13) WHO'S EXPLOITED, AND DOES IT MATTER?
Marxist Theory, by Clarence Torcoran
Here's a question to ask the people you work with: are you exploited at this job?
Probably the answers will vary, depending on pay and benefit levels, working conditions, whether the workplace is unionised, even the attitudes of the boss and management.
Since we live in a capitalist society, the popular understanding of "exploitation" is based largely on interpretation of these factors. If workers receive well below the average pay in a particular occupation or economic sector, if working conditions are abysmal, if the job is non-union and the boss is a slave-driver, people are more likely to say "yes", these workers are being exploited. On the flip side, if the pay is "decent", if conditions are bearable and the employer treats workers like human beings, the answer is often "no", they aren't being exploited.
This is no idle philosophical debate. Deciding whether or not particular groups of workers are exploited can have a direct impact on public perception of the need to raise the minimum wage, strengthen labour standards protections, or allow greater ability to conduct union organizing campaigns.
The "exploitation" question has many practical implications. For example, the debate around prostitution and the sex trade industry is, on one level, a discussion about whether certain occupations are by their very nature "exploitive" while others are not. Debates about foreign investments - made by corporations taking over Canadian assets, or by Canadian-based monopolies expanding in other countries - often raise issues about whether such companies are exploiting their workforces.
The question of exploitation reflects our basic understanding of the nature of society and social change. Do some workers suffer from exploitation, but not others? If so, we could begin to eliminate exploitation by legislating better labour standards, increasing wages, and compelling employers to treat their workers in a humane fashion. The adoption of such measures would show that capitalism itself is not necessarily an exploiting system. There would be no pressing need to replace capitalism with another system based on social ownership and working class political power.
But is this the reality? Are some fortunate workers free from the curse of exploitation?
A Marxist analysis of modern capitalist society shows that this is not the case. Yes, some workers are better-paid than most, working in clean and safe conditions, with pleasant supervisors and free lattes in the lunchroom. But even these workers are exploited.
This is not because the bosses are all "immoral" or evil people (although many are!). Their personal motivations have nothing to do with the basic functioning of the "private ownership" system. Under capitalism, employees are hired for one simple reason. Through their labour - physical or mental - they create "surplus value" - profits which are appropriated by the owners.
This is not always easy to see at the workplace, especially during periods of economic crisis. While some companies go bankrupt, others survive and flourish. Seeking to expand their overall profits, and the rate of profit at particular businesses, the owning class shift capital and investments, squeeze suppliers and employees for every nickel, and engage in cutthroat battles with competitors. While these titanic business clashes continue, the overwhelming proportion of the population who must sell their labour to survive are all being... yes, exploited.
In fact, sometimes the better-paid workers are more exploited than their poorer sisters and brothers. How can this be? Because these workers are often employed in industries and sectors with a huge investment in other forms of capital - machinery, for example. Workers in the petrochemical industry tend to be among the highest paid in Canada, but their labour generates enormous profits. Measured by the ratio of the "surplus value" they create, to the wages they are paid, these workers may have a higher "rate of exploitation" than low-paid workers in tiny sweatshops or in a mine in Central America.
The point is that exploitation is the "glue" which holds capitalism together, the process which underlies our entire society. Despite any illusions, no section of workers is "free".
Every struggle to increase wages or improve working conditions is a fight to shift the balance against the exploiters, to claw back some of the wealth created by workers. As such, these struggles are critical to the immediate survival of working people and our families. But our true destiny as the working class lies in a greater vision, the aim of a society in which exploitation has been eliminated. This can only be achieved by ending capitalist economic relations, and creating a new system in which workers own the "means of production." Far from being "outdated", this dream is more necessary than ever for the survival of our planet.
(The above article is from the July 1-31, 2011, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)