1. This video introduces to us multiple key concepts, the first two being “means of production” and “labor.” The term “means of production” refers to any tools or services that must be used in order to make a product. In a capitalist society, the means of production are privately owned by capitalists and operated by workers employed by them. An example of the means of production are the cameras used to broadcast sporting events. The camera operators, are employed by the broadcasting companies to use the company cameras to film the event.

The term “labor” refers to the efforts of the worker to make a product, using the means of production. It is measured in time. An example of labor can be pulled from Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Mr. Bucket, Charlie’s father, works in a factory screwing toothpaste caps onto their tubes. He is a factory laborer, using the conveyor belt and the toothpaste caps and tubes (means of production) to make a new product.

2 and 3. Value is the measure of, under normal circumstances, how much labor it takes to make a product. The only thing that can increase something’s value is labor, because labor transforms a material or materials into a new thing. The amount of labor put into something determines its value. Dominoes is less expensive than an independent artisan pizza restaurant because, generally, more effort was put in and better ingredients were used for the artisan pizza. The result is an objectively healthier and tastier pizza; a more valuable one. While price and value aren’t exactly the same, price is generally proportional to value.

4. Labor, as defined above, is different to labor power. Labor power is an individuals ability to perform labor. According to Marx, it is the most important commodity in the world. Labor power is rented out to capitalists in order to sustain one’s own life and the lives of the people dependent on them. Labor power, however, is only sustained by the essentials of life, i.e. food, clothes, transportation, hobbies, etc. These things are purchased by selling labor power.

5. Surplus value is the value of the labor power that a worker exercises after they have fulfilled their requirements for sustenance. The capitalist takes all of this value for themselves, and is the result of unpaid labor on the end of the worker. If the worker only labored to meet their sustenance needs, the capitalist wouldn’t receive any profit. Therefore, they must work more than the time required for them to survive, as mandated by the capitalist. All workers labor more than necessary for them to survive, whether at an office or retail job, in service of the capitalist.

This is important because it is the reason that Marx believed capitalism is inherently exploitative. Understanding the concept of surplus value exposes this exploitation, thus helping us understand class and class relationships/dynamics better.

1. Understanding the difference between owners (capitalists) and employees (workers) is key to understanding the Marxist definition of class.

Owners are those who possess wealth, or capital. They either own the means of production (i.e. a factory, a restaurant chain) or have enough equity in private property (i.e. owning an apartment building) to live off of the profits. Profit is passive income; income that someone does not have to work for. They make money primarily off the labor of others.

Employees are those who are employed by the capitalists. Their survival depends on selling labor for wages or salary. They do not possess wealth, and therefore if they decided to stop working they would not be able to sustain themselves, even if they have a high salary. Their source of money is their own labor. Examples include construction workers, baristas, and factory workers.

Owners live off of their investments, employees do not.

2. Adam Smith’s quote on page 28 proposes that the real determinant of a commodity’s value is always the labor that went in to producing it. This places an enormous amount of importance on the laborer. However, under capitalism, workers are paid substantially less than the value created by them. This quote is especially ironic considering Adam Smith was a founding father of capitalism.

3. Personally, I agree with the assertion that class is not an identity. While I was a bit confused about the logic of the writer at first, once I re-read and thought about it a little bit more it made sense to me. In the case of gender, racial, or sexual identities, nothing can be withdrawn to challenge the oppressor. A trans person not transitioning does nothing to fight transphobia. However, a worker withholding labor, as well as banding together with other workers to demand fair treatment, does fight class oppression. This is why class should not be viewed as an identity.

4. Reading 4.4 states that class structures “rest on a close form of interdependency.” In a capitalist society, both the workers and the capitalists are wholly necessary and vital to the success of the other. Because capitalists are the producers of goods, as well as the ones who are employing, workers need them to survive. Capitalists need workers because, without them, capitalists would not make money. Capitalists rely on the exploitation of workers to survive. They organize the production of goods, but workers are the ones who actually produce the goods themselves, and give capitalists a way to make profit. This is why strikes and labor unions can be so effective. An example of workers using this interdependency to their advantage is the mass “teacher sickouts” of 2019 in Louisville, KY. To demand better treatment, teachers coordinated to use their sick days at the same time, which shut down several school districts including the two largest in the state.

1. Readings 4.1 and 4.2 both discuss and analyze social class in America. The first article is based on a poll taken by the website, which asks random people what their perceived social class is. The second article takes information on median household income and applies it to subway stops in the five boroughs of New York, in order to illustrate its point on wealth inequality.

Both articles make important points about the separation of classes based on area. On the New Yorker model, income can, and often does, shift wildly from stop to stop. Additionally, both articles have an inherent view of income as being one of the most – if not the most – important factors in discussing and differentiating between classes. While the first article is more about understanding how people of different income levels view themselves (subjective social class), it mentions at the beginning that a study of objective social class would have to entail income. This gives some perspective into the beliefs on class of the writer of this article.

2. The median income of my subway stop is a little over 90,000. This would posit it, based on reading 4.1, as a majority middle class area. Frankly, I am a little surprised by this. Given how people dress, how people act, and the prices of groceries, food, and housing, I expected it to be around 110-120k. But when I thought about it it started to make more sense to me. While there are a lot of wealthy families and retirees in my area, there is also a large and popular student apartment building, which I assume lowers the median income a little bit.

3. Based on 4.2 I noticed that a lot of the areas for subway stops in Manhattan have a median over 100k. This was not completely surprising to me, but some of the extreme dips in Manhattan income did. The 23rd St. stop in Manhattan makes 114k, but the next two stops make in the 50s, only to immediately shoot up to 110k after them. While these dips are few, it was still interesting how quickly it changes so dramatically.

Additionally, I was surprised at how few stops in Brooklyn make a median over 100k. Even the “nicer” areas tend to have significantly lower medians than most of Manhattan.

Question 1

Ideology describes one’s view of the world, usually politically, but also religiously, morally, ethically, etc. Concurrently, it describes one’s beliefs on how to deal with the problems of the world, or how not to deal with them. It is informed by many factors, but the most common are parental influence, generation, the political climate of one’s upbringing, identity (sexual, racial, etc), and education. Ideologies are man-made.

An example of a common ideology is Conservatism. In America, conservatives operate on the belief that Government is a threat to individual liberty and must be as small and limited as possible. This core belief drives all of their other beliefs on policy, as well as how they interact with and view others in the world.

Question 2

Conservatives and liberals make up the bulk of the population in the United States. While they are essentially two sides of the same coin (capitalists), their differences come down to their beliefs on equality and uses/ideal size of the government. Conservatives favor a small, localized government handled by individual states. This stems from a belief that a big government poses a threat to individual liberty. In their view, the US government has taken on too much since the New Deal, and needs to be significantly rolled back. They believe that free market capitalism is fair and ideal, that the government should completely avoid handouts to impoverished communities, and that social programs need to be reduced or cut completely. In general, they favor traditional moral values, especially applied to issues such as gay marriage, abortion, etc.

For liberals, the most important and deciding issue is equality. Their policies grew out of the New Deal. They favor a large government and lots of government intervention, especially in the forms of higher taxes, regulation of large corporations, environmental regulation and protection, and cuts towards the defense budget. They are especially dedicated to the assistance of marginalized groups, which stems from their strive for equality. In general, they do not trust the fairness of the free market. Their social beliefs take the progressive route. As examples, they are pro-gay marriage, pro-choice, and fervent proponents of racial equality.

Question 3:

In Althusser’s view, ideology is our subconscious belief about how we must function in society. This of course comes with a subconscious belief of how society should function. Specifically, that society must function capitalistically, and any questioning or rebellion against capitalism should result in violence (although not always literal physical violence. ex: incarceration). Althusser believed that these ideas are ingrained even before birth, giving the example of children taking their father’s last names. Another example of this definition of ideology is the belief that we must constantly be working in order to be “good” people. In my personal experience, every time I have a gap in employment or in school I eventually end up feeling lazy, useless, and ashamed.

Questions 1, 2, and 3:

Althusser believed that, in a modern capitalist society, two apparatuses worked hand-in-hand to control behavior. Working off of Marx’s definition of ideology, which described the ways that the ruling class prevented changes to the status quo in Feudal socities (namely through the Divine Right of Kings), he defined these new forms of control as the Repressive and the Ideological apparatuses. The Repressive uses fear and violence (police, incarceration) to keep people in their place and prevent revolution. However, the Repressive only exists as backup to the Ideological. The Ideological, called ideological because it is driven by the implantation of ideologies, ingrains the need for societal acceptance, as well as how to function as a capitalist subject, in order to prevent revolution and keep the status quo. It does this primarily through the public school system. Because school is mandatory, it is the most efficient way to train people from a very young age to function in a capitalist society. It pushes obedience over everything, with the threat of violence (detention) if someone steps out of line. This primes an organized and submissive population who believes that authority is inherently good.

If authority and discipline are not accepted, the repressive takes away corporeal freedom (the word repressive is defined as “inhibiting or restraining the freedom of a person or group of people”). In other words, to resist the status quo will result in state-enforced violence.

The difference between the two is fairly simple. The Ideological Apparatus is focused on sub-concious, constant indoctrination. It is not upfront about its intentions, to the point that many who enforce is do not fully understand what they are doing. On the other hand, the Repressive Apparatus is solely focused on the enforcement of the Ideological’s indoctrination; enforcement of submission to the status quo. The Repressive involves violence, while the Ideological “moves” in the shadows.

Question 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkLxi4Tsm2E

My example of ideology is the song New York City cops by The Strokes. It is an example of ideology in art and represents Ideological Apparatuses. It was written in response to the 1999 murder of Amadou Diallo by New York City police officers.

1. Once outright racism in politics became socially and legally unacceptable, many conservative politicians knew that they must use new forms of rhetoric that veiled their true intentions, all while effectively communicating their bigoted ideas surrounding race to their audience. To do this, they attached racist ideas and policies to the safeguarding of “law and order” in the country. By painting Civil Rights supporters, whether politicians, activists, or just regular people, as proponents of the violence cause by the “riots” and protests, they could legitimize and capitalize on the fears of white, working class, Southern voters, as well as blue-collar city Catholics. Using this politically correct language also protected them from accusations of racism from the opposition, as they could easily claim that their intentions were to cut down on crime. In addition, it would help to assure voters who wanted to believe they were not voting based on prejudice, but instead on facts and a desire for safety; for law and order.
2. The Southern Strategy, which was introduced in the 1960s, is absolutely influencing politics and society in America today. As someone who grew up in very conservative communities, I can attest to many personal examples. However, a public example is that of the Black Lives Matter protests during the summer of 2020. Many conservative politicians (mostly the MAGA crowd) and especially President Trump himself, used the presence of riots and violence at a small amount of protests as a way to demonize the entire BLM movement, as well as delegitimize their beliefs. These ideas were also pushed by conservative news networks like Fox, who depicted American cities during that period as a violent dystopia, rotating constant images and videos of burning buildings, bloodied police officers, and angry protestors. Trump also included similar imagery in his anti-Biden ads at the time. Being able to connect these dots helps one realize how recent the Civil Rights Movement actually was.

1. In her book, The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander claims that the common explanation for mass incarceration in the United States is deeply misguided, if not a malicious lie. To support this claim, she lists numerous historical truths surrounding the War on Drugs. One of the most interesting of these is the fact that the War was not, as is commonly held, started to fight the sale and usage of crack cocaine. While crack was a factor starting in 1985, President Reagan declared his war in 1982. In 1985, he hired staff to publicize crack’s rise as a way to build support for his efforts. Additionally, the CIA admitted to supporting foreign guerrilla armies (in order to fight an undercover war) that were smuggling illegal drugs into the U.S. The CIA also did not allow law enforcement to investigate drug networks that were financially supporting their war. While these facts do not necessarily denote a coordinated effort to imprison higher rates of minority drug users, it is certainly suspicious that inner-city communities began having a drug crisis after the beginning of the War on Drugs. The start of the war saw a hike in arrests for drug offenses, most notably among racial minorities.
2. There is a statistical gap in incarceration rates between minority offenders and white offenders, with the rate of imprisoned minorities being significantly higher, particularly black men. Many believe that this gap can be explained by the disproportionate rate of drug users in inner-city, minority communities. While it is true that significantly more racial minorities are in prison for drug related crimes, the numbers show that people of all races use and sell drugs at very similar rates. Additionally, these surveys convey that white people are more likely to use illegal drugs.
3. For a government, punishment is often a form of social control. Punishment is used to send a message about a governments attitude on certain crimes, groups, etc. To illustrate the severity of the American penal system’s flaws and proposed biases, Alexander compares U.S. incarceration rates between 1960 and 1990 to those of Germany and Finland. While the rates of crime remained relatively the same across the Western world, U.S. incarceration raised significantly, while Finland’s fell and Germany’s remained the same. These statistics provide a clear view of the unparalleled social control asserted by America’s penal system.