Is it possible to give an account of what makes exploitation a distinctive injustice?

It is possible to give an account of what makes exploitation a distinctive injustice when the victim’s circumstances prove to be an indirect form of coercion; however, it would be difficult to enforce specific laws surrounding exploitation due to the mutual agreements made. Exploitation involves two parties making an agreement of an offer that is perceived as unfair, therefore making it challenging to account as a distinctive injustice. Additionally, there are several circumstances where exploitation occurs, but is instead overlooked or accepted by society, such as capitalism. Conversely, for exploitation to be categorised as a distinctive injustice is to determine whether the injustice that has occurs outweighs the circumstances being titled as a moral issue, regardless of consent being provided by the victim. Ultimately, unless the exploitive circumstances can be linked to a form of coercion, it is not possible to consider exploitation a distinctive injustice, as the victim has provided consent without external pressures such as threats.

Exploitation involves individual’s accepting an offer that is perceived as unreasonable, by someone who intends to take advantage of their abilities, which is not a form of injustice as the victim is not forced into agreeing to the offer. Exploitation often results in an injustice of sorts, such as breaking the law by underpaying staff; however, these laws may only apply in certain countries, enabling the perpetrator to take advantage of countries without such restrictions, which is prevalent in China. Therefore, if the person exploiting people does so within the law, they are free to do so without it being a distinctive injustice, despite their moral wrongdoing. According to Alan Wertheimer in his article Remarks on Coercion and Exploitation, “we are interested in coercion and exploitation because consent is typically morally and legally transformative”^[1] Consent is required in both coercion and exploitation, where a person is either forced into agreeing to a situation through threats or by choosing at their own free will. A PHD student at the University of Edenborough, Wendy van der Neut, claims in her thesis that “greediness is the wrong in exploitation, and therefore that laws that are intended to prevent or limit exploitation, can be justified as means of curbing greediness.”^[2] However, regardless of whether exploitation and greed fall under the same category, they are both moral issues and cannot be accounted as a distinctive injustice. Thus, the law cannot determine whether someone’s greed is unjust unless it causes direct harm to the individual and is non-consensual.

While exploitation is morally impermissible, there are cases where exploitation is necessary in order to operate. The Marxist view supports the claim that if exploitation became a distinctive injustice, our economies would struggle to expand. Karl Marx claims “that workers in a capitalist society are exploited insofar as they are forced to sell their labour power to capitalists for less than the full value of the commodities they produce with their labour.”^[3] Marx’s view applies to not only capitalist societies but instead can be applied to “feudal society”¹ as a whole. The idea posed by Marx is that by profiting from workers, the employer is essentially exploiting their workers by receiving more revenue than their expenses paid on labourers. According to Gerald Cohen “under capitalism workers appear to work entirely for the benefit of themselves, selling their labour to capitalists as free independent contractors,” ¹ explaining why the pursuit of profit is justified as the labourer receives monetary compensation for the work they have put in, while the capitalist is able to sell the product for a higher value in aims to benefit themselves off others. As such, current economies depend on profitability, and therefore endorsing the exploitation of others; however, as it is necessary for economies to grow, it is not possible to classify such exploitation as an injustice.

On the other hand, exploitation may be a form of injustice if the victim proves to be in a circumstance where they have no option other than to accept the exploitive offer. A victim of exploitation has the right to decline the exploitive offer; however, if they are in a situation which does not allow for this, it can be perceived as a form of coercion regardless of if it is caused by the perpetrator. An argument posed by Mathew Zwolinski in Sweatshops, Choice, and Exploitation, looks at the “Failures of Voluntariness,” examining the difference between coercion and exploitation, based on the victim’s freedom of choice. Zwolinski’s investigation into sweatshops reveal that the workers freely choose to work there; however, it is their lack of options which pose the question as to whether it is a distinctive injustice. Many people who become sweatshops workers often come from a poor economic background, being an underlying reason for why they would accept the unreasonable offer. Zwolinski quotes John Miller, contending that these dismal economic circumstances is “coercion of economic necessity.”^[4] However, many individuals find themselves in situations where they find that they have no choice other than to accept unreasonable offers, which Zwolinski sides with, arguing that “the presence of coercion does not license third parties to disregard the stated preferences of the coerced party by interfering with their activity.”¹ ‌As such, unless the exploiter poses a direct threat towards the victim, it cannot be considered an injustice, due to the victim providing informed consent to the terms of the agreement.

While a number of philosophers argue that exploitation should be a distinctive injustice, it is ultimately a moral issue. There are few instances which would classify exploitation as an injustice, where someone’s circumstances may be a form of coercion. However, this distinct line between coercion and exploitation cannot be intertwined, as consent is what separates the two. As such, due to the moral impermissibly of exploitation, it is not possible to account exploitation as a distinctive injustice as no laws can argue against greed.

^[1] Wertheimer, A. (1997). Denver Law Review Denver Law Review Volume 74 Issue 4 Symposium on Coercion -An Interdisciplinary Examination of Coercion, Exploitation, and the Law Remarks on Coercion and Exploitation Remarks on Coercion and Exploitation Recommended Citation Recommended Citation. Denv. U. L. Rev, 889, 74. https://digitalcommons.du.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1970&context=dlr

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^[2] van der Neut, W. (2014). Consensual exploitation: the moral wrong in exploitation and legal restrictions on consensual exploitative transactions. Era.ed.ac.uk. https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/9594

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^[3] Zwolinski, M., & Wertheimer, A. (2017). Exploitation (E. N. Zalta, Ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy; Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/exploitation/#:~:text=By%20far%20the%20most%20influential

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^[4] Zwolinski, M. (2006, May 31). Sweatshops, Choice, and Exploitation. Papers.ssrn.com. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=901689