DISCUSSION
Exploitation and 'Injustice' in
Marx's Theory
Mohinder Kumar
I READ with interest Vidhu Verma's article
'Exploitation and Justice: Should We Be
Interested in a Theory of Exploitation?'
(January 17). The very formulation of the
problem, from the beginning itself, goes
wrong. The link between the two concepts
- exploitation and 'injustice' - is mistaken
by the author.
The author, under some false and
impressionistic reading of Marx's labour
theory of value, has tended to identify/equate
'injustice' with exploitation, and simply
opted to use these two concepts inter-
changeably, without distinction. As a matter
of corollary, this fallacy of substitution leads
Vidhu Verma to commit another important
theoretical mistake, that is, to perceive Marx's
theory of exploitation as a political theory
on distributive justice (p 115), rather than
viewing it as an empirical economic analysis
of capitalism,
In essence, Marx's theory of exploitation
(or labour theory of value) is least a political
or legal discourse on 'injustice' (unlike Vidhu
Verma's mistaken view). It can be safely
argued that Marx, in his theory, had left
untouched the question of justifiability (or
otherwise) of class-exploitation. Therefore,
it is surprising to find the way Vidhu Verma
has attempted in vain to draw inferences
about 'injustice' from Marx's theory of
exploitation in her article.
I argue that exploitation and 'injustice' do
form a link, not by way of some sort of
'difference' or 'closeness', as Vidhu Verma
has wrongly suggested (p 115), but by the
causal principle of economic base
('structure') and political 'superstructure',
as Marx had mentioned in his preface to ' A
Contribution to the Critique of Political
Economy' [Marx 1977b:43]. In this sense,
exploitation, as a 'social relation', forms the
economic foundation on which the politico-
legal superstructure of 'injustice' stands. A
careful observation shall reveal that Marx
focused his attention on an empirical analysis
of economic exploitation of the working
class, without going into the abstract and
subjective question of justifiability or
brightness' or anything else. This crucial
point Vidhu Verma seems to have lost sight
of in her paper.
Interestingly, the three varied non-serious
Marxist interpretations of Marx's theory,
discussed by Vidhu Verma in the article,
have also tended to mechanically impose
Economic and Political Weekly March 14, 1998
exercise the 'socially necessary labour time'
varied notions of injustice ('formal',
'normative', 'distributive', etc) on exploi-
tation in Marx's theory, Vidhu Verma's own
attempt to superimpose a 'moral' notion of
Injustice' on exploitation (p 117) is also
scientifically invalid.
It is only because of such theoretical
mistakes that Vidhu Verma suggests a need
to dispense with aclass-exploitation-oriented
explanation of social conflict (p 120). In this
brief comment, I argue that Marx's theory
of exploitation (with its key concept of
class-exploitation) still does provide a
sufficient ground for the understanding of
varied forms of 'injustice' being meted out
to such social groups (besides the proletariat)
as peasants, the jobless, women, children,
'dalits' and backwards along with religious
and ethnic groups. We only require to
understand (i) what lies hidden behind/at
the root of the apparent 'injustice' and
(ii) through what channels/mechanisms
such injustice is meted out, A brief outline
of the argument follows.
Self-enterprising peasants form the bulk
of what Shanin called the 'awkward class'
[Teodor Shanin 1972J. This 'new class' of
Lenin finds its economic position constantly
vacillating between the extremes of worker
and property-owner [Lenin 1976:146]. Marx
himself had also analysed in detail these
'owners of small parcels' operating in the
"Asiatic mode of production", and being
gradually integrated with the broader
capitalist milieu [Marx 1977a:802-13].
From these empirical studies it clearly
emerges that this new class of owner-
peasants, although not purely proletariat in
itself, nonetheless constantly undergoes
the vicissitudes and economic pressures
of capitalism. With ever-growing com-
mercialisation of agriculture and ever larger
number of small peasant households being
plummeted into the boiling pot of capitalist
mode of production, peasant agitations and
movements (Vidhu Verma's 'NSMs') against
state power may be understood as reflective
of economic exploitation of self-employed
farm labour by owner-peasants themselves
on behalf of the state.
Vidhu Verma's jobless or those "beyond
the sphere of production" are even worse
economic sufferers in the sense that their
physical existence is virtually reduced to not
more than a "reserve army of unemployed"
[Dobb 1979:153] who are unable even to
for proper nurturing of their lives. They
constitute a class of their own by virtue of
the degeneration of their 'productive forces'
under capitalism.
Women's struggle for emancipation is
indicative of their class struggle and is
implicitly considered by Marx in his theory
of exploitation of labour. Working women
are economically exploited just the same
way as Marx's proletariat is (that is, through
the 'labour process'). Again, their sexual
exploitation at work places is rooted in
capitalist work-culture itself [Marcuse 1964],
The 'injustice' meted out on housewives
(p 120) is largely due to their economic and
financial subordination in a capitalist family
system, which restricts the right to the
economic fruits of private property ownership
to male members only. The point actually
is that even at the family level itself, economic
class-relations are formed which exert their
pressure not only through the usual labour
process', but also through superstructured
legal 'rights'. That is how a politico-legal
superstructure at times tends to influence the
economic structure and thus women's
economic exploitation in the family takes
place.
As far as injustice against children is
concerned, Marx took note of economic
exploitation of child labour in his critique
of industrial capitalism.
'Dalits' and the socially backwards (as in
Bihar and elsewhere) too constitute an
economically exploited and expropriated
class, if not vis-a-vis some visible capitalist
factory-employer, then certainly as a force
antithetical to big propertied land-owners
who have been expropriated from their 'object
of labour', that is, owned agricultural land
(an extreme degree of exploitation). Their
expropriation and alienation from farm land
has occurred not through normal 'labour
process', as Vidhu Verma might have
anticipated (p 115), nor by way of land
market purchases by bigger land-owners,
but by means of what Marx called the method
of "so-called primitive accumulation" [Marx
1986:667-70].
It must, therefore, be noted that even in
a 'civilised' society based on capitalist
principles, it is not only the usual peaceful
'labour-process' through which the surplus
value of labour is appropriated, but there are
other 'so-called primitive' methods as well
which 'different' social groups (actually they
are not different as long as they are commonly
antagonistic to the capitalist system) employ
in order to expropriate and annihilate each
other in the appearance of a specific caste,
ethnic group, religion, race, and what not.
Inter-group social conflict (be it in Bosnia
615
or in Bihar) is essentially an economic claps- Lenin, VI (1976):Selected Works, Vol 3, Progress - (1977a); Capital: A Critique of Political
struggle waged stealthily on the platform of Publishers, Moscow (henceforth PPM). Economy, Vol 3, PPM.
caste or ethnicity or race. Marcuse, Herbert (1964): One Dimensional Man: - (1977b): On Dialectical Materialism, PPM.
Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Shanin, Teodor (1972): The Awkward Class:
The engagement of 'distinct' religious Society, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London. Political Sociology of Peasantry in a
groups in any conflict actually hides behind Marx, Karl (1986):Capital: A Critique ofPolitical Developing Society, Russia 1910-1925,
itself dominant economic determinants Economy, Vol I PPM. Oxford.
(Marx's economic foundation/base) which
Vidhu Verma has failed to take note of in
the paper. Let us take the Gulf war. The US
and Britain are bent upon protecting Kuwait
and destroying Iraq, not for nothing, not for
'justice' (as Vidhu Verma might have
expected), but for the exploitation and control
of oil resources in the region. And this
exploitation is taking place, not through the
usual labour-process of employing of wage-
labour simply, but by the 'so-called primitive'
(read advanced) method of modem warfare'
physical deterrence and brutal force, which
Marx had alluded to in his theory of
exploitation.
It would suffice to comment on Vidhu
Verma's article that the idea of class
exploitation in Marx's theory addresses and
handles contemporary social problems of
peasants, women, caste, religion and
ethnicity, etc, as adequately as it helps to
analyse the plight of the proletariat. Logically,
and also practically, there seems no valid
reason to shun the concept of class
exploitation. The only thing which is urgently
required is to do away with non-serious
Marxist interpretations because "Marx has
been variously estimated as well as more
misinterpreted than almost any other
economist of note" [Dobb 1979:141].
Why a solution to the plight of these
oppressed social groups (other than the
proletariat) appears elusive to Vidhu Verma
is probably because she has lost sight of the
empirical fact that in contemporary bourgeois
society "capital is the economic power that
dominates everything" [Marx 1977b:41].
Earlier, during Marx's times, if it was the
proletariat who waged a war against the
exploitative rule of capital, now it is some
other social group (say, peasants, women,
etc) which has taken up the cudgels to fight
against the foul-play of capital. And it is
not only the normal 'labour-process', but
also the 'so-called primitive' method of
physical force through which political
'injustice' (based essentially on economic
exploitation) is meted out to a particular
social group, he it Marx's proletariat or
Vidhu Verma's peasants. The content of
class exploitation essentially appears
everywhere in the form of 'injustice',
'oppression', and what not. Vidhu Verma's
paper has missed out on this crucial
relationship between the two concepts.
References
Dobb, Maurice (1979): Theories of Value and
Distribution since Adam Smith: Ideology and
Economic Theory, CUP, Vikas Students
Edition.

616 Economic and Political Weekly March 14, 1998