Lakes' book applies this theme to education for work, and particularly to vocational education. More than half of its content addresses repeatedly the fact that work needs to be critiqued. We learn that there is harassment, discrimination, abuse of power, environmental degradation, and a host of other problems in and around the work place. Considerably less space is devoted to remedies for these ills. The most frequently proposed remedy in the book is a major restructuring of the control of work.
Capitalism is viewed as hopeless.
Unions need to be reinvigorated, and the best solution is for workers to have ownership of the means of production. However, worker ownership is not enough. Classroom research should be conducted on workers' rights and on other work-related themes, which are seldom covered in the standard curriculum. The goal should be to empower students to help reconstruct the work place. It is not easy for teachers to let go, even briefly, of the authority to tell students what they need to know, and students should have the right to help reconstruct the school.