Exploitation as Domination: What Makes Capitalism Unjust

by Nicholas Vrousalis

Exploitation is a globally pervasive phenomenon. Slavery, serfdom, and the patriarchy are part of its lineage. Temporary and sex workers, commercial surrogacy, precarious labour contracts, sweatshops, and markets in blood, vaccines or human organs, are some contemporary manifestations of exploitation. What makes these exploitative transactions unjust? And is capitalism inherently exploitative? This book offers answers to these two questions. Nicholas Vrousalis argues
that exploitation is a form of domination, self-enrichment through the domination of others. On the domination view, exploitation complaints are not, fundamentally, about harm, coercion or unfairness. Rather, they are about who serves whom and why. Exploitation, in a word, is a dividend of
the dividend the powerful extract from the servitude of the vulnerable. Vrousalis claims that this servitude is inherent to capitalist relations between consenting adults whereby capital is monetary control over the labour capacity of others. It follows that capitalism, the mode of production where capital predominates, is an inherently unjust social structure.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics

212 pages, Hardcover

Published February 28, 2023

Reviews

[Theo · Rating 3 out of 5]

My main interest in this book was chapter 1 and especially 2. As such, I did not read on after that, so my review will focus on the chapters that I read.

Vrousalis does a great job in the first chapter exploring all the various conceptions of exploitation that have been considered by both analytic marxists and other contributors. He ultimately settles on a structural account of exploitation, which he develops in chapter 2. For those interested in a brief but detailed overview of exploitation, chapter 1 of this book is excellent.

The not-so-excellent part is chapter 2. My low rating for this book is not due to bad writing or poor scholarship (quite the contrary, not only is Vrousalis a great writer, but his advisor was also G.A. Cohen, one of the founders of the analytic marxist movement). Rather, my qualms are with the plausibility of Vrousalis's views. By taking a structural account of exploitation, many of the intuitive reasons why we think exploitation is wrong are jettisoned. We might think it's due to some sort of extraction of income/wealth or some sort of information asymmetry where the exploiter knows something that the exploited doesn't. It might also be that the gains that the exploiter reaps are significantly greater than the exploited, like the owner of a coal mine reaping immense profits while the miners earn little to no wages.

Vrousalis's structural account of exploitation says that something is exploitative in virtue that one has power over another. The relevant feature that gives the exploiter power is capital or wealth. This might not sound so implausible at first glance, but the upshot of Vrousalis's view is that all instances of employment are instances of exploitation. From the low-wage worker all the way to the google engineer, the professional athlete, and even the investment banker are all being exploited for their labor in virtue of their being in a particular relationship with someone (in all the examples, it is the relationship of being employed by an employer with capital). This just strikes me as the wrong account of exploitation. We care about exploitation because someone is made worse off or made insufficiently better off. Vrousalis's account tells that it doesn't matter if everyone is made better off; we are all exploited regardless.

Vrousalis sketches a series of toy economies with 100 peasants and the relevant good of corn. He then plays with the different arrangements to determine to show the various verdicts his structural account gives for the arrangements. The real kicker is that the only arrangement that is deemed just under his view is the peasant economy that lives in subsistence. The economy in which three peasants work extra hard to save and generate capital is unjust the moment they use their capital to employ peasants, even the progressive capitalist economy, where the three peasants distribute all their profits equally to the rest of the peasants, such that no single peasant has more than the other, is also unjust for the same reason as the previous economy. This strikes me as deeply implausible. Although Vrousalis does say that a hybrid of a property-owning democracy and a worker democracy can lead to a just system, he also acknowledges that there is a dilemma here with being ruled by bureaucrats or by workers who control the knowledge and production. Both are unjust according to Vrousalis.

There's much more to say about chapter 2, for example, Vrousalis takes the Pit thought experiment to be the paradigm case of exploitation. The experiment goes like this: you are trapped in a pit and can't get out. A man walks by and can costlessly rescue you; he says that he will rescue you on the condition that you will work for him for the rest of your life. Vrousalis thinks that if you agree to such a condition, you consent to it. I find this to be strange; it's more plausible that you are being wrongfully coerced in order to be rescued. Note that it is important for Vrousalis's account that this case is counted as consensual, as he wants to say that there is something wrong even with consensual transactions.

Additionally, the three arguments that he gives for his non-servitude proviso struck me as rather unsound. He asserts in all three arguments that it is a fundamental right not to have your aims or your abilities to be up to someone else. But Vrousalis doesn't offer much argument as to why we should think that. If I choose to marry someone, my aims are going to be in some sense up to my spouse's desires and wishes. And even in the case of employment, surely I can waive my rights here and be compensated for it.

Lastly, Vrousalis briefly talks about a common objection that making a case against capitalism should require the anti-capitalist to do some comparative analysis. That is, it can't just be the case that the anti-capitalist argues that something is wrong with capitalism; they must show that their particular proposal is better than capitalism. Vrousalis strongly objects to this argument on the basis that all we need is to figure out whether our current arrangements are unjust, and that should be sufficient for us to move away from capitalism. I find this deeply implausible. Vrousalis is essentially foot stomping instead of giving us a principled reason as to why the anti-capitalist does not need to make a comparative analysis. Moreover, he himself acknowledges that a hybrid model between a property-owning democracy and a worker democracy may face an analogous problem with unjust hierarchies of power. Given how difficult it is to fix our problems in our current society, why should we expect that moving to this hybrid will (i) continue to make us better off relative to capitalism and (ii) avoid exploitation? Unfortunately, Vrousalis fails to provide us with an answer.

[Thomas R · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this to be an enjoyable read. Sharp writing that’s persuasively argued on a vexed and important topic: exploitation. Vrousalis argues that exploitation is a dividend of servitude, a power-induced unreciprocated service to others. Unilateral control over alien-purposiveness is domination. Vrousalis argues that exploitation is a form of domination, namely self-enrichment through the domination of others.

I thought the discussion and development of these core ideas to be thoughtful and meticulous. Although in places it seemed to me that the argument(s) moved a bit too quickly, and there were places where one’s intuitions might not match up with the author’s. I found the core argument regarding exploitation as a form of domination to be convincing and thought-provoking. The development of the account to structural domination and imperialism was well-made. One thought is that it’s not clear exactly what bite the complaint of domination has, itself, since it is possible for workers to be dominated (and even exploited) while being materially better off than they would have otherwise been. The complaint seems to be that the exploited are wronged by having their purposiveness subsumed by an alien will that exercises unilateral control, and this is a violation of sovereignty.

[José Pereira · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most of the book is stuff Vrousalis had already published in article format, and with which I don't agree. I do concur with the idea that domination is a necessary condition for exploitation, and I don't hate Vrousalis' general definition of exploitation. But our agreement stops there - our general projects are worlds apart.
The transition Vrousalis makes from his view of exploitation to "why capitalism unjust" is way too quick. The arguments he makes for workers being dominated in firms and in the labor market are, specially for the latter, remarkably unpersuasive. And if he can't say thy are dominated, he can't say - according to himself - that they are exploited.
The last part of the book - on international relations - is new and a bit more interesting, but very tentative.
In summary, I'd say - "leftists, definitely read this book because you'll realize that defining exploitation and saying what is morally wrong with capitalism ain't that easy" - but then scrap a lot of what you learned. Domination is a shabby, unhelpful concept and, by consequence so is exploitation. We should direct our attention elsewhere when looking for what's morally wrong with capitalism (if there is something).

[Szabolcs Lőrik · Rating 4 out of 5]

kontinentalis srac vagyok egy analitikus vilagban