1-Both readings speak about social elegance and how a few humans have greater or much less than others. They examine such things as money, education, and what society thinks about humans to recognize this better. In primary studying, they discover social elegance through searching at private testimonies and culture. In the second one studying, they use the subway gadget in New York to expose how social elegance works. Both readings explain how social elegance influences regular lifestyles. The first makes a specialty of how humans experience approximately themselves primarily based totally on their elegance, even as the second suggests how the subway can hold exclusive social training apart. The first study uses more extraordinary thoughts and emotions to research things, while the second one, studying, appears to be real-life examples, like how public transportation can separate humans. They may use surveys and interviews to acquire statistics for their analysis.

Ideologies are a collection of beliefs and ethical values that people and all state apparatuses hold true to themselves. For the most part, ideologies heavily affect and impact our modern society and world as we know it. This is because Ideologies are passed down from generation to generation and from state apparatuses to us as people. There are many different reasons as to why people hold different Ideologies.

For instance, some people simply just choose to believe in what was passed down from their older generation of family and relatives or their most convenient state apparatus. On the other hand, others choose to completely challenge the beliefs and ideas passed from those around them for many different reasons. Furthermore, in order to further illustrate ideology itself, an example of an ideology passed down from the state apparatuses being school is that we as a society should obey a certain bell schedule and time schedule for our education system and typical work day as future employees.

Another way to understand ideology through example would be how different government parties have different ideologies. For this example, I’m going to use the conservative and liberal parties by comparing their extremely different ideologies. First of all, the primary conservative ideology concepts are favoring traditional values and capitalism. However, the liberal parties’ main ideologies favor values such as equality and liberty. Last but not least, the last way to further your knowledge of ideology would be through Althusser’s concept of ideology. This concept essentially states that because of the passing of ideologies through all different sorts of apparatuses and generational passing of ideas, it helps keep society in place and a certain general standpoint with certain main ideologies and concepts that run modern society.

1. Means of production and labor are two key concepts that are spoken of in the video. Means of production is the way in which you are able to create or send your goods to a place where it can be given its value. An example of this would be a factory that is the means of production. A factory allows you to create immense value by producing your product. Labor has to do with the physicals work put in by a person in order to create the value in this product. For example, a laborer in a factory is someone who is able to operate the machines and use these machines to create the value that is the product being created.
2. Value is the price given to a product based on the labor put into making it, as well as the perception behind the product being created. Something is value if it is highly demanded by the public or if it requires a high amount of labor in order to produce. The highest value items combine both of these concepts and are both high labor items that are highly demanded by the public.
3. Labor and value are connected because labor is putting in their work to give value to an item that their making. The value of a item should be represent the labor that was put in by the laborer. In the capitalist model, laborers often are not compensated fully for the value that they put into the item they created, resulting in a surplus value for the capitalist
4. The difference between labor and labor power is considered ad the physical act of working, which is labor; versus the ability to actual perform labor, which is labor power. This being that you would call the action of performing a job a labor, while you would a person capable of doing the labor would be considered to possess labor power.
5. Surplus value is the value above the value of the labor that the capitalist makes otherwise known as profit. Its important to know about surplus value because it demonstrates that the capitalist will always underpay a worker for their labor in order to see a surplus value. An example of surplus value would be someone who works in fast food services. If they work at a hourly rate of $15 and after 8 hours make $120, any service that they do to provide value above $120 would be considered surplus value. This value is generated by the worker however goes directly to the capitalist owner instead of the worker.

The MCM movement of exchange was created not with the intention to consume items or goods personally, but with the intention to buy and resell at a higher value in order to gain profit. Capitalists are able to maintain and increase their wealth by using productive forces of the factory. As stated in Pierre Jalee’s “How Capitalism Works” capitalists use their buildings, machines and equipment, raw materials and labor power, which all costs money (M) to mass produce a certain quantity of manufactured goods. This is the commodity (C), to resell these manufactured items which are already valued at (M’) before they even leave the factory. Capitalists are able to sell them at a higher costs than it required to create and manufacture them through labor power of their employees. They are able to get maximum productivity out of one person in the 8 hour work day by paying them only a portion of what they would make in value in a day. The employee still has to be clocked in for the rest of their shift, causing the employee to perform unpaid labor also known as surplus labor. The product of surplus labor is surplus value, which is the product of capitalist exploitation. Without surplus value the capitalists could not have come into being, nor could they survive. This is how the rich stay rich, they exploit their employees for their time and have them produce as much as they can to make the owner of the companies more money.

Q1. The means of production refers to all resources and tools used in the production of goods and services. Labor refers to the work and skills that people provide in the production process.

For example, a restaurant’s means of production include kitchen equipment, utensils, ingredients, and the restaurant’s storefront and tables and chairs. These are the tools and resources that a restaurant uses to prepare and serve food. And restaurant employees. Their labor includes tasks such as cooking food, ordering and serving food to customers, and cleaning the restaurant. By providing these services, they ensure proper operation of the restaurant and customer satisfaction.

Q2. It is labor that gives goods their “value”. The value of a commodity depends on how much socially necessary labor is expended in its production. A good has value only if it contains human labor in its production and can be exchanged in the marketplace or satisfy a social need.

Q3. According to the labor theory of value, the value of a commodity is determined by the amount of labor required to produce it. Socially necessary labor time is central to measuring the value of a commodity. Labor and value are inseparable aspects of the economic system; labor is the source of value, while value is the reflection of labor in the marketplace.

Q4. Labor is the actual work or activity performed. It is a dynamic process that includes both physical and intellectual inputs from people. Labor capacity refers to a person’s potential or ability to perform labor. This includes an individual’s skills, knowledge, experience, health and physical strength, etc. It is a relatively static characteristic that reflects a person’s ability to perform labor effectively.

Q5. Surplus value is the excess of value created by workers in the production process over the wages they receive. In other words, surplus value is the difference between the value created by workers’ labor and the pay they receive. This portion of value is appropriated by the capitalist as profit. We can analyze the production of surplus value to gain a deeper understanding of how a capitalist economy works, the accumulation of profits, and market relations.

For example, an agricultural laborer works on an orchard where he is paid a daily wage of $150. In a single workday, the fruit he helps harvest can be sold on the market for $500 worth. The rest of the value is captured as profit by the owner of the orchard, and the worker receives only his fair share of the wages.

1. My understanding of ideology is that its the idea and belief that a person believes we should be governed by. Ideology mainly deals with a persons political view of government however, there believe it can also be used to describe a certain mindset when it comes to other topics. An example of a political ideology is conservatives whos have the belief that government should be as hands off as possible in order to reduce the taxes that they would pay. This idea directly conflicts with the alternative ideology held by liberals, who believe the government should aid the people. This increase in social care services results in increased taxes, however they feel it is justified, as it greatly benefits lower income families and people who would be abandoned under a unregulated free market. From my understanding of the crash course video, ideology is heavily shaped by social groups like a persons income, race, religion, and gender. This means that people who are born in high income families tend to be more conservative because they benefit greatly from the lower taxes and don’t see many of the benefits of social care. A interesting point of understanding from this is while people can create their own stance and choose their own view, most of the times, a person’s views are created as a result of the views already had by their parents.
2. The difference in conservatives and liberals as I mentioned earlier are the role of the government in society. Conservatives believe the the government should insert itself very little in the market and “conserve” their powers to when need be. Conservatives are similar to the ideas a laissez faire in which they believe the market can be self regulating and will allow the economy to flourish. Liberals alternatively, believe that the government should take heavy responsibility in overseeing the people and provide services to those in need. In the crash course video, they state a main reason for this is because liberals believe that a free market will not spread wealth around equally, leading to massive disparity in income among social classes. Because of this, the government is needed to regulate the people and provide support to those struggling through breaks in taxes and services provided for cheaper or no price such as Medicaid. These services come at a cost however, leading to high taxes for higher income earners however, it is believed to be justifiable, as these extra tax dollars goes towards helping even out the field.
3. From my understanding, Althusser’s definition of ideology is that there are sub ideology that exist in different facets of life that allow you to connect and relate to a different group of people. The example from the video that made me believe this was the entertainment apparatus. The entertainment apparatus was described as a example of ideology where instead of believing you are apart of the class that you are normally apart of, you see yourself mainly a apart of a group based on the entertainment. In the case of the video, a fan of a team rather then someone of a working class.

1. Ideology is a system of beliefs in which a particular group of people have about the way the government should run. These beliefs can be influenced by family, social groups, the school system, economic self interests, etc. For example, if you are raised in a religious/ conservative household, or your family is not heavily dependent on government assistance you are more likely to to also have conservative ideologies. You may be led to believe that these ideologies serve in the best interest of your religion, your moral beliefs, and family values. Some may choose to go against the grain and adopt more liberal ideologies because of influence from school and social groups, even social media. This can be viewed as an act of rebellion against your family and their beliefs. In turn this may cause one to further surround themselves with like minded people who share the same ideologies.
2. The main difference between conservative ideologies and liberal ideologies is how heavily the government is involved in each. Conservatives prefer to have little government involvement as possible. Conservatives value liberty and view more government involvement as a threat to liberty. They also prefer less government spending which means lower taxes but they prioritize a strong defense, religion and allowing the government to have a role in the social and personal aspects of people’s lives. Liberals value equality, and believe more government involvement is necessary in promoting equality. Liberals support government intervention in the economy like regulation of big businesses and higher taxes in order to support the underprivileged. They believe that the defense budget should be cut to be able to fund social programs.
3. Althusser believes that ideology is internalized by everyone and that there are systems set in place to give the illusion of freedom of choice. Repressive apparatus imposes fear in order to keep people in line, this includes the police, jail, death and war. And Ideological apparatus always justifies the existing conditions of today’s society. It is usually justified by religion, race and economic status. Althusser also believes that one of the biggest systems of control is the school system. School is mandatory, and children spend most of their week in school. This is set up so that they can internalize ideologies, and to gain social and economic order.