1. Explain M-C-M’ to show how capitalists maintain and increase their wealth. 

  The capitalist has money/capital (M) to begin with, the capitalist then buys ( C ) commodity, labor or raw materials. Which is turned into a product and that product gains more value making it worth more money (M), thus maintaining the cycle of capitalist increasing their wealth. 

In your comment, explain how you understand the means of production and labor. Give an example of each.

Means of production are the raw materials and tools you have in order to make something. Labor is the work put in to create the product.  An example of means of production is have materials to build a house, the wood the concreate and tools. Labor is what gets the house built. 

 what is value?  What give “value” to value, what makes something valuable? 

Value is what the product is worth, Labor gives value to what you have, the time spent on the labor is what makes something valuable.

How are labor and value related? What’s the relationship/connection between the two? 

Labor increases the value of what you own. Products are measured by how much labor it takes to produce, 

How do you understand the difference between labor and labor power? 

Labor power is the capacity or ability to work it is what increases value.  Labor is the physical part of the work 

Surplus Value: what is it? Why is it important to know about, in our study of social classes? Think about an example of surplus value?

Surplus value is the profit made from the products the worker produced and what the company keeps. It’s important to keep in mind when thinking of social classes because the worker will always be exploited and never paid to what the actual value of the product is worth. 

1. 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.
2.   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.
3. . 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
4. 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. 

1. In 4.1 they talk about how social class has flexibility when it comes to the determination of a persons social status. The flexibility comes from the subjective idea of social status. A person making 75k a year considers themselves middle class. A person making 100k a year considers themselves middle class as well thus creating blurred standards of each class. It also compares it to a hierarchy that’s based on wealth, income, education, and occupation. In reading 4.3 they talk about social class based on owning of wealth. Owning a company or owning property. They talk about social class determined on income, but for the higher class its the income they make off of other people(employees) work. Biggest difference I see in 4.1 and 4.3 is who and how they determine social class. In 4.1 they speak on how a person see themselves in 4.3 they speak based on a corporate view. Its less of an idea and more structured

2. I live on Long Island, I don’t use the subways but I would have to say in my area I am surrounded by middle class families. I feel like its an accurate yet mislead representation. We are considered middle class because of income but the income doesn’t align with cost of living. 

3. There is a very distinct social class pattern when it comes to NYC. The poor get pushed into one area in every borough.  The resource “available” to them don’t really give them a solution to proverty it just gives them a band aid. While the wealthiest people have a surplus of resources 

 Repressive apparatus uses violence and fear to control individuals. Using police, the courts and jails as a weapon to instill compliance. A repressive system restrains the freedom of individuals and groups.

 Ideological apparatuses use a set of standards to influence people it uses schools and mass media to control individuals by enforcing they’re standards for example you go to school and learn to raise your hand to talk. 

While ideological uses a set of standards to influence obedience. A repressive uses fear and threats of violence to control people.  

An example of ideological apparatus is a song by the black-eyed peas called Where is the love. The songs touches on many political topics including war, racism, and pollution. It speaks on unity in the face of civil unrest. It questions why we lack the understanding for one another. 

Ideology is a set of beliefs or ideas we have around society or specific groups. These beliefs and ideas influence the way we think about politics and societies, but it also influences the way we think about ourselves and our peers.

Conservative ideology want a weak government and a strong authoritarian state, they support harsh policing and they push self-reliance, meaning they don’t believe the poor should get hand-outs from the government they believe the poor should work hard even if the disadvantage is because of the downward economy, they would like to preserve traditional privilege and practices. They believe in making profit off another people’s labor. They don’t want the government involved in business regulations. They also believe religion should pushed in schools and mandatory in everyday life. While Liberal ideology is believing in reforms and regulatory processes. They agree with free trade and globalization because while it does benefit corporations it also benefits individuals. Unlike conservatives they would like to improve public services and environmental protections. They are more for individual rights. The big difference is how much or how little each party wants the government involved  

Althusser believes that ideology is accepting beliefs that you believe without knowing you believe them, but he also believed it was a controlled behavior either by a repressive or ideologic apparatus.