After reading the chapter and viewing the short video: See below

• What do the Shmoos really represent?
• Why are the Shmoos so important and why does the current economy depend on destroying them?
• What are the complexities of the middle class?
• Why do governments tax the poor and not the rich?

Notes Class Counts by Erik Olen Wright

Ch. 1 Class Analysis

1)     The parable of the shmoo

                                               i.     Shmoos only provide necessities not luxuries

                                              ii.     What will shmoos provide? Examples

                                             iii.     Distribution of shmoos

                                             iv.     Universal human interest

1.     Workers as universal class

2.     Justice without purposeful altruism

b.     Deprivation is not a byproduct but a necessity

c.      Exploitation is necessary for profit in capitalist system

d.     Garden of Eden must be destroyed.moral/religious argument?

e.     Fundamental antagonism between capitalists and workers.  Capitalists must block social improvements that would empower workers.  (Healthcare, Universal Income, Free Education)

2)     Exploitation

a.     Term included moral condemnation as it causes harm to the exploited.

b.     Three principles of exploitation:

                                               i.     Inverse interdependent welfare principle

                                              ii.     Exclusion principle

                                             iii.     Appropriation principle

c.      Non-exploitative oppression (conditions 1 & 2)

                                               i.     Native Americans & Slaves

                                              ii.     Women & homosexuals

d.     exploitation vs. transfer

                                               i.     Unjust

                                              ii.     Taxation as unjust.?

3)     Class & Exploitation

a.     Capitalists (exploiters)

                                               i.     Want more labor and must rely on various methods to achieve it (surveillance and control)

b.     Workers (exploited) (85%-90%)

c.      Petty bourgeois (own and use without hiring others)

4)     Complexities.the Middle Class

a.     Authority

1.     Domination-surveillance, positive & negative sanctions

a.     Capitalists must dominate workers

b.     Managers delegated powers

                                                                                                     i.     Managers simultaneously capitalist and workers class

                                                                                                    ii.     Contradictory class locations

                                              ii.     Earnings

1.     Managers receive greater proportion of appropriated earnings, but still themselves provide appropriated earnings.

2.     Privileged status which allows for higher earnings. 

3.     Loyalty Rent

                                             iii.     Skills & expertise

1.     Legally certified credentials

b.     People not in the paid labor force (babies, retirees, permanently disabled, students, homemakers, etc.)

                                               i.     Mediated class locations

1.     How are folks connected to capitalism and exploitation.

2.     Cross class families

3.     Underclass (denied the use of labor power)

c.      Employee Investments

                                               i.     High level executives who receive high salary that is converted into capitalist investment. (contradictory class location)

d.     Temporality

                                               i.     Class location can be indeterminate 

1.     Shadow class- class a woman would occupy at the dissolution of marriage.

5)     Marx & Weber

a.     Class is relational not just locational.

b.     Marx -Exploitation/ownership.  

c.      Weber-life chances/market