Midterm Question

Satirizes management/owners of means of production: Berns shrugging off the struggling window worker, Berns having a huge bird zoo in his house and a giant TV, having chained up monkeys doing work for him, Berns not knowing Homer, a worker that he's had numerous interactions with, Berns having an incredibly high and pointless security system, and Berns thinking that Homer, a dim worker, is highly intelligent and sophisticated. 
Satirizes workers/unions: Workers get a cookie on St. Patricks day (seen as greedy and pointless), workers seen as dumb and simple when swapping dental plan for a keg of beer, workers jobs depicted as easy with Berns dancing on the control panel and running the factory, Homer (union leader) misinterpreting and not understanding anything that Berns says or offers, Homer getting excited about the idea of being a crooked union leader that's hungry for money. 

This episode normalized the prevailing ideology of capitalism because the ending of the episode finishes, and is resolved, with a small easy deal made between Homer and Berns, restoring power back into the city without any control being taken away from Berns. The episode also normalizes capitalism when, in the flashback, workers are persecuted for taking something that the company has incredible amounts of. Lastly, capitalism is normalized through the movie that was being watched in the beginning of the episode by Bart and Homer when Bart says, "That is one evil dude" in regards to the upper-class villain, and Homer responds, "It's just a movie, son. There's nobody that evil in real life." In contrast, the episode challenges the prevailing ideology of capitalism by demonstrating Homer's run as a union leader as a total success when he wins back dental care from Berns. Capitalism is again challenged when we see Berns' very "protected" security system fail to keep out a stray dog, making us see the system as obsolete and easily encroached upon. Finally, capitalism is challenged through the strike that is held by the union workers, suggesting that if you fight against the system for long enough, you can win whatever it is that you're fighting for.