Peasants, Propaganda, Economics, and Exploitation: A Response to Dalton (original) (raw)
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Karl Marx argued that capitalist economies are necessarily exploitative. Nineteenth century classical liberal political economists agreed that exploitation was rampant, but blamed government grants of privilege rather than capitalism. This chapter argues that while both schools of thought produced genuine insights into exploitation in markets and politics, neither developed a tenable account of what exploitation actually is. Understanding exploitation in terms of the more basic concept of fairness allows us to appreciate when wage labor and government transfers are exploitative, and when they are not. The chapter concludes by arguing that exploitation is probably a permanent feature of a free society because the moral costs of attempting to eliminate it will often prove unacceptable. In particular, it might be impossible to ensure that a government invested with the power to stamp out one form of exploitation does not become a tool for an even more troubling form of exploitation itself.
A Discussion of Benjamin Ferguson's Account of Exploitation
Benjamin Ferguson (Ferguson 2013) recently proposed an account of exploitation that is based on Hillel Steiner's libertarian account of Exploitation (Steiner 1984, 1987). In this paper, I argue that Ferguson's account provides neither necessary nor sufficient conditions for exploitation due to the libertarian framework that underlies his account. An additional claim is that Ferguson's account of exploitation is faced with a trilemma: It is either an account of the concept of exploitation, or an account of a libertarian conception of exploitation, or an account of a non-libertarian conception of exploitation. In the first case, it does provide neither necessary nor sufficient conditions for exploitation. In the second case, the amendments that Ferguson makes to Steiner's account make it inconsistent with libertarianism. In the third case, Ferguson fails to spell out the conceptual framework that underlies his account.
A Critique of Wright's Analysis of Exploitation
Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 2006
We critically assess Erik O. Wright's recent contributions to the conceptualization of exploitation. We discuss three different exploitation processes that are discernable in his discussion. In applying them to the analysis of capitalist society, Wright maintains the traditional Marxist assumption of the overriding importance of the conflict between capitalists and workers. We argue, however, that Wright's approach is problematic. It is overly constrained by Marxist presuppositions, unclear about the relationship between interest payments and exploitation, and inadequate in defining the value of labor. Due to the latter shortcoming, Wright's definition of exploitation cannot be measured and his claims about what processes generate exploitation cannot be empirically investigated. Wright's analysis of exploitation therefore remains primarily normative and empirically unsubstantiated.
EXPLOITED: EXPLOITATION AS A SUBJECTIVE CATEGORY
I focus on exploitation from the point of view of those who suffer from it, and so I take exploitation as a category of subjective experience. Adopting a subjective perspective on exploitation highlights important conceptual aspects about it and suggests important methodological rules on how to critically discuss social forms of exploitation. I start by introducing some key conceptual distinctions in the first two sections. These distinctions lead me to formulate a first, general definition of exploitation as a subjective category, in the third section of the paper. In the fourth section, I ask what relationship there is between the objective and subjective senses of exploitation, and I turn to the work of Marx. This is because, as I try to argue, Marx's approach is exemplary for tying together an objective and a subjective sense of exploitation. Based on a schematic rendition of Marx's use of a dual perspective on exploitation, in the last sections of the paper, I draw a number of conceptual and normative conclusions. In this paper, I propose to focus on exploitation from the point of view of those who suffer from it, to take exploitation as a category of subjective experience. The reason for such an undertaking is that adopting a subjective perspective on exploitation highlights important conceptual aspects about it and suggests important methodological rules on how to critically discuss social forms of exploitation. These conceptual and methodological features might not be as apparent when exploitation is considered objectively, from an external point of view. I start by introducing some key conceptual distinctions in the first two sections. These distinctions provide the conceptual background to the more substantive subsequent discussions in the later sections. They also help me to make explicit in succinct fashion some of the key methodological assumptions
Dialectical Anthropology, 2019
This article takes up a central predicament of applied anthropology: The development of adequate scientific explanatory theory and choosing to do so on behalf of disempowered groups that are themselves incorporated into the design of, and, indeed, the primary purpose of, the research in the first place that goes against traditional research standards. The dilemma, then, is how applied practitioners can remain true to scientific objectives while at the same time make their research relevant to and in the service of marginalized sectors of society. The article begins by considering Karl Marx as an applied theorist, then refers to well-known models of a Marx-inspired applied approach through praxis. A call by anthropologist Leigh Binford (Dialect. Anthropol., 2019) to abolish Temporary Foreign Worker Programs based on his study of Canada's Seasonal Agriculture Worker Program is evaluated vis-à-vis how this approach theorizes structural determinants such as class formation and social reproduction, how it participates in a reciprocal process of dialog and mutual education with interlocutors and those interested parties affected by the program through research and teaching, and how it activates cooperatively designed revolutionary advocacy.
Human beings are capable of high levels of cooperation, love and caring. However, for thousands of years most of us have been living in societies that systematically suppress these human qualities. These inhuman social systems now function to sustain themselves, the systems, not the people within them. Our societies are organised so that almost everyone derives some material benefit or sense of security from the exploitation or subordination of others. It is a network of inhuman relationships that has persisted and reproduced itself but which serves no human purpose. As human beings, even 'the elites' are victims of these inhuman social systems. In this series of articles I look at exploitative societies, how they arose and what now holds them in place, to assist in the development of effective policies and programs for transforming them into fully human-centred societies. I look at the role of mistreatment and oppression, and how, by dividing us, they derail attempts to change the inhuman structures. I also look at how oppressions – such as racism, sexism, classism, anti-Semitism, and so on – arose, and how they became part of our cultures, our societies and our unconscious minds. Oppressive attitudes and behaviours aren’t individual ‘character defects’, but are part of a wider and more fundamental problem in our societies. Oppression and mistreatment operate in individuals mostly at an unconscious and emotional level but, because they are often unconscious, we have also unwittingly built them into our cultures, institutions and social structures. Transforming our societies will require understanding how mistreatment and oppression work, both at the emotional level and at the structural level. Blame and punishment tend to perpetuate the root causes of mistreatment and oppression, both at the emotional level and at the structural level, and so are entirely counter-productive.
Exploitation and super-exploitation in the theory of imperialism v
The capitalists’ monopoly impulse, i.e. their desire to capture surplus value at the expense of other capitalists, along with their insatiable lust for super-exploitable labour, combine together to define capitalism’s innate, inexorable imperialist trajectory. Imperialism and super-exploitation are therefore inseparably connected. A theory of 21st century imperialism must explain how super-exploitation modifies the value relation. A theory of imperialism which does not is useless, void, and is, necessarily, imperialism-denial, even if those in denial continue to use ‘imperialism’ as a descriptive term. This paper, presented to the ‘Economics of Imperialism’ panel at the 2019 Historical Materialism conference in London, is the more-or-less final version of a chapter in an anthology on imperialism to be published in Spanish by the Tricontinental Institute.