Exploitation

Canadian Journal of Philosophy 7 (2):353 - 369 (1977)
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Abstract

According to Marx one of the primary evils of capitalism is that it is exploitative-and necessarily so. Socialist and communist societies will not be exploitative and this is one of the reasons why they will in some sense be better. To understand such claims we have to determine exactly what Marx means by “exploitation” and what it is about exploitation that Marx finds to be bad. Neither of these questions is as simple as it might seem.A common misunderstanding of Marx is this: exploitation consists simply in an unequal distribution of social wealth. Workers are exploited because they get so much less of the pie than do capitalists. Another interpretation of Marx's concept is that exploitation consists in the fact that workers to not get the whole pie. They produce all value and, therefore, deserve to get it all back. I will show that both of these interpretations are inadequate or simply mistaken. An error common to both is an overemphasis on distribution.

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Nancy Holmstrom
Rutgers University - Newark

Citations of this work

Exploitation: A Primer.Nicholas Vrousalis - 2018 - Philosophy Compass 13 (2):1-14.
Global Structural Exploitation: Towards an Intersectional Definition.Maeve McKeown - 2016 - Global Justice: Theory Practice Rhetoric 9 (2).
Exploitation, Solidarity, and Dignity.Pablo Gilabert - 2019 - Journal of Social Philosophy 50 (4):465-494.
Exploitation in biomedical research.David B. Resnik - 2003 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 24 (3):233--259.

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References found in this work

The Marxian critique of justice.Allen W. Wood - 1972 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (3):244-282.
Is marxism a philosophy?Derek P. H. Allen - 1974 - Journal of Philosophy 71 (17):601-612.

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