Exploitation

Abstract

In this chapter the concepts developed earlier will be used to elucidate the phenomenon of exploitation of labour. Though Marx often compared and contrasted capitalist exploitation with other forms, he was, as ever, reluctant to theorise about the general features that they shared. He analysed capitalist exploitation in detail, and asserted that some of its basic mechanisms were the same as those underlying the Asiatic state, slavery ancient and modern, and various forms of feudalism.¹ But when he did so he was apt to slip into figurative language, speaking for example of ‘the specific economic form, in which unpaid surplus-labour is pumped out of direct producers.’² Despite its importance in his thought, the concept of exploitation was not given a clear sociological definition. Partly for this reason, it has been vulnerable to attacks on Marx’s theory of surplus-value by economists, as well as to more philosophical allegations of bias. So sociology has largely absorbed Marx’s theory of classes, but not, on the whole, the theory of exploitation of labour on which it was based, which has contributed not a little to the confusion besetting class theory in sociology. ³