The Marxist theory of exploitation. and problems with the Marxist concept of exploitation.

Marxist theory of exploitation refers to the point that the labors are paid very less than the amount of commodities the produce and hence they are exploited by the capitalist who owns the assets of production. If the labor argues about it, there are always a lot of options available for a capitalist to replace the labor and hire a new one who will be willing to do the same job in fewer wages. Marx’s concept is under study and debate for a long period of time and people sometimes agrees to it and sometimes not. The main problem with this concept is that it only measure amount of work (and time) invested by labor and the final product they produce. It neglects a lot of other things that are mandatory to complete the production process, including the investment, assets of production, utility expenses, process and organizational hierarchy and innovation, maintenance and much more. Another missing dimension was highlighted by Robert Solow, in his work related to productivity where he mentioned that it’s only the amount of time that leads to productivity but its effective time. Solow added an element of technology to it. Marx also ignores the risk being taken by capitalist and presents “surplus labor” as exploitation while not considering that surplus labor is not always there and may go in negative too in some circumstances.

(Reference: Bernie Sanders’ campaign podcast)

Credits :
Author of this analysis, Mr. Hamid Saeed is CEO Shahruh Technologies (PVT) LTD. The analysis is done as part of research at Information Technology University, Lahore Under the supervision of Dr. Abubakar Khan and Ms Amna Anwar for the course of Firms & Society.