Exploitation of labour

For the exploitation in biological relationships, see Cheating (biology). For exploitation of natural resources, see Exploitation of natural resources. For exploitation movies, see Exploitation film.

The term exploitation may carry two distinct meanings:

• The act of using something for any purpose. In this case, exploit is a synonym for use.
• The act of using something in an unjust or cruel manner. It is this meaning of exploitation which is discussed below.

As unjust benefit

In political economy, economics, and sociology, exploitation involves a persistent social relationship in which certain persons are being mistreated or unfairly used for the benefit of others. This corresponds to one ethical conception of exploitation, that is, the treatment of human beings as mere means to an end—or as mere "objects". In different terms, "exploitation" refers to the use of people as a resource, with little or no consideration of their well-being. This can take the following basic forms:

• Taking something off a person or a group that rightfully belongs to them
• Short-changing people in trade
• Directly or indirectly forcing somebody to work
• Using somebody against his will, or without his consent or knowledge
• Imposing an arbitrary differential treatment of people to the advantage of some and the disadvantage of others (as in ascriptive discrimination)

Economics

Most often, the word exploitation is used to refer to economic exploitation; that is, the act of using another person's labor without offering them an adequate compensation. There are two major perspectives on economic exploitation:

• Organizational or "micro-level" exploitation: in the broad tradition of liberal economic thinking, most theories of exploitation center on the market power of economic organizations within a market setting. Some neoclassical theory points to exploitation not based on market power.
• Structural or "macro-level" exploitation: "new liberal" theories focus on exploitation by large sections of society even (or especially) in the context of free markets. Marxist theory points to the entire capitalist class as an exploitative entity, and to capitalism as a system based on exploitation.

Exploitation in developing nations

Developing nations (commonly called "third world countries" or "poor countries") are the focus of much debate over the issue of exploitation, particularly in the context of the global economy.

Critics of foreign companies allege, for instance, that firms such as Nike and Gap Inc. resort to child labor and sweatshops in developing nations, paying their workers wages far lower than those that prevail in developed nations (where the products are sold). This, it is argued, is insufficient to allow workers to attain the local subsistence standard of living if working hours common in the first world are observed, so that working hours much longer than in the first world are necessary. It is also argued that work conditions in these developing-world factories are much less safe and much more unhealthy than in the first world. For example, observers point to cases where employees were unable to escape factories burning down—and thus dying—because of locked doors, a common signal that sweatshop conditions exist. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911 was another example, but it occurred in the US, so the first world of then is the equivalent of the third world of today.

Others argue that, in the absence of compulsion, the only way that corporations are able to secure adequate supplies of labor is to offer wages and benefits superior to preexisting options, and that the presence of workers in corporate factories indicates that the factories present options which are seen as better—by the workers themselves—than the other options available to them (see principle of revealed preference).

A common response is that this is disingenuous, as the companies are in fact exploiting people by the terms of unequal human standards (applying lower standards to their third world workers than to their first world ones). Furthermore, the argument goes, if people choose to work for low wages and in unsafe conditions because it is their only alternative to starvation or scavenging from garbage dumps (the "preexisting options"), this cannot be seen as any kind of "free choice" on their part. It also argued that if a company intends to sell its products in the first world, it should pay its workers by first world standards.

Following such a view, some in the United States propose that the U.S. government should mandate that businesses in foreign countries adhere to the same labor, environmental, health, and safety standards as the U.S. before they are allowed to trade with businesses in the U.S. (this has been advocated by Howard Dean, for example). They believe that such standards would improve the quality of life in less developed nations. According to others, however, this would harm the economies of less developed nations by discouraging the U.S. from trading with them. Milton Friedman is an economist who thinks that such a policy would have that effect. [1]

However, the common response to the argument that corporations exploit poor laborers by lowering working standards, wages, etc. is that the corporation only has an incentive to do business in these nations if there is this alleged "exploitation." If activists were to achieve their goal of raising work standards, it is likely that the corporation would no longer have a profit incentive to invest in that nation. The result would probably the corporation pulling back to its developed nation, leaving their former workers out of the job.

Groups who see themselves as fighting against global exploitation also point to secondary effects such as the dumping of government-subsidized corn on developing world markets which forces subsistence farmers off of their lands, sending them into the cities or across borders in order to survive. More generally, some sort of international regulation of transnational corporations is called for, such as the enforcement of the International Labour Organization's labor standards.

Forms of human exploitation

• Child labor
• Child sexual exploitation
• Corporate abuse
• Cruelty to animals
• Exploitation of natural resources
• Free trade
• Globalization
• Indentured servant
• International child abduction
• Sharecropping
• Slavery
• Economy of the Soviet Union
• Sweatshop
• Human Trafficking
• Unequal exchange
• Wage slavery
• Working poor

See also

• Abuse
• Exploitation film
• Capital accumulation
• Fair trade
• Labor theory of value
• Marx's theory of alienation
• Rate of exploitation
• Surplus labour
• Surplus product
• Surplus value

References

• Ruth J. Sample, Exploitation: What it is and why it is wrong (The badness of exploitation: a reformative account). Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003.

External links

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on exploitation
• Encyclopedia of Marxism entry on exploitation
• New Deal Exploitation
• UN.GIFT - Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking