The Theory of Exploitation as the Unequal Exchange of Labour

Abstract

This paper analyses the normative and positive foundations of the theory of exploitation as the unequal exchange of labour (UEL). The key intuitions behind all of the main approaches to UEL exploitation are explicitly analysed as a series of formal claims in a general economic environment. It is then argued that these intuitions can be captured by one fundamental axiom -called Labour Exploitation -which defines the basic domain of all UEL exploitation forms and identifies the formal and theoretical framework for the analysis of the appropriate definition of exploitation.Keywords: Exploitation, Unequal Exchange of Labour, axiomatic analysis. * Paper submitted for the symposium on exploitation theory. We are grateful to participants in the Manchester Workshops in Political Theory and the QMUL workshops on exploitation theory (London, 2014 and 2015) for comments and suggestions on an earlier draft. Special thanks go to Ben Ferguson for long and detailed comments. The usual disclaimer applies.

Globalisation and inequality in a dynamic economy: an axiomatic analysis of unequal exchange

“…Then, we prove that this class is nonempty: a definition recently proposed by Yoshihara and Veneziani [31,33,29] based on the 'New Interpretation' (Duménil [6,7]; Foley [12]; Duménil et al [8]) satisfies all three…”

“…Our analysis here continues a research programme in axiomatic exploitation theory started in Yoshihara and Veneziani [33] (see also [31,29,30]) and significantly extends it to the dynamic context, and to deal with di erent intuitions of UE theory, formalised in a di erent set of axioms. We analyse general intertemporal economies because this allows us to evaluate the robustness of Roemer's [21,22] key insights, and the generality of the 'New…”

“…The economy consists of a set N = {1, ..., N} of countries, with generic element , in which a sequence of nonoverlapping generations exist, each living for T periods, 8 and indexed by the 7 We discuss some normative implications of UE exploitation theory in Veneziani [27,28] and Yoshihara and Veneziani [33]. 8 We specify the framework in the case with a finite T in order to highlight the similarity with Roemer's [21,22] economies.…”

“…15 Outside of static, two-class Leontief economies with subsistence wages, instead, many di erent definitions of the labour 'received' by can be, and have in fact been proposed, which incorporate di erent normative and positive views. 16 In recent work, Yoshihara and Veneziani [33,31,30,29] have proposed an axiom that identifies the domain of admissible UE definitions: it imposes some weak restrictions on the notion of labour received and all of the main approaches satisfy it in static economies.…”

“…Methodologically, instead of focusing on a specific definition of UE exploitation, we adopt the axiomatic approach pioneered by Yoshihara and Veneziani [33] and significantly extend it by considering di erent properties, and by requiring our axioms to hold at general dynamic equilibria. We examine three fundamental properties.…”