Nicholas Vrousalis | Erasmus University Rotterdam (original) (raw)

Papers by Nicholas Vrousalis

Oxford University Press, 2023

The exploitation of human by human is a globally pervasive phenomenon. Slavery, serfdom, and the ... more The exploitation of human by human is a globally pervasive phenomenon. Slavery, serfdom, and the patriarchy are part of its lineage. Guest and sex workers, commercial surrogacy, precarious labour contracts, sweatshops, and markets in blood, vaccines, or human organs are contemporary manifestations of exploitation under capitalism.

What makes these exploitative transactions unjust? And is capitalism inherently exploitative? This book offers answers to these two questions. In response to the first question, it argues that exploitation is a form of domination, self-enrichment through the domination of others. On the domination view, exploitation complaints are not, fundamentally, about harm, coercion, or unfairness. Rather, they are about who serves whom and why. Exploitation, in a word, is a dividend of servitude: the dividend the powerful extract from the servitude of the vulnerable. In response to the second question, the book argues that this servitude is inherent to capitalist relations between consenting adults; capital just is monetary title to control over the labour capacity of others. It follows that capitalism, the mode of production where capital predominates, is an inherently unjust social structure.

Kantian Review, 2022

Kant’s theory of citizenship replaces the French revolutionary triptych of liberty, equality and ... more Kant’s theory of citizenship replaces the French revolutionary triptych of liberty, equality and fraternity with freedom (Freiheit), equality (Gleichheit) and civil self-sufficiency (Selbständigkeit). The interpretative question is what the third attribute adds to the first two: what does self-sufficiency add to free consent by juridical equals? This article argues that Selbständigkeit adds the idea of interdependent independence: the independent possession and use of citizens’ interdependent rightful powers. Kant thinks of the modern state as an organism whose members are agents possessed of rightful (productive) powers, whose interdependent mode of exercise independently of unilateral permission matters for right. The empirical form of that ideal, according to Kant, is a republic of independent commodity producers. I will show that this reading of Selbständigkeit can consistently explain Kant’s disenfranchisement of women, wage labourers and landless farmers; that it offers a robust alternative to influential republican, libertarian and proprietarian interpretations of the Kantian state; and that it can buttress an original account of community as productive interdependence.

Philosophy and Public Affairs, 2020

Review of Social Economy, 2020

Journal of Applied Philosophy, 2020

Socialist History, 2019

This paper defends the idea that the only feasible and desirable alternative to bourgeois democra... more This paper defends the idea that the only feasible and desirable alternative to bourgeois democracy in 1918 Germany was a parliamentary democracy supported by workers’ councils. This alternative, which I will call council Erfurtianism, blazed a trail of political possibility from late November 1918 to the summer of 1920 that was eminently desirable and politically accessible to the German revolutionary left. Council Erfurtianism was consistently undermined by the leadership of the majority social democrats, with some help from the far left. A mixture of sectarianism and mistrust made revolutionary compromise impossible and elevated the ‘parliament vs. councils’ polarity from a secondary strategic issue, into a supreme question of (putative) principle. That sectarianism also accounted for two failed attempts to rekindle the revolutionary fire: the pro-socialisation strikes of March 1919 and the strike that ended the Kapp putsch, one year later.

Review of Social Economy, 2019

This paper argues that exploitation is a form of domination, domination for self-enrichment. In a... more This paper argues that exploitation is a form of domination, domination for self-enrichment. In a slogan, exploitation is a dividend of servitude—a benefit the powerful extract by converting the vulnerable into their servants. The paper argues that what makes exploitation wrong is that it constitutes domination-induced unilateral service to others; that this form of servitude is necessarily cashed out in terms of labour time or effort; that competing accounts of exploitation fail to do justice to the servitude dimension; and that what distinguishes capitalism historically is the way it reproduces a structural dilemma between dominated work and no work.

Journal of Social Philosophy, 2019

This paper mounts a defense of economic democracy that piggybacks on arguments for workplace demo... more This paper mounts a defense of economic democracy that piggybacks on arguments for workplace democracy. It is addressed to those republicans and egalitarians who are committed to workplace democracy. The paper argues that those workplace democrats should, first, be opposed to private property in the means of production, and, second, be committed to economic democracy, or socialism. I first identify the fundamental normative principles that ground the main contemporary arguments for workplace democracy: republican and political-egalitarian. I then argue that the full realization of these principles is undermined by the existence of private property in the means of production and that avowal of workplace democracy on the basis of these principles commits those who avow them to economic democracy.

In Kets, G. and J. Muldoon (eds). The German Revolution and Political Theory. Palgrave Macmillan., 2019

This paper studies the negotiation of the relationship between revolutionary principles and strat... more This paper studies the negotiation of the relationship between revolutionary principles and strategy in Germany’s main revolutionary party, the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD), during the febrile early months of the November revolution---early November to late December 1918. One of the major strategic differences within the USPD concerned support for convocation of a national assembly, a policy deemed by some of its members to be incompatible with conciliar power. However, conciliar power turned out to be not only compatible with a national assembly, but in fact to engender it. This process of delegation of power from councils to parliament was not, I will argue, bound to be a concession to the counterrevolution, or an act of political suicide, as some have suggested. Rather, delegation was the only feasible revolutionary strategy during the revolution’s early days. This strategy, which I will call council Erfurtianism, envisaged a parliamentary republic supported by the councils. I will then argue that, although most of the USPD Left never acceded to that strategy, its leaders shared a conception of revolutionary principles with the USPD Right, a conception altogether distinct from that of the Bolsheviks.

This paper reviews Julius Sensat's The Logic of Estrangement: Reason in an Unreasonable Form.

This paper reviews three books on the Russian Revolution: Que faire de 1917? by Olivier Besançeno... more This paper reviews three books on the Russian Revolution: Que faire de 1917? by Olivier Besançenot, October, by China Miéville, and No less than mystic, by John Medhurst.

Suppose you propose to retrieve the means of production from the capitalist mode of production, t... more Suppose you propose to retrieve the means of production from the capitalist mode of production, turning them from alien forces conspiring against freedom into an expression of freedom. How might you do that? The question gives rise to a socialisation dilemma. The first horn of the dilemma, statism, associates socialisation with exclusive state ownership and control of the means of production. The second horn of the dilemma, syndicalism, associates socialisation with exclusive worker ownership and control. In this paper, I first show that the socialisation dilemma pervades the writings of 20th century socialist thought. I then discuss a prominent way out of the dilemma, proposed by Karl Kautsky. After illustrating the Kautskian programme’s seminal contribution to the socialisation debate – from Karl Korsch, Max Adler, and Otto Bauer, to Nicos Poulantzas and David Schweickart – I argue that the programme’s principles are incongruous with its strategies. This incongruity issues from the subordinate role that Kautsky assigns to the workers’ councils. I then conclude by proposing a Madisonian solution to the socialisation dilemma, based on the idea of a workers’ parliament.

This paper reviews the recent literature on exploitation. It distinguishes between three main spe... more This paper reviews the recent literature on exploitation. It distinguishes between three main species of exploitation theory: (a) teleology‐based (including harm and mutual benefit) accounts, (b) respect‐based (including mere means, force, rights, and fairness) accounts, and (c) freedom‐based (including vulnerability and domination) accounts. It then addresses the implications of each.

This paper argues that capitalist social relations do not presuppose wage-labour. The paper defen... more This paper argues that capitalist social relations do not presuppose wage-labour. The paper defends a functional definition of the capitalist relations of production, in terms of what Marx calls the ’subsumption of labour by capital’. I argue that there are at least four modes of subsumption, one transitional to and one transitional from the capitalist mode of production. Unlike the capitalist mode of production, capitalist relations of production are compatible with the absence of a labour market, and even with the absence of workplace authority relations. The ambit of capitalist domination is therefore broader than typically thought.

Alan Thomas’s groundbreaking new book sets itself three main tasks. First, to effect a marriage o... more Alan Thomas’s groundbreaking new book sets itself three main tasks. First, to effect a marriage of sorts between liberal and republican political philosophy. Second, to show that this union bears important progeny, in the form of a theory of property-owning democracy (POD). Third, to show that POD is the union’s only legitimate child. Welfare-state capitalism and worker control, in other words, are not legitimate heirs to liberal-republican values. Thomas makes a cogent and original case for the first, matchmaking, task. This review grants that premise and focuses on the internal coherence of Thomas's argument, that is, his defence of POD.

This paper reviews Roberts' book Marx's Inferno. I take issue with three main themes of the book.... more This paper reviews Roberts' book Marx's Inferno. I take issue with three main themes of the book. The first theme deals with the ‘impersonal’ nature of domination embodied in the capital relation, the second with the putative connection between domination and republicanism, and the third with the political ramifications of this connection.

In a recent paper Richard Arneson criticizes the domination account of exploitation and attribute... more In a recent paper Richard Arneson criticizes the domination account of exploitation and attributes it to me and Allen Wood. In this paper, I defend the domination account against Arneson's criticisms. I begin by showing that the domination view is distinct from the vulnerability-based view defended by Wood. I also show that Alan Wertheimer's influential account of exploitation is congenial to the domination view. I then argue that Arneson's own fairness-based view of exploitation generates false negatives and trivializes the concept of exploitation, rendering it entirely parasitic on the notion of unfairness.

Marxists believe that an understanding of human society presupposes an understanding of the natur... more Marxists believe that an understanding of human society presupposes an understanding of the nature of the production of its material surplus and the nature of control over that surplus. This belief forms part of the “hard core” of the Marxist scientific research program. This hard core is complemented by a set of auxiliary hypotheses and heuristics, constituting what Imre Lakatos has called a scientific research program’s “protective belt.” The protective belt is a set of hypotheses protecting a research program’s hard core. Over the past century and a half, Marxists have populated the protective belt with an economic theory, a theory of history, a theory of exploitation, and a philosophical anthropology, among other things. Analytical Marxism is located in Marxism’s protective belt. It can be seen as a painstaking exercise in intellectual housekeeping. The exercise consists in replacing the tradition’s antiquated, superfluous, or degenerate furnishings with concepts, methods, and auxiliary hypotheses from analytic philosophy and up-to-date social science.

This chapter introduces the debate on justice across generations by connecting it with contempora... more This chapter introduces the debate on justice across generations by connecting it with contemporary accounts of distributive justice. It explores the pattern, metric, and scope questions as they arise in the context of intergenerational distribution. The question of pattern is: how should we distribute whatever it is that justice is concerned with? The question of metric is: what is it that we should aim to distribute across, or preserve for, future generations? The question of scope is: over whom does justice apply? This chapter defends an egalitarian response to the pattern question, a pluralist response to the metric question, and an inclusive ‘chronopolitan’ response to the scope question. It also addresses the question of weak vs. strong sustainability and the problem of rights-ascription in the case of future people.