Oklahoma Social Studies TOT.C.1.3.B
The Standard
- TOT.C.1.3
- Examine the claim that private enterprise is exploitative and inequality the fault of capitalism.
Describe the idea that private property is exploitative, based on selfishness, and results in inequality.
Oklahoma Academic Standards for Social Studies (2026) · TOT.C.1.3
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students explain a critique of privately owned land, factories, and businesses. They describe why critics say owners profit from others' work. They connect that argument to self-interest and unequal wealth.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Given a factory example, a student can identify who owns the machines, who earns wages, and who keeps the profit. They can explain why a critic might call that arrangement selfish and exploitative without presenting the claim as fact.
Common Misconceptions
- Some students think this critique means people should not own clothes or other personal belongings. Others treat the claim as a proven fact rather than an argument about ownership and work.
How to Assess It
- Exit ticket: Workers sew shirts using an owner's machines. Explain why a critic might say the owner keeping the profit is exploitative and leads to inequality.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs owner, worker, machine, wage, and profit cards; have them arrange a factory model and label who controls each item.
Ask: Why might someone say an owner keeping factory profits is unfair, and what might an owner say in reply?
Write six factory claims on slips; teams sort them into ownership facts, claims about exploitation, and claims about inequality.
Show a local apartment rental listing; students identify the owner, tenants, and rent, then explain how critics might connect ownership to unequal wealth.
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Related Standards
- TOT.C.1.3
Examine the claim that private enterprise is exploitative and inequality the fault of capitalism.
- USG.C.6.4.B
Examine how liberty and private property have contributed to economic opportunity and prosperity in the United States of America.
- E.C.3.5
Evaluate the role of the government within the economy as it relates to defining, establishing, and enforcing property rights.
- TOT.C.1.5
Explain the proposition that violent revolution is needed to overthrow the oppressive classes and abolish exploitative institutions.
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