NCJ Number
116128
Journal
Philosophy and Public Affairs Volume: 18 Issue: 1 Dated: (Winter 1989) Pages: 90-97
Date Published
1989
Length
8 pages
Annotation
In his article (1987), Jeffrey Reiman criticizes John Roemer for defaming Marx's concept of exploitation in capitalism by replacing its classic definition with a distributive one based on a notion of unequal exchange.
Abstract
Given this definition, an agent who expends more hours of labor than are embodied in the goods that can be purchased with revenues from production is exploited, while one who can purchase goods embodying more social labor than expended in production is an exploiter. By using this definition, it is possible to construct a theory of exploitation and class discrimination that captures many classic Marxist insights and has the virtue of deriving as theorems what have been assumed as postulates. Reiman argues that a society is exploitive when its social structure is organized so that unpaid labor is systematically forced out of one class and put at the disposal of another. This conception of exploitation does not, however, consider the moral status of the property relations that give rise to it. Socialist theorists might do better to focus on the initial distribution of capital, what caused the emergence of class relations, and what opportunities exist for later generations. Exploitation can occur without buying and selling of labor power, and such buying and selling can occur, resulting in unequal labor exchange, without exploitation. 13 footnotes.