{"id":11211,"date":"2025-09-14T00:10:02","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T04:10:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0501-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/?p=11211"},"modified":"2025-09-20T18:27:24","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T22:27:24","slug":"11211","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0501-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/2025\/09\/14\/11211\/","title":{"rendered":"Kayana Taylor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Reading 4.3 draws a sharp line between those who own wealth and those who must work for a living. Owners live mostly off investments like stocks, rents, or royalties, while employees live off wages and salaries. For example, a corporate shareholder who collects dividends without laboring is part of the owning class, while a factory worker who spends long hours creating value but only gets a fraction of it back in wages is an employee.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Adam Smith\u2019s point is that labor is the true measure of value. Money is only a symbol, but the real worth of any commodity comes from the work that went into producing and distributing it. A tree doesn\u2019t become a valuable table without the labor of loggers, mill workers, carpenters, and transporters. To me, this highlights how labor creates the wealth that owners profit from. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Reading 4.4 argues that class is not just another identity like race or gender. Liberals often see class  as a ladder of socioeconomic status, but socialists see class as a structural position either you own the means of production or you must sell your labor to survive. So while people might build an identity around being \u201cworking class\u201d, the deeper point is that class is about material relationships and power, not just culture or lifestyle. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The text explains that class structures are built on a very close dependency between workers and capitalists. To be a worker means depending on a capitalist for a job, and to be a capitalist means depending on workers to generate profit. Unlike race, where one group\u2019s identity doesn\u2019t rely directly on the daily labor of another, class is always tied to this interdependent though unequal relationship. A good example is a strike. American workers rely on the company for employment, but the company relies on them even more to keep operations going. When workers withhold their labor, they expose how dependent capitalists are on them. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":10956,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"portfolio_post_id":0,"portfolio_citation":"","portfolio_annotation":"","openlab_post_visibility":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discussion-board-4-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0501-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0501-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0501-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0501-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10956"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0501-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11211"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0501-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11317,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0501-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11211\/revisions\/11317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0501-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0501-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0501-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}