The reading talks about how differently owners and employees think, the common ideas and interests and how those lead them to lower and upper class. Owners own the wealth like assets, property, and investments. Owners depend on the labor of the worker. While employees work for a living wage and depend on the capitalist for the job.
Labor is what makes the product worth the money. The work ethic you bring forward is what gets you paid, you see value in yourself therefore your work will be of value. Labor is what pays off.
. I don’t think class is an identity simple because of how blurred the lines can be. You can’t identify with a class that has a sliding scale. Class refers to the structure not the people inside the structure
Class structure is built on dependency. Capitalist while owning their assets or properties they depend on workers for labor they depend on them for production. The workers depend on the capitalist for the job, for the wage.