{"id":12693,"date":"2026-02-26T15:47:54","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T20:47:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/?p=12693"},"modified":"2026-02-26T15:48:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T20:48:06","slug":"stephanie-cesar-discussion-board-5-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/2026\/02\/26\/stephanie-cesar-discussion-board-5-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephanie Cesar – Discussion Board 5.1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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  1. Means of production stands for how we’re able to make something. They can be physical tools, resources or even an entire place that’s dedicated solely to producing. Means of production is the starting point for how we’re able to maintain goods. An example would be a baker owning a bakery. If I were a baker, my means of production would be my kitchen equipment: mixer, oven, and fridge. Next, labor is the human exertion that’s applied to be able to make goods. Without labor, means of production wouldn’t really mean anything. The value of a good comes from the labor that was put into it, not the means of its production. It’s the interaction with the equipment to make a good. Furthering the baker example, the skills the baker utilizes to make goods would be the labor. Knowing precisely how to turn flour into a cake, the exact form and temperature to bake it in is all labor.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Value is the worth\/price of a good based off of the time and amount applied to produce it. All the time it takes to produce a specific item determines if it’s cheap or expensive. One vanilla cupcake is priced at how long it takes the baker to make it. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Labor and value are related because one determines the other. Labor determines the value that’s assigned to a product. The amount of time\/effort that’s put into creating something (labor) tallies into a final price point based on this (value). Since a vanilla cupcake takes less effort than a three tiered cake, it will be priced at a way lower point than the cake. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Labor is the effort put into something, the interaction of a human and the means of production. While labor power is a worker’s capacity\/ability to perform. We sell our labor power in exchange for hourly pay. The key difference between these two is that our labor power is paid at the bare minimum just so we can do it again. But our labor is valued way more than our labor power. For an example, someone will be paid $15 dollars an hour at a bakery to make cupcakes. But if the cupcakes are priced at $6.99, and the bakery sells 20 of them in 1 hour, the bakery makes $139.80 dollars while the worker is paid $15. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. Surplus value is a separate type of value that comes from unpaid labor produced by workers that capital owners profit off of. Workers produce way more than what they are paid for by the hour, and all of this extra money is pocketed by the employer. It highlights the imbalance between the working class and the rich. The rich profit off of all the extended labor of the workers, but the workers are skimped solely for the gain of higher class people. An example would be how the baker making $15 dollars an hour produces 20 $6.99 cupcakes that all get sold within the hour. Totaling to $139.80 for the hour. A portion of this, lets say $40 dollars would go to keeping up the means of production. Taking away $15 for the worker, and $40 dollars for the means of production, the owner is left with a grand total of $84.80 to keep.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":11316,"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":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discussion-board-5-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12693"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12698,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12693\/revisions\/12698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}