by Daniel Taylor
October 2, 2022
Introduction:
Read more here: https://janataweekly.org/what-is-exploitation/(Janata Weekly) The word “exploitation” is special for Socialists because it contains a unique insight about the way wealth is produced in class societies. It’s the key to the Socialist argument that a revolution to end oppression won’t just require a change in the political system, but a deep transformation in the way we work.
In everyday life, the word is used in a few different ways. It usually describes those times when powerful people or institutions degrade or abuse someone, or use their power to take advantage in an extreme and unfair way. The label is often applied to especially unethical capitalist behaviour. You might say that when landlords use the desperation of unemployed tenants to demand sex instead of rent, it’s exploitation. When multi-national mining companies destroy ecosystems and leave the local economies of underdeveloped countries devastated while making off with their natural resources, or when big name clothing brands use sweatshop labour policed by violent dictatorships, these are also types of “exploitation” in the everyday sense of the word.
Those things certainly are examples of the moral depravity of capitalists. But when Socialists talk about “exploitation”, we are using it to describe a process that happens at a more fundamental level, one that even the most “ethical” capitalists participate in—a process that makes our society flawed and demands a revolution.
Human beings use technology and organise to produce wealth collectively. As we develop more advanced technology and more sophisticated social organisations, we can produce more wealth than we need to live; we can produce enough for some people, at least, to have comfortable lives. At a certain point in human history, societies became internally divided; a minority of the population began to control the majority’s labour, how they produced wealth, and where the product went. Social classes emerged. A minority controlling the processes that we use to create wealth, using their control to dominate the work and lives of others, and deciding what happens to the extra wealth that has been produced—the “surplus”—is what Socialists refer to as “exploitation”.
caltrek’s comment: Actually, “surplus” involves a little bit more than just “exploitation.” Still, the cited essay is a very good back-to-basics description of “socialism.”