Exploitation

Canadian Journal of Philosophy

Volumn 7, Issue 2, 1977, Pages 353-369

  Holmstrom, Nancy ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN MADISON   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 79954906553     PISSN: 00455091     EISSN: 19110820     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00455091.1977.10717024     Document Type: Article

References (36)

1. Op. cit.
2. Capital III. New York, International Publishers, Inc., 1967, p. 820.
3. Cf. e.g., Grundrisse, Penguin, p. 611.
4. Ibid., p. 820., Grundrisse, Penguin.
5. Ibid., p. 820. Cf. Grundrisse, p. 611.
6. Capital I. New York, International Publishers, Inc. p. 218.
7. “Socially necessary” labor means the labor that is required to produce a product, given the specific conditions in which the labor takes place, i.e., given “the normal conditions of production, and … the average degree of skill and intensity prevalent at the time.” Capital I, p. 39.
8. Ibid., p. 169., “Socially necessary” labor means the labor that is required to produce a product, given the specific conditions in which the labor takes place, i.e., given “the normal conditions of production, and … the average degree of skill and intensity prevalent at the time.” Capital I.
9. “It takes centuries ere the ‘free’ laborer, thanks to the development of capitalist production, agrees, i.e., is compelled by social conditions, to sell the whole of his active life, his very capacity to work, for the price of the necessities of life, his birthright for a mess of pottage.” ibid., p. 271., Capital I.
10. Capital III, p. 819. Also, “It will not be forgotten, that, with respect to the labor of children, even the formality of a voluntary sale disappears.” Capital I, p. 578, f n. I.
11. Capital I, p. 714.
12. Capital I, p. 217.
13. Ibid., pp. 539–40. Capital I.
14. Ibid., p. 542., Capital I.
15. “… It was in general incorrect tomake a fussaboutso-called distribution and put the principal stress on it. Any distribution whatever of the means of consumption is only a consequence of the distribution of the conditions of production themselves. The latter distribution, however, is a feature of the mode of production itself.” Critique of the Gotha Program, in Selected Works, New York, International Publishers, 1974, p. 325.
16. See for example Tony Cliff, State Capitalism in Russia, London, Pluto Press.
17. Robert Nozick’s interpretation of Marx’s concept of exploitation is similar to this. Although he never states what he takes Marx’s definition to be or cites any texts, he nevertheless states that “… the charm of simplicity of this theory’s definition of exploitation is lost when it is realized that according to the definition there will be exploitation in any society in which investment takes place for a greater future produce… and in any society in which those unable to work, or to work productively, are subsidized by the labor of others.” Anarchy, State and Utopia, New York, Basic Books, Inc., 1974, p. 253.
18. Op. cit., pp. 319, 322-5 in particular.
19. Marx Says, “Surplus labor… in essence always remains forced labor,” (Capital III, p. 819), and in numerous passages he refers to labor under capitalism as wage slavery and to workers under capitalism as wage slaves.
20. Op. cit., p. 278.
21. Op. cit.
22. Marx thought that theeliminationof capitalism and its replacement by socialism was possible at the time he was writing. However, even if he had thought it impossible at that time he would not have taken this to destroy the basis of his condemnation. He would still have thought it an evil, theelimination of which would result in a higher form of society. He describes the social form that will follow capitalism as a “higher” form, e.g., in Capital I, p. 592. Consider what he says about slavery: “The recognition of the products as its own, and the judgment that its separation from the conditions of its realization is improper— forcibly imposed—is an enormous (advance in) awareness, itself the product of the mode of production resting on capital, and as much the knell to its doom as, with the slave’s awareness that he cannot be the property of another, with his consciousness of himself as a person, the existence of slavery becomes a merely artificial vegetative existence, and ceases to be able to prevail as the basis of production.” (My emphasis)
23. Capital III, p. 339.
24. Op. cit., p. 262.
25. Capital I, p. 194.
26. Op. cit., p. 271.
27. Derek Allen, “Is Marxism a Philosophy?” Journal of Philosophy 71 (1974).
28. Marlene Fried in “Marxism and Justice,” comment on Allen, at American Philosophical Association Eastern Division Meetings, December 1974.
29. Capital I, p. 271.
30. Capital III, p. 819.
31. Capital I, p. 586.
32. Capital I, p. 582.
33. Capital III, p. 819.
34. Critique of the Gotha Program, op. cit., p. 324.
35. Op. cit., p. 268.
36. Much the same conclusion is argued for in William McBride’s very useful paper in Ethics 85 (1975), which I read after writing this paper.