and the purchasing of labor power of a laborer who will put in their labor to create the value of the product by using the machines and the raw material. This directly converts to C, the commodity. The commodity is the shared value of everything that goes into creating the product including the labor power, the raw materials and machine hours put in. Afterwards, the commodity is then sold for more money than the value in which it contains. This money is considered the M’ and is higher then both the value of M and C previous in the line. The reason for this is because of the surplus value that is generated from C to M’. Commodities are sold at prices higher than the value of the labor and materials put into it leading to a profit for capitalist’s. By doing so, capitalist are able to generate wealth through the work of another person who is unequally compensated for the value they generate at the end. Capitalist then increase their wealth by increasing hours of production in order to receive more surplus labor hours, as well as improve the process of machine that can more efficiently produce goods, leading to a lower value of M put into the initial process while maintain M’. In reality, the M-C-M process is “M-C-M + S”, where S is the surplus value generated by the use of undercompensated laborers.

1. The statistic on wealth inequality that was very glaring to me was that the top 1% owns 40-50% of the nation’s total wealth stocks, and more then the bottom 90%. The fact that its considered “the bottom 90% is absurd because it includes both the 50th percentile as well as the upper percentiles (90th percentile), It goes to show how unmeasurable the wealth disparity is between the 1% and the rest. Their money is significantly large than that of those even considered 10% below them in terms of income households. Stocks is a significant factor of making non labor income, so it comes to no surprise to me that the lower class lacks significant amount of stocks but to be greater then 90% is way too high.
2. Living in a society with such a huge wealth inequality leads to a massive differences in political views and creates a divided nation where people are fighting each other. The reason for this is because, this wealth inequality cause massive percentages of households to be living under the poverty line and demanding for programs that will aid them. Households in the middle percentages in terms of income will also face challenges as the idea of the American dream, and being able to live their dream life seems more far out of reach as the amount of money needed to be apart of that life increases. As for the top percent of earners, they will do what they can to go against these policies for programs for the poverty struck households because they don’t see any of the programs going to them. Instead, they will see massive losses in their income through taxes raises without having that money comeback to them. These issues are already playing out currently with our politics where the rich are finding ways to avoid paying as much taxes as they can and are in many cases paying less taxes than lower income earners. Middle class earners additionally, are finding it harder and harder to reach their house-owning goals, as housing is becoming more and more expensive and seeming more like a luxury than a necessity in life.

1. Which statistic on wealth inequality in the US (discussed on p. 29) made the biggest impression on you? Explain why?
2. What could be some of the implications of living in a society that has such huge wealth inequalities? Do you see this dynamic getting played out in everyday life in our society? How so? Example?