1. The amount of time it takes me to type in, review and edit the response to the first question is labor, the laptop which I use is the means of production along with the charged battery and Internet connection. In short, labor is the amount of work that it takes to produce a commodity, it is measured in time. Means of production would be tools and ways to produce a commodity.
2. Based on the video, a product’s value is the amount of labor that it takes to produce under normal circumstances. Therefore, the more labor (time) it takes to make a product, the more valuable it is. 
3. There is a direct relation between labor and value – the more labor it takes to produce a commodity, the more valuable it is.
4. The difference between labor and labor power is this: while labor power is a potential or a commodity that creates surplus value, the labor is the act of work itself. Let’s pretend that we are hiring a professional for an entry office position in advertising: their labor power consists of using multiple applications or software, but what they will do on a day-to-day basis, regardless of the software they used, is what we would call labor.
5. Surplus value is defined as a product of capitalist exploitation – “it could be measured by ascertaining the ratio between the amount of time given to surplus labor and that to necessary labor”. What that means is that most workers spend at least a third of their day creating commodities that are “free” to a capitalist, since the expenses for labor have been covered by the worker’s necessary output in the first 3-4 hours of a workday. Surplus value, therefore, is an important measure in our studies of social class – if the means of production are owned by the capitalist class, if workers spend a big chunk of their workday working, technically, for free, then we can see how the toxic dependency on capitalism presents itself in the workplace.

1. Michael Parenti makes a difference between owners and employees in the following way: on one side of the argument, we have people who must earn a living by selling their labor, on the other side we have owners, a category where we see small business owners and wealthy corporate elites. It seems that, in a nutshell, the difference could be best expressed by a quote from the text: “The secret to great wealth is not to work hard but to have others work hard for you”.  If we take an individual who owns and operates a small plant store where you can get plants, plant supplies and other somewhat-related decorative elements, the individual is viewed by Parenti as a struggling small business owner, while the employees at that store, be it a register person, a plant expert, or a store manager, have to earn their living by being employed by the owner.
2. Adam Smith’s quote views labor as an essential activity, without which the market would not exist – labor not only transforms timber into chairs but allows for what is heralded as benefits of capitalism – surplus value, profits, and benefits. Smith made it clear, that a price itself did not explain the value of a commodity – for a true estimate, one had to look at the amount and quality of labor that the production of a commodity required.
3. Paul Heideman devotes a significant part of his essay to make a distinction between how some socialists and some liberals see class and put it in a theoretical framework. I found the essay very profound and insightful, but the decision to view (or not) class as identity is far from an easy one. If we take notions of class out of a scientific framework and apply it to mass politics, mix it with marketing, market and social media, the definition of class as well as its application starts crossing borders. After my emigration, freelance and full-time jobs as well as income improvement and college experience, I found some utility in identifying with working and, later and sometimes, with middle class in my socio-cultural views and preferences. While I could accept that there is no need for a class identity, the reality that I live begs to differ: my professional ability is tied to my professional working circle and income, which dictates what I eat, where I live and what I can do with my leisure time. Through my professional or leisure activities I associate with people that have similar interests and fall into an income range that presupposes those activities – as socialist as it sounds, what I have indeed determines what I get. 
4. I see the “close form of dependency” as a lip service to the worker’s exploitation by a managerial structure. Somehow Heideman finds it sensible to talk about interdependency and forget about surplus value that is extracted by the corporation from someone else’s labor, not to mention the problem of income inequality which has recently worsened and have become a global political, not just economic, issue. The wording itself makes me doubtful – when we talk about people, the mechanism of “dependency” implies some common sense, where one would be invested in the well-being of the other. It is not a hard task to envision this so-called dependency in terms of idealism that is indispensable for a handful of progressive corporations and corporate propaganda, yet I believe that Covid-19 pandemic has showed us whether corporations have public interest as one of their objectives. A brave idea that employees could, if they really tried, wield power, and check/balance the management seems to find more application in mutual abuse – corporations underpay and overwork employees because of rigid age-old hierarchy structures while employees underperform and have vague ideas about their socioeconomic standing, blowing steam online or in standalone protests that most people find hard to relate to.

1. It seems that both articles see social classes through income distribution and separate the public into 5 classes: lower, working, middle, upper-middle, and upper. While the New Yorker article used median household income for their argument, the Gallup article focused on subjective social class, i.e., given 5 classes, what class would people assign themselves to.
2. After I picked Myrtle-Wyckoff station on the L train, I saw a median reading of $37,885 which splits my neighborhood into working class people and people that consider themselves to be a part of middle class. The statistics used in New Yorker article is 10 years old, but it still holds – our neighborhood Is homogenous without areas of extreme wealth or poverty. Now, I believe the map might not be as accurate now since certain station like Dekalb Ave and Jefferson Street are marketed higher due to their proximity to the city or entertainment venues. 
3. After spending some time studying the map, I am sure that the upper class resides mostly in Manhattan, specifically near transportation hubs or in areas with picturesque views. Lower- and working-class people tend to live further back from the city centers while middle and upper middle class inhabits culturally significant or trendy areas of New York City.

1. In Althusser’s view, a Repressive State Apparatus is a social institution that controls society through fear of violence – e.g., police, courts or jails. I believe the choice of words could be explained by an assumption that those institutions inhibit individual freedom and limit one’s activities to social norms. On the other hand, upon seeing people commit crimes while claiming it was an exercise in human independence, one might consider the importance of justice, as repressive as it could sound to some.   
2. Althusser considers schools, media and politics to be Ideological State Apparatuses – they provide an individual with several illusions, such as: the crucial importance of education, the abundance of choice (in arts and sports) and the necessity of politics. Ideological State Apparatuses are the outlet for revolutionary motives – by affiliating with the intellectual circle, a sports team or a political party, an individual is less concerned with the status quo and, therefore, does not see oneself as an agent of real social change, opting for bread and circuses as well as the illusion of being politically active. 
3. It seems to me, that the major difference between an Ideological and Repressive State Apparatuses is motivational – when an Ideological State Apparatus tells a citizen what to do, a Repressive State Apparatus tells a citizen what not to do and what would happen if the citizen disobeyed. In the latter, we have a clear indication of fear as motivation, while in the former we have a motivation to belong, to be recognized and to be accepted to a group, such as a family, a community or a country. 
4. CDC (Ideological State Apparatus) Guidelines on getting a COVID-19 vaccine.

1. It seems to me, that ideology could be viewed as a set of ideas and ideals that stretch past a single individual, which differs it from a life philosophy. Ideology strikes on our desire to have a collective consciousness, to have something in common with other people and, through having that something, belong to an entity larger than ourselves. This makes ideology a necessary and indispensable tool for social control whether it is a family, a corporation, a political party or a whole country. Ideology sets up a variety of ideals or a vision, to which an individual, or a group, should aspire. If we look at the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, who promised to “Make America Great Again”, we could see an ideology at work – a vision of Greater America appealed to many Americans who, under severe media pressure, chose to trust an authoritarian leader who connected with them through emotional tantrums and contempt for “dirty” and corrupt politicians. 

Now, ideology does not have to be rational – numerous examples from 20^th century could help us see that some state ideologies (e.g., communism, fascism) or cultural ideologies (drug culture of the 1960s) were successful without being rational or long-lasting. In my opinion, ideology captivates people because of its somewhat divine ability to hold power over others – if we take Cold War, both West and East were confident in their rightness and did not stop trying to get more and more influence in countries that appeared undecided in their socio-economic direction.  

It seems to me, that with the seeming statistical success of capitalism and the rise of individualism in the West, the concept of ideology is undergoing some changes: it is becoming more aggressive and more pro-active in recruiting people that have failed to develop their own ideology and a moral code. It should not be a surprise to see a revival of age-old ideologies such as nationalism, racism, sexism and blatant propaganda – individual freedom, education and the power of choice are detrimental for social control and the position of the ruling class. 

2. In my view, the role of government intervention is the dividing line between liberal and conservative ideologies. While controversial civic issues such as abortion, drug legalization and gun control might have its supporters and opponents on both sides of the political spectrum, I believe that the question of “What happens to my tax money?” is what makes voters choose what party to affiliate with. As we saw in the “Crash Course” video, family and school are big determinants in political education – it seems to me that this system takes care of the age-old issue of “individual vs. collective” perfectly. An individual is constantly tormented by a question “What is common good?”, or “How do we get affluent as a group?” – in the U.S. one can praise individual freedom (right) or equality (left) and find a political party that sees the issue in the same way. A common notion that people’s political preferences change with age, turning from liberalism towards conservatism, might depend on a higher salary that one draws as one gets older – the notion of smaller government and smaller taxation will naturally come as sensible, while for a young professional of a minority group, burdened by institutionalized racism (or sexism) and student debt, voting for a liberal party will appear to be most reasonable. 

3. I think Althusser’s definition of ideology is very dark, dystopian and technological – to see people as “cogs in a capitalist machine” and see them as subjects, not individuals are ways to covertly express one’s disgust for humanity and political systems of the time. It seems, Althusser might have been depressed by behavior psychology and the technological advances that influenced academia by simplifying or explaining certain patterns of human behavior, including behavior in groups. The simplicity of that view could have presented previous works of social scientists and philosophers as wrong, weak or even redundant – to fall into “we are all parts of a big machine and nothing else” is no surprise. I think to present ideology as non-existent and “virtual” is a smart way to rebel against it and pretend it does not exist, but at that point it is easy to confuse ideology with common sense – how far can one get claiming that there is no need to put a question mark at the end of the sentence if grammar is an imaginary social control structure? 

1. To counter the Civil Rights Movement, Southern politicians implemented the rhetoric of “law and order” which not only equated the opposition with criminals, but also leveled their political agenda with chaos, destruction and degradation of moral values. Soon after it was obvious that behind a changed wording, the strategy of the politicians in the South remained racist – instead of openly talking about the negative impact of “black race” on American society, the politicians began promoting the idea of eradicating crime. By implication, many poor and working-class southern white voters would find that appealing and, considering their discontent with the Democratic party and its support of the Civil Rights Movement, would change their political preferences.  
2. It seems to me that the Southern Strategy, as much as it could have been worded  differently to attract a modern voter, still has a solid grip on American society. Last year, following the killing of George Lloyd, mass protests erupted across America – the Trump administration used harsh rhetoric and a military response to counter civil activity. Government reaction was widely criticized, especially in the light of the fact that most protest were peaceful – once again, the desire for justice was equated with anti-social activities, vandalism and anarchy. The dangerous potential of the Covid-19 virus played its role as well – the government, seeing the protesters gathering and violating social distancing guidelines, argued that the protesters were a menace to society and downplayed the importance of the public’s argument. I believe it is fair to assume that the actions taken by the government were not only aimed at keeping the voters in the upcoming presidential elections but were also targeting some Democratic or undecided voters that were scared stiff of the global pandemic and were ready to accept the use of force as the use of reason, bringing us back to the rhetoric of “law and order”. 

1. Michelle Alexander argues, that behind the mass incarceration in the U.S. stand the results of the media propaganda of the Reagan administration which made numerous efforts to present poor inner-city residents as illegal drug users. This media campaign supported the War on Drugs, which actually started years before crack cocaine became a problem in poor neighborhoods. Alexander mentions the CIA’s support of Nicaraguan guerilla armies which smuggled crack cocaine into the United States and reminds us of the fact that the CIA blocked efforts to investigate the matter. Further Alexander brings our attention not only to the fact that the War on Drugs began when the drug use was declining, but that illegal drugs made their appearance in the black community after the war had been declared.
2. Michelle Alexander claims that surveys and studies have shown that people of all colors use and sell drugs at similar rates, yet the nation’s jails and prisons have a disproportionally large number of black and brown drug offenders who are “subject to legalized discrimination for the rest of their lives”. It seems that racial discrimination is still present in prison admittance – Alexander mentions that “in some states, black men have been admitted to prison on drug charges at rates twenty to fifty times greater than those of white men.” 
3. I think the reference here is made to government’s use of punishment as a “tool for social control”, especially in the light of the fact that the crime rates in the U.S. have not been higher than those of other Western countries, while the incarceration has soared. Considering the concentration of racial minorities in jails and prisons, the argument could be made that the emergence of such penal system is indeed unparalleled.