{"id":11371,"date":"2025-05-14T19:32:03","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T23:32:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/?p=11371"},"modified":"2025-05-14T19:32:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T23:32:11","slug":"db-4-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/2025\/05\/14\/db-4-2\/","title":{"rendered":"DB 4.2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
    \n
  1. The reading in 4.3 suggests that the distinction between owners and employees is mostly capitalism vs the labor class. Owners get their source of income through various factors, such as stocks, bonds, rent, royalties, and other investment opportunities. In addition, they also own factories, land, and rights to an obscene amount of technology. In short, the owners own their means of income and the means of production. In turn, employees sell their labor in exchange for wages. They make a trade of working continuous hours in exchange for an hourly pay or salary. For example, Bill Gates is a co-founder of Microsoft Corporation. He is worth approximately 107.7 billion. His wealth was not accumulated in the same way as a regular worker would. He spent years investing money,\u00a0 on top of owning a wealthy company. In comparison, an employee working as a customer service agent would get paid about $20\/hr.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. It is to my understanding that the quote by Adam Smith on page 28 regarding labor is an explanation that labor is the value of any product. In my interpretation, laborers are the key to amassing wealth, but not for the workers, but rather for the owners. Whilst workers may be trading their labor for wages, they are not fairly compensated. This is heavily implied to be the direct cause of capitalism, they are trained not to fight back against the distribution of wealth within capitalist systems.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. My thoughts on the main argument in 4.4 are that class shouldn\u2019t be held in the same limelight as identity. For it isn\u2019t something you choose. Whilst it is a crucial part of your identity, it should not be seen as your identity.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. The reading in 4.4 argues that class structures depend on a “close form of dependency,” where classes are connected through mutual dependency. This isn’t just a loose connection but a tight, structural relationship where one class’s existence depends on another. For example, owners and tenants. Owners depend on tenants to rent or occupy a space, while tenants depend on owners for access to said space.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":10296,"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-11371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discussion-board-4-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10296"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11371"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11372,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11371\/revisions\/11372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}