Myeesha Henry
- What is the distinction that Reading 4.3 makes between owners and employees? Give an example of each.
The distinction that the reading makes between owners and employees is that owners live off investments, stocks, property income, they make money from the hard work of other people rather than themselves. While employees survive off their paychecks and fees, employees have to work extra hard to make money and get a tiny fraction of their hard work.
An example is an owner is like a person who owns the construction company and never goes out in the field building or putting up sheet rock, and an employee is the construction worker, who’s waking up at 5 AM and does backbreaking work for 9 hours.
- How do you understand the quote by Adam Smith on pg. 28? What is it saying about labor?
I think the quote is basically saying the real value of something comes from the work people put into making it, not just the price it sells for. When he used the tree being a piece of paper or furniture for someone and its shaped into something special for that person, that’s the value. Though the actual worth of objects comes from the work required to produce them, money is only a means of measurement of cost. It says labor is the foundation of economic value basically instead of money.
- What are your thoughts on the main argument of reading 4.4 that class is not an identity?
I think class is an identity for some people, and then it stops once you don’t think about the class you’re in anymore because you changed classes. Working people could view class as an identity because they work hard for what they have and where they come from even if its not a lot. But class is something that can change despite change being hard for black and brown people; you can move up in class, but you can’t change your race. I think class being an identity is something that depends on something before it could be fully answered. I also think I’m thinking this way because of class.
- How do you understand the argument Reading 4.4. makes when stating that “class structures are built around a close form of dependency”? What is this close form of dependency, and can you think of an example?
The close form of dependency is the interdependence between capitalists and workers. Working people rely on capitalist for money and basic needs to live and survive while capitalist needs that worker to continue working and making them rich. One example is a tech start up worker, the owner has the idea and the money and maybe the space to do it but the worker is the one who is writing the code, designing the system and doing all the hard work behind scenes. They are paid a wage but don’t own a part of the company of the profits that come from it.
