The formula that capitalists use to maintain, and increase their wealth is M-C-M’.

The capitalist uses their capital M to invest or buy a commodity that will bring them more money, the commodity can be hotels, land, or even labor. Then after buying the commodity, the capitalist resells the commodity, C, which brings in more money, M’, more money than the capital invested in the commodity in the beginning.

The capitalist maintains and increases their wealth by transforming their extra money, M, into commodities, C, and then changing that commodity into more money, M’. The capitalist sells his money to get more money; at the end of the day, they have more money than they had before.

1. Means of production is anything that is used in the production of goods to generate income. In capitalism the means of production are owned by private individuals, these include the buildings that can be rented out, or factories where people work in, the machines/equipment’s used to perform those jobs. Other examples of means of production are land, raw materials, basically anything needed by the labor to produce things are means of production. Labor on the other hand is the human factor needed to produce goods and services. These are the people that work in the factory, or use the equipment to produce goods etc. Labor utilizes the means of production to make goods and services to make the money needed for survival.

2. Value is worth/usefulness of something, and what makes a thing valuable is the amount of labor that was put into the production of that thing under normal conditions. This means that the higher the amount of labor put into the making of an item under the normal circumstances, the more valuable that item becomes. If that item is usually made under an hour, and someone takes either less or more than an hour to make that item, the value of the item does not increase, but if under that allotted time you had more manpower in making of that item, that’s when the value increases. Value of a good/services is not entirely based on the time it takes to make an item but the amount of labor it takes to make that item under the normal condition.

3. The value of a commodity is based on the amount of labor it takes to produce that commodity.  The relationship between them is that labor gives value to a good or services. For Example, if you put more labor into making a car, that car become more valuable than the car  that was produced with less labor.

4. Labor is the act of producing goods and services, while Labor power is the ability/capacity to work in a specific time, and it increases the value of one’s labor. Labor power is what the employees sells to their employer in exchange of money. Labor power can include the physical act of working, skills or brain power needed in performing tasks at work for a specific time,( for example, 8am-4pm, or 9am-5pm).

5. Surplus value is the excess of value that labor creates during the time of production. This is how employers make their profit. The pay workers way less amount compared to the amount of money they make in the entire course of the days labor. I think it is important to know about surplus value in the study of social class because it shows the importance of the working class to the capitalist in terms of making their money, and further proves the exploitation of the working class. The employees are paid less than they generate during their labor time. Let’s say during production, an employee generates like $4000 an hour, the employer is only going to pay the employee only $20 because that’s the hourly wage. And because it is privately owned, the $3980 goes to the employer as his profit. This is the surplus value.

1. In simple words, owners are the rich people who own wealth, and live off the work of the employees. These people are not just rich based off their income, they are rich because they own the means of production which brings about those income. Owners live off investments, for example, someone who own one or a couple of houses make their money off the rents of the people it rented out to. This person can decide not to ever work again, and still be rich because the tenants are going to continually pay rents, therefore living off the hard work of the tenants. This is an example of an owner. Employees are the opposite of the owners, they don’t wealth and are forced to sell their labor to survive. A good example of this is in the workplace. The employee depends on the money paid them by boss in exchange for their labor. It is also important to note that annual income that a person makes does not make you an owner. You can be the senior executive manager and make $150,000 annually, you are still the employee because you do not own the company.
2. What I understood from that quote is that Adam smith is saying that without human labor nothing will be made. All the things that we rely on will not be possible if human labor didn’t go into it. Things are run and made by people showing up to work, and if nobody showed up, nothing will be made; houses wouldn’t be built, roads would not be constructed, hotels wouldn’t be running, nothing that we need and is important to us will be possible if human labor didn’t go into it. So, the most important thing/value in a commodity is not the money made, but it is human labor.
3. What I understood from that quote is that Adam smith is saying that without human labor nothing will be made. All the things that we rely on will not be possible if human labor didn’t go into it. Things are run and made by people showing up to work, and if nobody showed up, nothing will be made; houses wouldn’t be built, roads would not be constructed, hotels wouldn’t be running, nothing that we need and is important to us will be possible if human labor didn’t go into it. So, the most important thing/value in a commodity is not the money made, but it is human labor.
4. “Class structures are built around a close form of dependency”. Personally, this means that both classes in a capitalist society are dependent on each other, one cannot function without the other. For the capitalist to remain in power, the compliance and exploitation of the working class is needed. If the working class decide not to comply anymore, the capitalist ceases to make profits. On the other hand, if the capitalist does not provide the means of production, the working class have no way of making money to sustain their survival.

In readings 4.1 and 4.2, I noticed the huge role of income in determining people social classes. Income is used a way to separate and represents social classes in society, because tend to place their self in a social class, (upper, middle, etc.), by the amount of money that they make. One difference I noticed is that while reading 4.2 focuses on only the annual income in representing social classes, and what neighborhoods the social classes can be found, reading 4.1, shows other ways social classes are determined. For example, reading 4.1, show how other factors like race, neighborhood, education etc., plays a role in determining social classes. Non-whites people are most likely to identify with a lower social class, than white people, people who live in suburban area are most likely to identify with a higher social class than people in rural neighborhood, and people with a high education level are more likely to identify with a higher social status than those with like a high school degree.

But even with all these other factors, income is still the most important determining factor in social classes.

2. With an annual income of $39,837, I would say the social class that tends to live in my neighborhood are working and middle class. I’m not entirely surprised by the answer because there are a lot of nice apartments, a few government projects, some fancy restaurants, and a lot of businesses and markets. But I’m viewing this based on what I see and observe today, this statistic was taken 11 years ago, and a lot can change in 11 years.

3. I noticed a general pattern about social classes in NYC. As you move from one borough to the other, the social classes change. In Brooklyn, there’s the middle to working class, then when you go into Queens there’s the still middle to working class, but a few upper-middle class too, then as you move to Manhattan, there’s the upper-middle and upper class, and a few middle classes, , and finally, as you into the Bronx, you see a lot of lower class and a few middle classes. What this means is that the upper-middle and upper classes tend to live in Manhattan, the working and middle class tend to live in Queens, Brooklyn, few in the Bronx, while the more lower-class population tend to live in the Bronx.

Ideology is a set of belief shared by a person or a group of people. These beliefs influence how a person thinks, act and view the world. So, Ideologies are very crucial because  they shape our perception and how we interact in society. There are different types of ideologies in society, there are political ideologies, social, and cultural ideologies too. An example of ideology is the communist ideology which promotes public ownership of property, with the government having ownership of the means of production; people with this ideology believes that the state should control all wealth and property, and goods should be owned and available to everyone in society as needed. Another example of ideology is the racist ideology, and this is still very common in our society today. People with this ideology believe that the white race is and should be superior to other races. This is their belief system, this is how they view the world, so they act like they are superior when they are amid other races.

2.The liberal and conservative ideologies just seem to be opposite of each other. Liberals support a large government because it would help solve more problems, while conservatives support a small government because large government poses a threat to individual liberty. Liberals believe that the government should have no role in people’s life, so they support abortion, and marijuana legalization, while the conservatives think otherwise, they support traditional, religious values, so they are against abortion. Liberal support higher taxes especially on the rich and corporations, conservatives support lower taxes, and so on and so forth. The big difference is that liberal ideology favors equality, and that the government is necessary in promoting it, while conservative ideology favors liberty where the government should have very little role.

3. I believe that Althusser is saying that the actual relationship people have with their actual conditions of existence in their ideologies is hypothetical and that these ideologies are sometimes imposed on us by society. For example, the school’s main purpose is not just to teach us how to read and write, but to also impose on us how to obey, and personalize some of the societal ideologies, like following and always obeying the one in power.

1.Southern racist populations still believe that black and white should still be segregated, so while the civil rights were advocating for a change in segregation, they couldn’t really stop it because the constitution gave the activist the right to protest. So, the only thing to bring down the civil rights movement was trying to criminalize the activities of the activist, making it possible for these activists to be arrested on claims that they were committing a crime. This gave them advantages because the use of “ Law and Order” still gave them control and the division among races that they want.

2. I believe Southern Strategy is still influencing American Politics, an example I would say is the Trump Presidency. He might not have directly used Nixon’s words, but part of his campaign was focused on Obama not being an all American, sending Mexicans back to their country, building a wall to stop them from coming into the United States, so he gained a lot of supporters and votes from the racist Americans whose interest aligned with that.

1. Alexander argues that the main reason why so many people are sent to jail in the U.S today is not because there’s a high rise in crime rates but because most of these people are sent to jail for drugs related issues. She’s arguing that the normal belief that people are sent to prison because they committed a crime is wrong. Alexander is saying the real reason why so many people are sent to prison is because the War on drugs criminalized even possessions of drugs which shouldn’t be considered a crime, because there’s no criminal intent behind it, and this what “ led to a rapid increase in the prison population”.  The war on drug law was passed in 1982 at a time when crime was on the decline but after the passing of the law “ U.S penal population exploded from around 300,000 to more than 2 million, with drug convictions accounting for the majority of the increase”. The war on drugs laws criminalizing the possession of drugs is why so many people are sent to jail, and not because of an increase in crime rates.

2. Racial disparities in the rates of incarceration cannot be explained by rates of drug crimes because drugs are used and sold by people of all colors, and social statuses. The fact that there are more black/brown Americans in the prison populations does not mean that drugs is consumed by that category of people only. When the war on drugs was launched, the black communities was targeted, and the drugs was introduced to the black community, but still drugs is still consumed by everyone(whites, black, brown, rich, poor, etc.).

3. Personally, this means that the American penal system is now being used to push racist agendas, where whites are in control and are treated better and differently even when they commit the same crime as black/brown people. The American penal system is not just about arresting all people who commit crimes anymore.