SOC 1 Study Guide - Final Guide: Surplus Labour, Socioeconomic Status, Labour Power
Document Summary
Class: status, socio- economic status, education level, occupation, relationship to the means of production. Socio-economic status - income, or a combination of various factors. Have different words and different definitions for class, there is no single conception of class. Each definition of class has its strengths and weaknesses in what it highlights/allows us to see and what is in it"s blindspots. Class is about relationship to means of production and are specific to a mode of production. Means of production : any object used in production (machines, factories, tools, land, etc. ) Mode of production: the historic social arrangement of production (hunting, gathering, slavery, feudalism, sharecropping, capitalism) Class relations are inherently antagonistic = classes interests are opposed to each other (recall the dialectic) Necessary labor : labor required to reproduce the laborer/the society. Surplus labor : any extra labor that produces value/goods/services above and beyond what is necessary to reproduce the laborer/society.
