Cohen, Exploitation, and Theft

G. A. Cohen in “More on Exploitation and the Labour Theory of Value” defends the thesis that the Marxist charge of exploitation against the capitalist cannot be supported by way of the labour theory of value. He suggests an alternative, non-labour-theoretic argument for this charge which depends on premises he takes to be more obvious than the labour theory of value. Cohen claims that his argument (which he calls the “Plain Argument”) is the only way a Marxist couldjustify attributions of “exploitation” to the capitalist, if any such justification is possible. In this paper, I will argue that, given Cohen's objections to the labour-theoretic argument, his “Plain Argument” itself retains too great a similarity to that argument. A new interpretation of the basis of the charge of exploitation is offered which requires neither the labour theory nor that which is dubious in Cohen's formulation

Argument (complex analysis) · Epistemology · Interpretation (philosophy) · Marxist philosophy · Political science · Politics · Value (mathematics) · Law · Mathematics · Philosophy · Political Economy and Marxism · Political Philosophy and Ethics

• More on exploitation and the labour theory of value

  G A Cohen•Inquiry•1983

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• Marx, Justice and History

  George G Brenkert, Thomas Nagel et al.•Marx, Justice and History•1980

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