You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Worker Exploitation’ tag.
An Alternate Theory Worker Exploitation under Capitalism.
Karl Marx argued that capitalists exploit workers by appropriating the surplus value generated by labor, framing profit as the result of systemic theft within the production process. In Marx’s view, capitalists accumulate wealth by paying workers less than the value their labor produces, perpetuating class conflict and portraying profit as inherently unjust. This perspective casts capitalists as parasitic, extracting wealth without contributing equivalent value to the economic system.
Eugen Böhm-Bawerk, a prominent Austrian economist, countered this narrative with his theory of time preference, articulated in works like Capital and Interest (1884). He posited that individuals naturally prefer present goods over future goods, meaning workers value immediate wages over delayed returns. Capitalists, by contrast, provide those wages upfront, investing capital and bearing the uncertainty of future profits. This exchange is not exploitative but a mutually beneficial arrangement where workers receive immediate income, while capitalists assume the risk and delay gratification, hoping their investments yield returns over time.
Böhm-Bawerk’s framework refutes Marx by redefining profit as compensation for time, risk, and strategic planning, rather than exploitation. Capitalists undertake the burden of forgoing present consumption, managing resources, and navigating market uncertainties. Their profit, when realized, reflects the value of their foresight and willingness to wait, not the theft of labor’s output. This perspective shifts the economic narrative from class struggle to a cooperative process where both workers and capitalists fulfill distinct, voluntary roles based on their preferences and economic realities.
The general capitalist framework sets up people and resources for exploitation. Without a strong social democratic counterweight to capitalist exploitation we necessarily get the tragic results as exemplified by the mine disaster in Soma, Turkey.
“Turkish police are investigating 18 people, including mining company executives and personnel, as part of the probe into the Soma mining disaster, local media had reported.
The arrests on Sunday came after the government promised a thorough investigation into the deaths of 301 miners last week. According to the private Dogan news agency, prosecutors are questioning five of those being held.”
Three hundred and one human lives are gone because safety standards are bad for the bottom line.
“Families and unions have criticised the government’s handling of the disaster, and said the private firm which runs the coal mine, Soma Holding, did nothing to enforce safety standards.
Critics say that the privatisation of previously state-controlled mines had turned them over to politically connected businessmen who have skimped on safety to maximise profit.”
The maggoty quest for privatization has the same results wherever it burrows into the fabric of civil society. People are thrown into the meat grinder in an attempt to sate the voracious hunger for profit. Good for business, bad for people.
“A preliminary expert report, obtained by the Milliyet newspaper, pointed to several safety violations in the mine, including a shortage of carbon monoxide detectors and ceilings made of wood instead of metal.”
Privatization of utilities and resource extraction is almost always a bad deal for the people of the society.
[Source]
The news: If you’re a 7-year-old in the U.S., you are by law too young to buy a cigarette at the counter — but you are old enough to work in the tobacco fields as a day laborer.
Human Rights Watched released a disturbing report Wednesday on child labor in America’s tobacco farms. The four states that grow 90% of U.S. tobacco — North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia — allow children as young as 7 to work in these farms for minimum wage. And it’s completely legal.
That’s right: Elementary school-age children are harvesting tobacco on America’s farms, exposing themselves to nicotine, toxic pesticides and dangerous machinery.
(Source)
I’ve never been a fan of “the good ole days”. Exploitation of the working class and families was always front and center in my mind as I read about the industrial revolution and our glorious path to the society we have today. Cue this story about elementary children working in the fields to remind ourselves of how advanced and how far we’ve come.
Bleh.
More on the happy fun times religion is bringing to the US over at the Experiential Pagan. :)
Horizontal hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” is fighting with coal mining for the title of worst possible method of resource extraction. Fracking ruins the environment and kills people. It is profitable at the moment though, so you can guess why it is so darned popular. Plus, in the US, people are desperate to feed their families and will take the dangerous jobs to make ends meet. Walter Brasch from Counterpunch writes about the consequences of fracking in his article titled “Life and Death in the Frack Zone”.
“José Lara just wanted a job.
A company working in the natural gas fields needed a man to power wash wastewater tanks.
Clean off the debris. Make them shining again.
And so José Lara became a power washer for the Rain for Rent Co.
“The chemicals, the smell was so bad. Once I got out, I couldn’t stop throwing up. I couldn’t even talk,” Lara said in his deposition, translated from Spanish.
The company that had hired him didn’t provide him a respirator or protective clothing. That’s not unusual in the natural gas fields.
José Lara did his job until he no longer could work.
At the age of 42, he died from pancreatic and liver cancer.”
For capitalism to work, a desperate exploitable class of people is needed. The fracking industry and exploitation were made for each other. But more on exploitation later, as the terribly toxic teat of fracking has much more to offer in the form of damage to human beings and the environment.
“Of the 750 chemicals that can be used in the fracking process, more than 650 of them are toxic or carcinogens, according to a report filed with the U.S. House of Representatives in April 2011. Several public health studies reveal that homeowners living near fracked wells show higher levels of acute illnesses than homeowners living outside the “Sacrifice Zone,” as the energy industry calls it.”
Here is a hint, when your industry’s nomenclature includes terminology like “Sacrifice Zone” its probably not a good industry. And what makes a bad industry worse? No unions. Unions are major drags on profitability, and thus unsurprisingly have little to no representation in the Fracking industry.
“The drivers, and most of the industry, are non-union or are hired as independent contractors with no benefits. The billion dollar corporations like it that way. It means there are no worker safety committees. No workplace regulations monitored by the workers. And if a worker complains about a safety or health violation, there’s no grievance procedure. Hire them fast. Fire them faster.
No matter how much propaganda the industry spills out about its safety record and how it cares about its workers, the reality is that working for a company that fracks the earth is about as risky as it gets for worker health and safety.”
But hey, its all okay, because the right class of people are getting richer and the right class of people are getting cancer and dying young.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
Your opinions…