Ronald C. Hinds June 18, 2025

POL 100 Sec A050

Discussion Board 6.1 Social Classes and the Constitution

1. Based on the arguments presented in Readings 6.1 and 6.2, which social class wrote the Constitution, and which class was excluded and not allowed to participate in this process? In your comment, make sure you clearly specify the difference between the two classes by giving examples from the readings.

The Framers who wrote the Constitution were largely wealthy upper-class people.  Members of the local gentry. They were experienced in business and politics and well educated. They were also practitoners of law, governors, businessmen and other professions including those experienced in trade and agriculture. They were from the minority faction.  The people  excluded were the poor and working class, slaves, women, Native Indians and  the uneducated. The working people who hailed from the majority faction were considered as very parochial, they spent their money and did not pay their debts.     

2. Would you say that the social class structure of early United States society, was the same as ours today, or different? Explain.

It’s is basically the same today. It is the wealthy who can afford to run for a senator for their state. Members in the 113th Congress  had a median net worth of $1,000,000 dollars. This was historic as the majority were millionaires. Almost each member of Congress has at least a Bachelor’s degree and many have advanced degrees. So, they are educated and wealthy and 93% of all elected officials and members of Congress are homeowners. Land ownership is not a requirement but a significant number are land owners and have rental property as investments.  Surely, many things have not changed from the early class structure to today’s social class structure. The only thing that has changed is that there are approximately 65 African American members of Congress.

3. Why were the people who wrote the Constitution so afraid of democracy? Hint: think about how to answer this question by discussing it in terms of social classes.

The framers of the Constitution were afraid of democracy and thought it evil. Alexander Hamilton, who was born in the Caribbean, and was the first U.S. secretary of the Treasury, thought that a strong state was needed to keep the majority in its place. George Washington was not in favor of a document favorable to the majority faction. Hamilton and Washington were for democracy for only the minority faction.

Comments on Discussion Board 2.2

Hi Mark,

I like how you answered the questions and the examples you gave. Very good work.

Best Regards,

Ronald Hinds

June 10, 2025

Hello Mark,

Discussion Board 3.2 RSAs and ISAs

I quite like how you addressed both of these apparatuses and the differences and similarities which you captured. You quite correctly posit (from the advertisement) that although the military is primarily an RSA it has a component of being an ISA.

Good work!

Best Regards,

Ronald C Hinds

Ronald C Hinds June 05, 2025

POL 100 Sec A050

So, we’ve encountered three different overviews of what ideology is, but let’s organize our own thinking about it. In this discussion board, think about and comment on the following questions:

1. Keeping in mind the material covered in this lesson, describe how you understand ideology in your own words.
 

a) Describe what ideology is in a brief paragraph (in your own words).

Ideology is a system of ideas based on one’s political beliefs. This can be nuanced because one person can have a liberal ideology when it comes to social issues, but, conservative when it comes to economic issues and vice versa. So, ideology can fit into a broad spectrum and it is our responsibility not to pigeonhole someone based on one off the cuff remark or after their last vote. Someone can be a member of a group which shares the same belief system i.e. ideology.  People often form a bloc with those who share a similar political ideology or they may enter a United Front, based on agreement on one particular subject; this United Front may be short lived.

The broad spectrum also includes Marxists/Leninists, communists, socialists, progressives, libertarians, anarchists and Pan Africanists.  

Karl Marx draws a straight line between the material conditions of human production, and man, and he sees this as an influence on ideology. A leader of the Socialist Party, Daniel De Leon, saw the two main capitalist parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, as the two sides of the same coin. Both represent the interest of the monied class.

b) Give an example illustrating what you wrote in (a).

I remember in the 1980s, during the conservative President Ronald Wilson Reagan’s administration several Democrats, referred to as “Boll Weevils”, from the Southern conservative districts, broke with their party leadership’s liberal agenda and voted with the Republicans, to pass legislation in the Congress. They were also some “Blue Dog” Democrats in the late 1990s who voted with the Republicans.

President Donald John Trump’s attacks on Harvard and Columbia universities are seen by some as attempts by conservatives to turn the screws, on schools of higher learning, they deem as too liberal and left leaning. 

The liberals of the Democrat Party are big on the protection of the individual’s civil liberties, yet post 9/11 they joined with the Republicans, though not unanimously, to support Republican President George Walker Bush’s Patriot Act which expanded the enforcement of the surveillance capabilities of the state. In the senate the vote was 99 for and 1 Democrat against.

 
c) Write another achieve certain goals. Ideology can be a paragraph (or two), explaining to your reader with additional details, how you understand ideology.

I understand ideology to be a political vehicle used, by some, to achieve cohesion or to sow division in a society. Joseph Goebbels skillfully used extremists ideas and language to garner support, in Germany, for Adolph Hitler’s totalitarian ideology and to achieve a superior race and nation.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt used ideology to support his New Deal programs to address the societal depredations of the Great Depression. This includes the Social Security Act; which was largely opposed by the Republicans because of ideological reasons.

Ronald Wilson Reagan, aka, the Great Communicator, used convincing arguments to court voters to support his and his party’s conservative agenda to reduce “big” government. The Religious Right in the Republican party under the aegis of Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority appealed to voters to win them to their cause. War hawks in the the Republican party under the leadership of George W. Bush used ideological arguments to fight imperialist war in Iraq. Four star US army General and Secretary of State, Colin Powell, was dispatched to the United Nations to plead for help by the international community. The weapons of mass destruction, WMD, allegedly held by Saddam Hussein were never found. Tens of thousands of innocent civilians died.

 2. How do you understand the difference between conservative and liberal ideology in US politics? What seem to be the major differences, the dividing line? Given an example to backup your arguments.

The conservative ideology in the politics of the United States coalesces around the concepts of small government, fiscal austerity, patriotism, religion, law and order, lower taxes, the second amendment; the right to bear arms; religion, bourgeois family values, free enterprise, states rights, and harsh penalties for those who engage in crime. 

The liberal ideology in the politics of the United States coalesce around the concepts of inclusion, social responsibility for the needy, support to minorities including the ROY G BIV coalition; blacks and people of color, prison reform, Butter not Guns.

One of the differences between the conservative (right)  and the liberals (left) revolves around how America is viewed in the world. These differences, however, are not cast in stone. Sometimes the parties, Democrat and Republican are united over a specific cause. For example, after September 11, 2001, both conservatives and liberals joined forces to confront the perceived and real enemies.

The dividing line can be seen through the prism of their differing views on the role of the government and social issues, like the rights of women and LGBTQ+ issues. The Roman Catholic Church which acts as a bulkwark in maintaining conservative values is against a woman’s right to choose. It sees marriage as sacred and only between people of opposite sexes.

3. How do you understand Althusser’s definition of ideology? Paraphrase it in your own words. Given an example. 

I understand the French philosopher, Louis Althusser’s, definition of ideology as rooted in an “illusion of choice” and that ideology consists of the actions of different bodies and he talks of the following apparatuses:

• Repressive State Apparatus (RSA)
• Ideological State Apparatus (ISA)

The RSA is primarily an agent of repression and it comprises the police, the army, the courts and the prisons, while the ISA comprises schools, the entertainment industry, the media et al. Lenin talks about in, “State and Revolution”, the state as being made up of “armed bodies of men”; the cops, army, courts and prisons. 

Althusser says “no other ISA has the obligatory audience of the totality of children” for 8 hours a day 5 or 6 days a week. At school, he says, children are primed to obey and honor authority. That’s what the bourgeoisie wants. When the children grow up as adults they tow the line and defend the status quo. Education exists to produce and reproduce an efficient and obedient workforce. I remember seeing many youths, as a protest, wearing caps that read the word “obey”.

Dakota Dickey – Mass Incarceration

1. M. Alexander claims that the main explanation of why so many people are sent to jail in the U.S. today is deeply wrong. Explain her argument by referring to the various examples she mentions to backup her point.

She explains that the main reasons for people to be sent to Jail in modern day American society is mainly due to the “war on drugs”. Which in many ways is a continuation of the persecution of blacks due to slavery then during the civil rights area and “law and order” (which is from our second reading “the new Jim Crow”). The problem and the deeply wrong thing is the policies that are targeting the poor communities.

My Comment on Dakota’s Questions:

I think that this is a good first attempt but it needs much more work. Alexander states in her text that the common belief why so many people, in the US, are sent to jail is wrong. You need to provide a reason why Alexander thinks so based on her book. Please re-read the passage. Professor Artinian has given a good explanation in a video. The video is useful. Listen to it. 

2. Why is it that racial disparities in the rates of incarceration “cannot be explained by rates of drug crimes”?

A segment that left an impression from “the new Jim Crow” pg 5 speaks about how the Reagan administration hired many staffers to publicize the emergence of crack in the community in 1985. This was all in an effort to build support for predicting people in the name of the “drug war” the issues was focused on crack. As we read in this passage but also we know from real life that all people do drugs and commit drug related crimes.

My Comments on Dakota’s Question

Please also redo question #2 after reading the text and then provide an answer.  Ensure that your answer reflects what Michelle Alexander is saying in the text. You mention the following: “This was all in an effort to build support for predicting people………”, please explain? 

 3. How do you understand the phrase: “the American penal system has emerged as a system of social control unparalleled in world history.”?

The system has related more to social control because it has kept a group of people down in the society. I understand this because you see it in the planning of the system of residential infrastructure. The social control has manifested in many ways but the policies persecuting certain groups of people for drug related crimes. Even though all social groups participate in these illicit activities.  Similar to in England, how they outlawed gin by whiskey legal.  Whiskey was a drink of the high class and gin was a drink of the working class or a lower class of people. 

My Comment on Dakota’s Question:

Please read and study the text and then re-answer the question. Please also read the question, again. You have made an analogy about “Whiskey” but try to focus on the question and provide an answer to the best of your ability.

POL 100 Sec A050      

Discussion Board 3: Repressive State and Ideological State Apparatuses  What is a Repressive State Apparatus? Why does Althusser call it “repressive”?

A Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) is one which rules primarily by force. Louis Althusser calls it repressive because it rules by force to protect capitalist institutions. It uses the cops, courts, the army, and prisons to enforce its rules and regulations. If people step out of line the hammer falls and they face the wrath of the state’s enforcement personnel. An example of repression is; during the 1960s in the city of Birmingham, in the state of Alabama, the cops, with the blessings of the Governor, used force i.e. dogs and water cannons to suppress black people who wanted to peacefully dismantle segregation, during the Civil Rights struggle. A white supremacist, “Bull” Connor, a member of the Democratic party and the Commissioner of Public Safety, strongly opposed the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. 

Another example of the role of the RSAs, is currently occuring in Los Angeles, California, where 2,000 National Guardsmen have been deployed, by President Donald John Trump to maintain order, to back up ICE agents in the execution of their job to detain “illegal immigrants”, and to quell the protests to stop immigration raids. The Guardsmen are trained to use force.

2. Let’s do the same for the Ideological State Apparatuses. What are they, how do they seem to work?

An Ideological State Apparatus (ISA) is one which rules primarily through ideology. Louis Althusser calls it so because it functions through multiple ideologies i.e. the schools, the church, the bourgeois family, and Trade Unions, to name a few. The ISAs can be private as well as public institutions. The teachings of the Roman Catholic Church forbid sex for enjoyment but only for procreation. The Catholic Church teaches that a woman does not have a choice regarding her body. She does not have a right to an abortion. This apparatus governs through ideology but secondarily through force. When it comes to schools, the educators have many hours in a day and in a week to indoctrinate the learners to be good citizens, and, to be good workers once they enter the workforce. They learn to obey authority.

 3. How are the Repressive and Ideological State Apparatuses different from each other? What is the difference between the two?

While the RSAs are dictated primarily by using force i.e., violence, it is secondarily enforced using ideology. When it comes to ISAs their roles are dictated primarily by ideology and secondarily by force. The difference between the RSAs and the ISAs is how they function on behalf of the bourgeoisie. For the ISAs the institution of the family is used for conformity and religion is used as the “opiate of the masses” to keep the parishioners honest and God fearing. The RSAs are there to exercise violence on behalf of the bosses and the capitalist class rulers. 

4. Post an example of ideology. This could be a piece of writing, an image, video, pdf document, visual art, or music, clip from a movie. Next to your example, specify if this is an example of repressive or ideological apparatuses at work. 

See below the St. Patrick’s Cathedral; the Roman Catholic Church in the diocese of New York City. It is the seat of the diocese of the Archbishop of New York.

Source Google. Downloaded on June 08, 2025.

Ronald C Hinds May 31, 2025

POL 100 A0506

Discussion Board 2.2

1. Why do you think Southern racist politicians chose to frame their defense of racial segregation through the language of “law and order”? What special advantages was this choice of words going to give them?

They thought that “law and order” was more palatable or politically correct than their previous demand of “segregation forever” and that it was formally “race neutral”. They thought that, by saying law and order, they could use it as a weapon to foist social control over the black population and to continue their defense of racial segregation. This term is still bandied about as a code to fight opposition to their bourgeois rule.

One special advantage was that they think that this choice of words would give them political cover to mask their appetites. One specious argument they voiced was that “law and order” was a call to mobilize the junking of MLK’s philosophy of civil disobedience which, in their warped minds, was a “leading cause of crime”. The law and order rhetoric did not tear down the Jim Crow system but it had an appeal to poor whites who opposed integration and they thought that they should not be ignored. This was another weapon that the southern white racist politicians had in their arsenal.

2. Do you think the Southern Strategy is still influencing American politics? Give an example supporting your answer.

The Southern Strategy still influences politics in America in the form of the “Dog Whistle Effect”; the use of coded language. Some Republicans tout the term, “States Rights” by which they mean leaving states to make decisions without interference from the “meddling” federal government, in Washington, DC. Its use was an appeal, by Ronald Reagan, for the continuation of a policy promulgated by his predecessor, Richard Milhous Nixon. Reagan made a speech at the Neshoba County Fair in Mississippi, at the same site where three (3) young civil rights workers; James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, were murdered during the Freedom Summer of 1964, while registering African Americans to vote.

In 1996, during a campaign speech by Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democrat First Lady of the United States (FLOTUS), in her support of a crime bill, she evoked a reference to young male offenders as “super predators”. Many suggested that Clinton’s reference was a deliberate dog whistle, for young black offenders.

Ronald C Hinds May 31, 2025

POL 100 A0506

Discussion Board 2.1:  Thinking about Mass Incarceration and Politics

1. M. Alexander claims that the main explanation of why so many people are sent to jail in the U.S. today is deeply wrong. Explain her argument by referring to various examples she mentions to back up her point. (see p. 1-2).

Michelle Alexander makes the point that the commonly held view that the prison population is so high is not because of the over zealousness of the government’s crackdown on drugs.  It is actually more about the government’s War on Drugs, which was launched in 1982. She says that “an illegal drug crisis suddenly appeared in the black community after-not before-a drug war was declared”. She also posits an admission from the vaunted Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that drug networks were helping to fund a covert pro-Contra war in Nicaragua, Central America. CIA supported guerrilla armies were smuggling illegal drugs into the US. These drugs found their way into the ghettos. President Ronald Reagan’s anti-communist/anti-Soviet stance included an effort to defeat the Sandinistas and their hold in Nicaragua. In the United States the War on Drugs resulted in the incarceration of thousands of black people and people of color. The War on Drugs became an actual war in the black ghettos. Alexander also mentions that the “crack crisis” fueled speculation, in the black community, that this war was a plan to destroy blacks in the US.

2. Why is it that racial disparities in incarceration rates “cannot be explained by rates of drug crimes”?

In racist America where whites and blacks use and sell illegal drugs, and, where studies show that white youth are more likely to engage in drug crimes than blacks, there can only be one logical explanation as to the racial disparities in the rates of incarceration of blacks. By way of comparison, statistics show that between 1960 and 1990, in Finland, Northern Europe, the rate of incarceration fell by 60%, but in the US, the rate quadrupled. The black population, in Finland, between 1960 and 1990, was quite tiny.

3. How do you understand the phrase: the American penal system has emerged as a system of social control unparalleled in world history”?

I understand the phrase to be a truism because in capitalist America black and Hispanic people are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system. Blacks make up 14.4% of the total population and Hispanics 19.1%. In major cities where there is the devastation of the population because of the drug war, 80% of blacks, have criminal records. This locks them out of meaningful participation in the society and is a form of social control to keep blacks in their place. Just as slavery was a drastic form of social control, the current American penal system has emerged as a new system of social control.

Ronald C. Hinds June 15, 2025

POL 100 Sec A050        

Labor, Class, & Capital        

1. Small-scale commodity production: selling something that you made, in order to buy something that you need can be represented by the following diagram: C-M-C. Study what the letters mean, and what they describe.

Any article made by people has two features:

• A Use Value – a Moscow Mule Mug
• A Human Need – something essential or necessary for human survival

This Moscow Mule Mug can be obtained by paying money for it. By buying it. Every commodity carries a price. Almost every item is commodified. Money is a special kind of commodity. Money serves as a medium of exchange. In capitalist society money plays a pre-eminent role.

We can use this formula to explain the above:

The artisan makes a Moscow Mule Mug) commodity – C

The artisan sells the commodity to a vendor Simple Simon  for money- M

The artisan uses the money and buys Coconuts from Simple Simon – C 

N.B. The vendor does the opposite.

[Formula 1] Commodity © – Money (M) – Commodity

In this example the artisan and Simple Simon were selling in  order to buy. This is called small-scale commodity production. In this situation the value of the 3rd stage (or last stage) is the same as the value in the 1st stage. 

1. Compare small-scale commodity production, with  buying in order to sell: M-C-M’. What is the difference described by the two diagrams?

A new player makes his entrance. This new player has only money. He intends to make even more money. He buys the Moscow Mule Mug but not for his personal use. He intends to resell it. He buys it to sell it at a profit.

We can use the following formula to explain the above:

[Formula 2] M (Money) – C (Commodity) – M+

2. In M-C-M’, pay close attention to what M’ is. What does it mean? M’ represents surplus value (which we have encountered already), but note how it is described in this reading. M-C-M’ is the general formula of capital.

In [Formula 2] the M+ represents the profit or surplus value the capitalist makes. Hence, the general formula of capital is as follows:

[Formula 3] M – C – M+

3. On p. 24 we have a discussion of labor power (which we already mentioned in the previous video, but now we’ll study it in more detail) and how it makes surplus value (or profits) possible for those who own money/capital.

Labor power is the potential and capacity of a worker to perform labor and that is what the worker sells to the capitalist. Labor power is the aggregate of those mental and physical capabilities. When a worker produces a “use value” he uses his mental and physical capabilities to do so. After some negotiation between the capitalist or his representative, and a worker, he offers to buy the worker’s labor power. The worker agrees to sell it. That is all the worker has.

In an 8 hour work day the capitalist is entitled to use the worker’s labor power for 8 hours. Let us say that after 4 hours of work the worker’s labor power has created value equal to her daily requirements. She does not stop working for the workday. The 2nd four hours of the day’s work is supplementary and is called surplus labor. This surplus labor becomes surplus value or the capitalist’s profit.  

        5. How is money transformed into capital? This is a key point, because it        describes how wealthy people remain wealthy as a class.

The rapacious capitalist uses money to buy the labor power of many, many workers. He also has to use his capital to buy the means of production if he wants the labor power to work. He buys tools, shop equipment, buildings, raw materials and labor power. He also uses capital to buy supplies to maintain his machinery. He does these things to transform his money into capital. 

Ronald C. Hinds June 15, 2025

POL 100 Sec A050

Discussion Board 5.1 Understanding Social Class

1. Two key concepts in this video are the means of production and labor. In your comment, explain how you understand the means of production and labor. Give an example of each.

The capitalist owns the means of production. The means of production include the factory, the machinery, the plant buildings and money. These are considered as the private property of the capitalist.

The value of the capitalist’s product is measured by how much labor it takes to make the product under normal circumstances. Labor is measured in time. A piece of cedar-wood which the capitalist has in his furniture factory has no value in itself. It takes labor, a carpenter, to turn the cedar-wood into the furniture. So labor increases the value of what the capitalist owns. Automation means less labor to make a product. Workers from the International Longshoremen and Warehouse Union, on the east coast and west coast of America, recently went on strike. A sticking point with their contract was “Automation”. Their signs on the picket line read “Automation Hurts Our Families” along with other slogans.

2. Another important concept in understanding social class is value. What is value?  What gives “value” to value, what makes something valuable? 

Value is that which is measured by how much labor it takes, under normal circumstances, to produce a product. Labor is the source of value. Value is measured in time. Time is literally money. This is referred to as the labor theory of value.  The craftsmanship needed to produce a product increases its value. The capitalist spends time and money to train his workers with new skills. This increases their value.

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

Labor is the source of value. Value is that which is measured by how much labor it takes under normal circumstances, to produce a product; this is an important caveat. The only thing that the worker has to sell is his labor.

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

Labor power is the capacity to work. The worker sells his labor power to the capitalists. Labor power is found in people. Labor power when applied increases the value of what is produced. The worker eats to feed his labor power and for his sustenance.  

Whilst, labor power is the capacity to do work labor is the physical act of working. Labor is the physical or mental effort exerted by man to produce goods. For Karl Marx labor is a very important concept and he rails against the exploitative nature of capitalism. He thinks by definition capitalism is exploitative.

5. 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?

With the normal work day being 8 hours, let us assume that by the time the worker finishes 4 hours, her labor power has created value equal to her daily work requirement. But she is still expected to continue working for the next 4 hours. This second 4 hours is supplementary and Karl Marx calls it surplus labor. This surplus labor becomes surplus value or profits for the capitalist.