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. I understand that means of production as tools, equipment, resources needed to produce services and goods and land. These aren’t just material things they are also about who owns and controls them. In a bakery the mixers, ovens, flour and even the structure are all part of the means of productions. Labor is the actual work done by the people what they physically and mentally give to create something. In the bakery labor would be the bakers baking bread, cleaning up and mixing dough.
Another important concept in understanding social class is value. Based on the ideas presented in Video 5.1, what is value? What give “value” to value, what makes something valuable? According to Marx value comes from labor. Something is valuable not just because people want it, but because the human labor went into making it. Its based on socially necessary labor time how much time it usually takes to produce something using common skills and tools. Value is produced by human work not just by supply and demand.
How are labor and value related? What’s the relationship/connection between the two? Labor and value are related because value is created in labor. When a maker puts work into making something, that labor is has value. Value wouldn’t exist without labor you’d have raw materials just hanging around. Even if there are machines and materials its the human work that makes those things into something useful or sellable. Labor is the source of all value in the economy.
How do you understand the difference between labor and labor power? Hint: this is a key difference, give it your best shot based on what the video says about it, and your own ideas. We’ll clarify and develop it in our discussions, and in my video comments. Labor means the real work done by a person like cleaning, typing or teaching. The workers ability to do that work such as their skills time and energy that is their labor power. When someone is hired they are selling their labor power to the employer. The employer then employs that power to produce something or offer a service and make money. The difference is that the labor is the act and the labor power is the potential to act.
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 extra value that workers produce but for which they are not paid. It is the amount by what a worker earns through his or her wages falls short of what the company earns from work being done. An example is Sweet Green Salad a worker could earn $15 an hour chopping, prepping, making salads, ringing up orders and cleaning. In that same hour they could sell up $400 in salads. The employer made a lot more money from the workers labor than they paid them. The surplus value or extra gain doesn’t belong to the worker it goes to the company and its owners. This is important when we study social class because it shows how workers are being used to create profits for people who owns businesses. This helps show why workers can work and and still struggle while the company grows and expands.
What is the distinction that Reading 4.3 makes between owners and employees? Give an example of each. It shows clear as day that the labor of workers makes owners better off the owner controls the business but they’re not the ones working or turning raw materials into products. The workers are the ones doing the work, making everything happen the thing is we only get a paycheck but not a cut from the profits. An example that comes to mind is between a hotel owner (the one house who is making the money) and the cleaning staff and receptionist (the ones doing the leg work).
How do you understand the quote by Adam Smith on pg. 28? What is it saying about labor? Adam Smith is essentially saying here that if there is no labor, there is no value in anything. All profits that corporations suck up are merely redirected from the people who put in the work, sweat, and resources that go into making products and services and delivering them to customers, but we are not the ones who get those profits.
What are your thoughts on the main argument of Reading 4.4 that class is NOT an identity? I think this makes sense because class isn’t something you choose and identify with its a structural position you are situated in. We don’t choose to be a working-class person or a capitalist, these are the roles into which were assigned by how the economic system organizes work whether that means we own a business or work for someone else.
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? This means that workers and the owner are tied very closely together in a way that’s really difficult to disentangle. Owners want to make profits from workers’ labor, and workers need paychecks to pay their bills so there’s an interdependence going on there. A case in my mind is a restaurant owner and its waiters or cooks. Without the waiters and cooks, there is no restaurant. Without the restaurant, the waiters and cooks lose their income.
Do you notice any similarities in the way social class is discussed in readings 4.1 and 4.2? Do you notice any differences in the way these two readings DIFFERENTIATE between social classes? They both show that your pretty much born into your conditions. It’s shaped by a combination of things beyond your control your income, how much education and where in this world you live. Their ideas about what class is however differ greatly. Gallup takes a more subjective view it’s the way people think about themselves as members of different classes. People may say ” I am working class; I am middle class or even i on the other hand am neither rich or poor.” Based on their income or living standard. The New Yorker on the other hand, shows geographical differentials in class. By plotting income against subway lines, it teaches readers how much their neighborhood is a mirror image of widespread structural stratification.
Pick the station closest to where you live. Using the concepts from Reading 4.1, what social class tends to live in your neighborhood? Are you surprised (or not) by the answer? Do you feel it is an accurate representation of the people living in your neighborhood? I live near the Sutter ave L train in Brooklyn. Th map in the New Yorker tells us that this a predominantly a lower income or working-class neighborhood. It certainly seems to ring true a lot of people including myself are busting their chops just to make life run smoothly, and many families carry a heavy rent load on top of that. I think it portrays life in my community fairly well.
Based on Reading 4.2, do you notice a general pattern about social classes in NYC? After looking at the city as a whole, i started to see a trend the richer parts of Manhattan or quickly changing neighborhoods of Brooklyn like BedStuy and park slope; poorer ones tend to be distant from Manhattan as in outer boroughs queens or Bronx. This goes to show how new york is divided by both economics and location when it comes to social class.
