1. My understanding of means of production is that ‘means of production are privately owned rather than owned by the labors, and the products are sold in a market for profit. An example of means of production is Youtube, when watching youtube videos that have ads on them the person video that you are viewing is making a profit from that because the more video. Sponsors paid anywhere between $0.035 to $0.15 per view to YouTubers in 2020 for sponsored video content on the platform; another example of means of production is also with the people that have youtube premium and don’t want ads and listen to music without having their screen on they YouTubers get paid a fee from what youtube gets paid per member that has a premium membership that views the YouTubers channel so they are getting paid either way. I understand that labor is essential because it’s the only thing that can increase the value of what you have. An example of labor is farmworkers they grow crops and sell them to larger companies and the value gets increased and the money they get they grow more crops and keep doing the same cycle by supplying the companies with the foods.
  2. Based on the ideas projected in Video 5.1 about the value that the labor is measured in time, hours, and minutes and the more labor time it takes to make something under normal conditions, the more valuable it is. An example of value is my boyfriend, he does graphic designing and the more time he spends on that graphic design the better the quality so the value increases of that design. The value increased because he started with a blank screen and his ideas and vision made something that is valuable and it’s the time he spent on making it.
  3. Labor and value are related because, In the labor theory of value, the amount of labor that goes into producing an economic good is the source of that good’s value. If labor is the source of value then why aren’t the most valuable things made in the most labor-intensive industries? The connection between labor and value is that labor power, the ability of labor in marxism is that labor is the most important commodity in the world and when a commodity is applied to value it increases the value of what you have. Labor power is something you use to get money in exchange for the labor you put into your job. An example of labor power are you going to school and the teachers squeezing in a 45-minute lesson for you to get all the information you need to learn for that day to complete your homework.
  4. The difference between labor and labor power is that labor power as I stated in the previous question is something you use to get money in exchange for your labor for that day of work, is an ability to do labor whereas labor is the work you are doing for the owning class. When you use labor power you are working and it takes a certain amount of food and clothing supply to make you accomplish your labor goal whereas with labor you are just doing the job. Labor power is what a worker sells to an employer. The employer “consumes” the purchased labor power by setting its owner the worker to perform the laboring activity (to do labor) alongside/with tools, equipment, and raw materials.  Labor is something humans have always done to produce the goods and services upon which life depends.
  5. Surplus value is the value on top of the value it took you to get there. The surplus value goes to the company you work for not to you but your bosses. Surplus value is important to us because that’s how capitalism works, they hire you in jobs to increase the value of what you have and then they keep the extra value for themselves. Marx thought that capitalism has a lot to do with surplus value because it’s sustained on the fact of exploiting the working class. An example of surplus value is how people are working at an office and you are done from your 9 – 5 pm shift and you finish at let’s say 1 pm you still have to use labor power and your boss is getting surplus value off of you which means the work you are doing those extra hours your bosses profit from them not you since they are still going to pay you the same wage for the labor you exchanged with them from 9 – 1 pm.

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