Like all suc­cess­ful real­i­ty shows, CBS’s Under­cov­er Boss sticks to a sim­ple for­mu­la: The (usu­al­ly male) CEO of a large Amer­i­can com­pa­ny dis­guis­es him­self as a bot­tom-tier work­er to get an inside look at his busi­ness. He meets work­ers and man­age­ment types, sees how hard (or not so hard) they work and comes to appre­ci­ate their strug­gles. Then he reveals his iden­ti­ty. Employ­ees who have proven their worth receive gifts from their now-benev­o­lent over­lord. Some­times, their work­ing con­di­tions also get a facelift — Shop­pers World fixed its Wi-Fi, Check­ers received a new dri­ve-thru speak­er. In one excep­tion­al case, Kendall-Jack­son Vine­yard Estates restored its 401(k) plan.

Here, Undercover Boss reveals itself as precisely what it believes it is not: a show built on the profound inequality of the American enterprise, one that glorifies how adept America’s CEOs are at papering over the cracks in the system.

Sev­en sea­sons in, Under­cov­er Boss seam­less­ly expos­es the every­day suf­fer­ing of work­ers under late cap­i­tal­ism and at the same time reas­sures view­ers that the sys­tem is self-correcting.

Take the first episode of Sea­son 4. Mitch Mod­ell, head of Modell’s Sport­ing Goods, learns that Angel — along­side whom he’s worked the till, stocked the shelves and wait­ed on cus­tomers all day — is liv­ing with her chil­dren in a shel­ter because she can’t afford hous­ing on her sales asso­ciate salary. Reduced to tears, he gives her a pro­mo­tion and buys her a house. Hear­ing this news, Angel falls to her knees, weeping.

But at no time does Mod­ell express con­cern about how oth­er work­ers in Angel’s posi­tion may be sim­i­lar­ly strug­gling. Today, near­ly four years lat­er, a sales asso­ciate at Modell’s makes a lit­tle over $8 an hour.

Under­cov­er Boss is the lat­est in a long line of indi­vid­ual-reward nar­ra­tives, from the Chris­t­ian con­cept of Heav­en to Amer­i­can Idol, that have helped prop up cap­i­tal­ism. As such, the show acts as a safe­ty valve for the frus­tra­tions of an indebt­ed, under­paid, exhaust­ed work force, one that acknowl­edges suf­fer­ing and offers a fan­ta­sy of relief — as long as you don’t dissent.

In Sea­son 6, Jes­si­ca, a serv­er at Biki­nis Sports Bar & Grill (a Texas chain of ​“breas­t­au­rants”) unknow­ing­ly trains CEO Doug Guller to work behind the bar. Things get off to a rocky start when she admits she isn’t wear­ing her reg­u­la­tion biki­ni — know­ing Guller is being filmed for a real­i­ty show (just not which), she decides she would rather not be scant­i­ly clad on tele­vi­sion. This upsets Guller, who can­not abide the sin against his brand. He is, after all, the man who trade­marked ​“breas­t­au­rant.” Jes­si­ca, a for­mer account exec­u­tive, con­fides in him that she hopes to find some­thing bet­ter. When Guller comes out as CEO, he fires her.

Angry at being deceived, Jes­si­ca protests, ​“Is every­one hap­py with the job they have? It doesn’t make me a hor­ri­ble per­son just because I’m not sat­is­fied with where I’m at.”

Guller, not with­out a heart, rewards a sun­nier, more pli­ant serv­er with the one thing she said would help her improve at her job: breast implants.

The pre­text of this real­i­ty show, the need for the boss to go under­cov­er, reveals an impor­tant truth, though not the one the pro­duc­ers think: In our large­ly non-union­ized work­force, employ­ees have no means to air griev­ances to the heads of their com­pa­nies; no pow­er to improve their col­lec­tive wages or work­ing conditions.

The under­cov­er act only goes so far — CEOs may go to the ground floor, but they, and the Under­cov­er Boss pro­duc­ers, have no desire to expose what goes on in the base­ment. Most of the com­pa­nies are retail-based; rarely do we get a look deep­er down the sup­ply chain. While the CEO of Fat­burg­er is will­ing to see what life is like on the grill, how about life pick­ing the toma­toes that gar­nish his pat­ties? While Mod­ell is floored by Angel’s strug­gle, does he explore the source of the sneak­ers she slings on the sales floor? To do so would be to find work­ing con­di­tions too squalid for net­work tele­vi­sion. Unwit­ting­ly, the show reflects the nar­row lens through which Amer­i­can cap­i­tal­ism con­sid­ers labor.

Under­cov­er Boss is a mirage. It pur­ports to show a CEO help­ing work­ers over­come lim­i­ta­tions but instead shows how read­i­ly these lim­i­ta­tions are accept­ed. Even the slight­est increase in wages, or a glimpse of a bit of a nest egg, can make a work­er light up.

In one tear-jerk­er con­clu­sion to a Sea­son 3 episode, Johan­na, an exem­plary employ­ee of Check­ers, is pro­mot­ed and giv­en $20,000 to buy a new car. (She couldn’t replace her clunk­er on her crew mem­ber salary.) As if suf­fer­ing from Stock­holm syn­drome, she declares, ​“I can­not believe that my CEO rec­og­nized me as a good employ­ee, and he is reward­ing me for it! Twen­ty thou­sand dol­lars and a man­age­ment posi­tion, with a high­er pay? That’s what I want, that’s what I need. Check­ers, I’m home! I’m home, Checkers!”

CEO Rick Sil­va also promised to cre­ate a bonus pro­gram for employ­ees, although it’s unclear how much it would sup­ple­ment the $8 wages made by crew mem­bers. Check­ers esti­mat­ed that Silva’s appear­ance on Under­cov­er Boss was worth $20 mil­lion in free advertising.

Here, Under­cov­er Boss reveals itself as pre­cise­ly what it believes it is not: a show built on the pro­found inequal­i­ty of the Amer­i­can enter­prise, one that glo­ri­fies how adept America’s CEOs are at paper­ing over the cracks in the system.