Reading 4.3 explains that the difference between owners and employees is about who controls wealth. Owners live off investments and the labor of others, while employees survive on wages. For example, a corporate stockholder is an owner, but a factory worker earning an hourly wage is an employee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Adam Smith\u2019s quote on page 28 says labor is the real source of value. A tree only becomes paper or furniture because of human work. To me, that means all wealth comes from workers, even if owners take the biggest share.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reading 4.4 argues that class is not just an identity like race or gender. It\u2019s a structural relationship where workers depend on capitalists for jobs, and capitalists depend on workers to make a profit. This close dependency is real and material. For example, in a restaurant, servers rely on the owner as well as guests’ pay, but the owner also relies on them to keep the business running. That\u2019s why collective action like strikes can be so powerful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Reading 4.3 explains that the difference between owners and employees is about who controls wealth. Owners live off investments and the labor of others, while employees survive on wages. For example, a corporate stockholder is an owner, but a factory worker earning an hourly wage is an employee. Adam Smith\u2019s quote on page 28 says…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10728,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"portfolio_post_id":0,"portfolio_citation":"","portfolio_annotation":"","openlab_post_visibility":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discussion-board-4-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0508-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0508-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0508-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0508-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10728"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0508-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11243"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0508-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11244,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0508-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11243\/revisions\/11244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0508-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0508-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0508-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}