1. The distinction the reading made was how the “owner class” gains wealth through buying labor from the working class, while the working class gains wages through the selling of their physical labor. An example of this can be how, in a car dealership, the sales associate is putting in the labor of selling the car and providing customer service, while the owner of the dealership earns his wealth from the sale of the car and doesn’t actually “work” for the sale to be completed.

2. The way I understand Adam Smith’s quote is that he is saying that this is not a chicken-and-egg situation. To have a product to sell to the consumer, you first need the labor to produce a product. Capital is not how buildings are built in a literal sense; the physical labor to help bring the plans together is what builds and makes things. Labor is the seed.

3. I think there is some nuance to this. Class can be an identity in some cases. While multiple different kinds of people can be within a given class, if we look at more homogeneous communities, class can be seen more as an identity. I also think class can be different depending on the demographic, and the way that demographic views class can be completely different from another.

4. Class structures are closely dependent because being “wealthy” means that it requires you, whether directly or indirectly, to be exploitive of someone’s labor. You can’t have unearned wealth without someone else working for it. An example of this can be someone who invested in a company that has been quite profitable, but also uses unfair labor practices overseas to extract the most profit for this investor.