“If capitalism is fair, then Unionism must be. If men have a right to capitalize their ideas and the resources of their country, then that implies the right of men to capitalize their labor.” Frank Lloyd Wright
"It is to the real advantage of every producer, every manufacturer and every merchant to cooperate in the improvement of working conditions, because the best customer of American industry is the well-paid worker.”
-FDR
Labor unions are a dying breed. According to the Pew Research Center, union membership in America “is at its lowest level since the Great Depression.”
Karl Marx had a broader and more scientific definition of exploitation: the forced appropriation of the unpaid labor of workers. Under this definition, all working-class people are exploited.
Exploitation is not unique to capitalism. It has been a feature of all class societies, which are divided into two main classes, an exploited class that produces the wealth and an exploiter class that expropriates it.
Economic theory stipulates that all transactions in a free market economy are voluntary, and therefore by definition must be beneficial to both parties. The problem here is that, in reality, not all exchanges in the free market are truly voluntary. To give an extreme example, if someone demands your wallet at gunpoint, and you “voluntarily” give him your wallet it can be said that this was a mutually beneficial voluntary exchange – the other person got your money, and you didn’t get shot. Therefore, the dynamic of the situation dictates whether the exchange is truly voluntary or not. Generally speaking, the fewer alternatives one party in a transaction has (or the more desperate it is) relative to the other the less voluntary is the exchange, and the more exploitative is the relationship.
To summarize what we researched this week, we believe that unregulated capitalism is inherently exploitative of the individual. Without regulation or unions, CEOs and other individuals in power positions will easily be able to abuse their power to exploit the individual.
We noticed a striking parallel between exploitation and options. The less options an individual has, specifically if they are in a poor financial condition, the more easily exploited they become. If there is only one option, it becomes inevitable that individuals will be exploited, so with extreme poverty comes greater abuse.
Sources:
http://www.geopolitics.us/capitalism-is-exploitation/
http://socialistworker.org/2011/09/28/what-do-we-mean-exploitation
