Abstract
The discussion of the adequacy of Karl Marx's definition of exploitation has paid insufficient attention to a prior question: what is a definition? Once we understand Marx as offering a “reference-fixing definition in a model” we will realise that it is resistant to certain objections. A more general analysis of exploitation is offered here and it is suggested that Marx's own definition is a particular instance of the general analysis which makes a number of controversial moral assumptions.
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Wolff, J. Marx and Exploitation. The Journal of Ethics 3, 105–120 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009811416665
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009811416665