1. What is the distinction that Reading 4.3 makes between owners and employees? Give an example of each. The distinction that Reading 4.3 makes between owners and employees are gone by their roles in the economic system. The “owners” control the businesses and factories. Instead of working to be paid, they get their income from others working under them; As an example someone who owns a large business. While the employees are giving themselves and their labor to the owners to be paid.
  2. How do you understand the quote by Adam Smith on pg. 28? What is it saying about labor? The quote is explaining the relatability between “being rich” and labor. While the employees are trying to work as much as they can to earn a lot of money, the owners are selfish and only give them little portions of what they worked for. As Smith says in the text, “The workmen desire to get as much as possible, the masters to give as little as possible.” This is saying that there is a huge difference between the owners and employees, as the employees want to be paid fairly but the owners keep the wages low. The economic system cared more about money than neutrality.
  3. What are your thoughts on the main argument of Reading 4.4 that class is NOT an identity? With the main argument of reading 4.4 that class is not an identity, a social class should not determine someones identity. For example someone who works in retail and someone who works in a factory are both in the working class but have two different lives, strictly because they are only relying on their pay. While the owners share a class because they benefit from other people working.
  4. 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? Since the working class and wealthy class are linked the owners are very dependent on the working class for getting their money from them. Now that the workers require their pay and rich need workers to make money, it’s not. mutual thing as the workers have to give their labor to earn money while the rich don’t have to lift a finger. Even in the real world today, we work for online shopping companies giving our labor for money while the owners of the companies don’t do anything but get paid.

One thought on “Discussion Board 4.2”

  1. Hello Chelsea, I agree with the distinction between owners and employees being the amount of labor/work that employees do to generate money for the owners. I also think that income between the two is also an important distinction as the owners take the most income while employees take salaries and wages. The power they both hold is also a distinction as without owners there is no job for the employees to make income. Similarly without employees doing the labor there is no income for owners.

    Labor being the main source of income is what’s crucial to make income but it gets exploited often in society is true. As you stated, The employees work as much as possible in return for high salaries. But are unevenly distributed what they generated while the owners keep the large sums of income.

    I think it’s true that to back up the claim that class is not an identity, society shouldn’t determine the social class of someone. But that is oftentimes proven wrong as retail or factory workers look to play the provider roles to sustain the owners/capitalists to look down on them. Giving a sense of identity in social class.

    The dependency between the working and owners class is unbreakable. But also sad as there is inequality between both to truly trust and maintain this relationship based on labor. This gives a sense of power back to the working class by doing labor strikes and protests.

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