For my Sociology Class (Race, Class and Gender) answer the following questions based on the readings that I attached.
1. According to Harman, why were prehistoric human societies free of exploitation, war and hierarchical authority? How is this demonstrated in the documentary on the prehistoric Natufian society we watched in class? How did the implementation of sedentary agriculture change all this and lead to the first exploitative class societies and States?
2. According to Perelman and Wood, where did capitalism first emerge and how did it create the labor pool of landless peasants it depends on?
According to Wood, what is unique about the way capitalism compels workers to provide their labor, compared to previous systems of mercantile exchange and labor extraction? According to Marx, why are workers compelled to sell their labor for wages? Why is the selling of labor for wages not a freely engaged in contract between workers and employers? What determines how much wages are worth in exchange for labor? How does this disadvantage workers, and what can they do about it?
3. According to Marx in his discussion of Surplus Labor Populations from Das Kapital, what is the surplus labor population? Who are members of the surplus labor population? How does the surplus labor population operate to suppress wages in a capitalist system? Is the surplus labor population a permanent and necessary feature of the capitalist system? Why or why not?
4. According to the documentary Plutocracy, how is this system of capital, private property and labor exploitation enforced on the workers? Who serves to enforce it and why do they choose to act as the enforcers of capital?