America's labor system is corrupt according to the document. Under capitalism, private owners control trade and industry for profit rather than the state. This impacts laborers by forcing them to compete with each other by working for less pay or doing more work. The more a worker produces, the poorer and cheaper they become as a commodity. Possible solutions include increasing the quality of jobs by establishing a living minimum wage to reduce inequality, eliminating wage theft to remove capitalist profits, and creating more government jobs in infrastructure, public services, and recreation.

1. America’s Labor System
is Corrupt!

2. WHY?
 Capitalism - an economic and political system in
which a country's trade and industry are controlled
by private owners for profit, rather than by the state
 “Capital, which, in its objectified or embodied forms, t
akes time to accumulate and which, as a potential
capacity to produce profits and to reproduce itself in
identical or expanded form, contains a tendency to
persist in its being, is a force inscribed in the
objectivity of things so that everything is not equally
possible or impossible” (Bordieu, p. 1)

4. Impact on Laborers
 “The laborers compete not only by selling themselves
one cheaper than the other but also by one doing the
work of five, 10, or 20” (Marx pg. 6)
 “The worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he
produces, the more his production increases in power
and size. The worker becomes an even cheaper
commodity the more commodities he creates” (Marx pg.
6)

5. Minimum Wage

7. Will America’s Labor System Recover?

8. Possible Solutions
 Increase the Quality of Jobs
 Minimum wage must be a living wage  Less income inequality and less class
segregation (People of all races and economic classes would integrate more)
 Get Rid of Wage Theft (Clear violations of labor standards that include paying less than
minimum wage, forcing employees to work off the clock, and failing to pay mandated
overtime)  Reverts back to capitalist ownership
 Government must create more jobs!
 Jobs through infrastructure
 Jobs within National Park Service/State and Local Park districts
 Daycares, Elder Care
 Too little funding at public libraries, pools, and recreation centers