1. Two key concepts are means of production and labor. Means of production can be what is needed to make food, such as a stove, gar or electricity, pots and pans as well as utensils are all needed in order to make a meal. Labor is the man power that it takes to actually make it, this being my skills in the kitchen.
  2. Value is work to make money measured in time, hours and minutes. For example, a hand stitched dress is more valuable than a dress made in a factory by a machine. The more time that goes into a product the more the value increases.
  3. The connection between labor and value is the commodities that are going into a product. The more time of labor being produced the higher the value of the product.
  4. Labor is what an individuals can produce. While labor power is the “rented of labor power” to the owner, which helps cover food, shelter, clothing and so on. We rent our services to the owners and receive payment in return.
  5. Surplus value is the profit being made that the owner gets to keep, even though they don’t do any of the work. For example this can be seen in at the super market, the workers have different stations they are assigned to, they do their best to keep the costumers happy and have all the produce, meant set up. They are doing all the work, of setting up, helping costumers, keeping the store clean and so on, in return they owners of the chain stores are making a profit from their hard work. This is important to know in the study of social classes as it helps us see how big companies really benefit from their employees hard work, and also to see what they pay attention to and what matters to them as owners.

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