Exploitative deals

One of the advantages of Marxist analysis is that it contains precise definitions of terms like middle class and exploitation. In Britain today, Marxist terms and preoccupations live on - perhaps born and sustained independently of Marx - but without the precision found in Marxist tracts. So there are often shows on television and news reports asking people whether they consider themselves middle class, and they reply yes or no depending on where they were born, what accent they have, what their education is, what their job is, and so on. A stricter economic analysis might only ask, do you have enough capital to live on the profits forever?

Exploitation in Marxist terms is neat too. Any money earned from capital can be called exploitation, as all income is considered to be derived from human labour. Today, exploitation is a more amorphous term, being a value judgement given by campaigners to wages which are not high enough for example. It is a moral call, and doesn't get a place in modern mainstream economics. It often doesn't seem to get a place in business deals with the developing world either, with Western companies striking the best financial arrangement possible even if they would be considered unacceptable in their home country.

I formerly had no substantial intellectual opinion on such deals and the amoral economic approach which underpins it. The amorality of the whole affair is beguiling. The market operation is mechanical and predicts long-run benefits for many people involved, both in the West and developing countries. There is apparently no reason to introduce morality in the arrangement at all.

I still agree, but the insertion of the impressively mechanical arrangements of capitalism in wider society and its values seem clearer to me today. So I would now say that it would be considered immoral for the West in its entirety - not just companies, but including them - to permit very high corporate profits because a developing country is in a poor bargaining position due to temporary market movements, corruption, or ignorance. By immoral is meant that it will be considered eventually in a similar way to the theft of land or forced labour during colonial rule, although perhaps not equivalent to the worst excesses of colonial rule.

Probably something similar could be said about restriction of workplace unionisation, child labour, and the use of prison labour, but I haven't been smart enough to include them in the picture yet.