The reading explains the difference between owners and employees and how they make their money. While owners earn their income from investments meaning they profit from other people’s work. Employees earn wages or salaries, meaning they have to work for someone to get paid.For example An owner could be someone who owns an apartment building and makes money from rent.An employee could be a cashier who earns an hourly wage.
Adam Smith’s quote is saying that the real value of anything comes from the labor that went into making it, not the price it sells for. For example, a table is valuable because of all the work involved in cutting the wood, assembling it, and selling it. Money just measures that value labor is what creates it.
I think the argument that class is not an identity actually makes a lot of sense. The reading points out that class isn’t something you “identify as” the way people talk about race, gender, or sexuality. Class primarily pertains to economic standing.
To me it refers to the structural relationship between workers and capitalists where each class depends on the other, but not in equal ways. For example A hospital nurse and the hospital owner The nurse depends on the employer for a paycheck.If the owner closes the hospital or cuts staff, the nurse loses income and cannot simply “choose” to work elsewhere immediately.The owner, however, also depends on nurses. Without nurses, the hospital cannot function, and the owner cannot make money from healthcare services.