Description
Book SynopsisThis is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. It is offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.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 servitude: 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.
Trade ReviewIt is to the great credit of this book, and its author, that they focus attention on such questions, and provide a clear rationale for their pursuit. * Callum Zavos MacRae, The Philosophy Department, The Graduate Center, NY, United States *
In Exploitation as Domination, Nicholas Vrousalis brings philosophical discussions of exploitation full circle back to capitalism. * Lillian Cicerchia, University of Amsterdam *
The book makes a powerful case for the major conceptual connections that it proposes, and it will most likely serve in the years to come as both an instructive example of the rigor and breadth with which novel research in the philosophy of socialism can be conducted. * Callum Zavos MacRae, Res Publica *
Vrousalis' book brings us to the brink of [...] a revived critique of political economy, rather than a new theory of distributive justice. * Lillian Cicerchia, Economics & Philosophy *
It is to the great credit of this book, and its author, that they focus attention on such questions, and provide a clear rationale for their pursuit. * Callum Zavos MacRae, Res Publica *
This book explores the conceptual interrelationships between human "exploitation" and "domination." ...This book is extremely well written and well organized. * Choice *
Table of ContentsTable of Contents List of Figures and Tables Introduction Background 1: Theories of Exploitation Theory 2: Domination at Work 3: How Exploiters Dominate 4: Structural Domination in the Market Applications 5: Capitalist Exploitation: Its Forms, Origin, and Fate 6: Exploitation and International Relations Alternatives 7: The Emancipated Economy References
