He earns 18 cents an hour. All other prices are similarly exorbitant. In order to keep the prisoners ignorant of competitive prices of brand name goods in the private sector, the prisoners are forbidden to receive store catalogs. Catalogs and all advertising are seized from the incoming mail. Legitimate stores and manufacturers are deprived of sales and profits.
Private labor is deprived of jobs.
Federal, state and local governments are deprived of taxes. The system perpetuates the bumbling mismanagement of the State's Communist system. The State owns a number of other kinds of plants. They too are operated by prisoner slave labor. They too deprive private industry of income and governments of taxes.