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From: carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: What is socialism? (on exploitation)
Message-ID: <351@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 1-Mar-85 15:05:45 EST
Article-I.D.: gargoyle.351
Posted: Fri Mar  1 15:05:45 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 2-Mar-85 04:45:34 EST
Organization: U. Chicago - Computer Science
Lines: 112

Laura Creighton asks for a clear and useful definition of
exploitation.  But let me first address a remark she made in passing.

> Listen up, Richard Carnes, 'cause not
>every libertarian you will meet is interested in amassing property.

I know.  In fact I recently wrote an article ("Libertarianism as
ideology") to make the point that libertarians in general are NOT
motivated by the desire to amass property.  

Now as to the meaning of "exploitation," I submit the following: "the
control by one section of the population of a surplus produced by
another section of the population."  Let me exploit the publishers of
*A Dictionary of Marxist Thought* by reproducing excerpts from Susan
Himmelweit's article on exploitation.  Economist types like Mc Kiernan
who are disinformed about Marxist theory are requested to please pay
attention.  I think this article is quite helpful in explaining some
basic ideas of Marxism.
_________________

EXPLOITATION.  Used by Marx in two senses, the first being the more
general one of making use of an object for its potential benefits....

It has another more precise meaning which makes it a central concept
of historical materialism.  In any society in which the forces of
production have developed beyond the minimum needed for the survival
of the population, and which therefore has the potential to grow, to
change and to survive the vicissitudes of nature, the production of a
surplus makes possible exploitation, the foundation of class society.
Exploitation occurs when one section of the population produces a
surplus whose use is controlled by another section.  Classes in
Marxist theory exist only in relation to each other and that relation
turns upon the form of exploitation occurring in a given mode of
production.  It is exploitation which gives rise to class conflict.
Thus different types of society, the classes within them, and the
class conflict which provides the dynamic of any society can all be
characterized by the specific way in which exploitation occurs.
Under capitalism, exploitation takes the form of the extraction of
surplus value by the class of industrial capitalists from the working
class, but other exploiting classes or class fractions share in the
distribution of surplus value.  Under capitalism, access to the
surplus depends upon the ownership of property, and thus the
exploited class of capitalism, the proletariat, sell their labor
power to live; though they too are divided into fractions by the
specific character of the labor power which they own and sell.

Capitalism differs from non-capitalist modes of production in that
exploitation normally takes place without the direct intervention of
force or non-economic processes.  The surplus in the capitalist mode
arises from the specific character of its production process and,
especially, the manner in which it is linked to the process of
exchange.  Capitalist production generates a surplus because
capitalists buy workers' labor-power at a wage equal to its value
but, being in control of production, extract labor greater than the
equivalent of that wage.  [Note:  This is a model, i.e., a deliberate
simplification of the real world. -- RC]  Marx differed from the
classical political economists, who saw exploitation as arising from
the unequal exchange of labor for the wage.  For Marx, the
distinction between labor and labor power allowed the latter to be
sold at its value while the former created the surplus.  Thus
exploitation occurs in the capitalist mode of production behind the
backs of the participants, hidden by the facade of free and equal
exchange.

	The sphere of circulation or commodity exchange, within whose
	boundaries the sale and purchase of labor-power goes on, is in
	fact a very Eden of the innate rights of man.  It is the 
	exclusive realm of Freedom, Equality, Property and Bentham.
	Freedom, because both buyer and seller of a commodity, let us
	say of labor-power, are determined only by their own free
	will....Equality, because each enters into relation with
	the other as with a simple owner of commodities, and they
	exchange equivalent for equivalent.  Property, because each
	disposes only of what is his own.  And Bentham, because each
	looks only to his own advantage.  [But if we] ... in company
	with the owner of money and the owner of labor-power, leave
	this noisy sphere, where everything takes place on the surface 
	and in full view of everyone, and follow them into the hidden
	abode of production, on whose threshold there hangs the notice
	"No admittance except on business," here we shall see, not
	only how capital produces, but how capital is itself produced.
	The secret of profit-making must at last be laid bare!
	(*Capital* I, ch. 6).

But "profit-making" is just capitalist exploitation.  Its secret gave
rise to the study of political economy; and since Marx disclosed it
orthodox economics has been devoted to covering it up again.  No
previous mode of production required such intellectual labor to
unearth, display, and re-bury its method of exploitation, for in
previous societies the forms of exploitation were transparent:  so
many days of labor given, or so much corn claimed by representatives
of the ruling class.  Capitalism is unique in hiding its method of
exploitation behind the process of exchange, thus making the study of
the economic process of society a requirement for its transcendence.  

Exploitation is obscured too by the way of measuring the surplus used
in and appropriate to the capitalist mode of production.  For the
rate of profit [s/(c+v)] measures surplus value as a ratio of the
total capital advanced, constant and variable [variable capital
refers to that paid out in the form of wages, constant capital is all
other -- RC], the measure of interest to individual capitals, for it
is according to the quantity of total capital advanced that shares of
surplus value are appropriated.  But as capital expands the rate of
profit may fall, concealing a simultaneous rise in the rate of
exploitation defined as the ratio of surplus to necessary labor, the
rate of surplus value, s/v.  [Necessary labor is that required for
the reproduction of labor, surplus labor is the additional labor
performed. -- RC]
--Susan Himmelweit
__________________

Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes