Saying employers "exploit" employees is asinine

[imported_I, fuzzbot.]

Two different definitions of exploitation are implicit, simultaneously, in such discussions...

1) The first is that i exploit you if i benefit from your existence

in the sense, i hope to exploit my signifigant other, and she hopes to exploit me (as with any relationship...the same goes for friendship)

We both hope to benefit by the others relationship to us...otherwise, we wouldn't be in the relationship as there would be nothing to gain by being so.... if that is the definiton of exploitation we are using, then that is why humans are social animals and not solitary ones (like cats)....

Let's say we own a house and rent out a room to some individuals who are enthusiastic gardeners. and we are not. we get free gardening, they get free use of a yard to garden in.. who is exploiting who?

2) The second definiton is that i exploit you if i gain and you lose by our association.

The connection between the two can be made either by claiming that the world is a zero-sum game in which one person can only gain at anothers expense, or by arguing that if i gain by our association you deserve to have the gain given to you, so my refusal to do so injures you....

The first argument is implausible. the second has a very curious asymmetry... if i give you all the gain, you have now gained by our association and should give it all back. and this would continue on and on from one back to another....

One can see that employees definately gain by working for an employer. they leverage their labor for money, trading leisure for monetary gain.

By deciding to work for a given wage, the employee is literally making the decision that this time/labor he trades is equal to the payment he receives....otherwise, he would trade his time/labor elsewhere...

[kellychaos]

So such a relationship can be symbiotic. It happens in the animal world. Why not with us? Because we're thinking beings with opposable thumbs? What is your argument?

[Perndog]

What if the worker can't find another job?

[ziggytrix]

One definition of exploit is "To make use of selfishly or unethically".


By deciding to work for a given wage, the employee is literally making the decision that this time/labor he trades is equal to the payment he receives....otherwise, he would trade his time/labor elsewhere...


The fallacy of this statement is that labor is not a free market commodity that you can just pass around to the highest bidder. An unskilled factory worker in a third world country with a huge unemployment problem will take what work he can get, even if his boss treats him as little more than a slave.

[Alive]

Getting paid to operate a piece of machinery for a set hourly wage = mutual exploitation?

Getting paid to operate a piece of machinery for a set hourly wage 'whilst dressed as little bo-peep' =imbalanced exploitation in there favor?

im confused...

[AChimp]

Your number 1 contains number 2, therefore this whole thread is stupid.

[Jeanette X]

You stupid bastard. When an employer treats their employees unfairly, such as threatening to fire them if they don't work unpaid overtime, then it's exploitation. Just working for someone isn't exploitation, and no sane person would claim that it is.

Its not that people WANT to work for companies that treat them like shit, its because they must work for them because no other work is available and they can't pay the bills if they don't.

[Anonymous]

that's not what it says in this high school textbook here, hemm haw.

[kellychaos]

In independent companies (non-union) the starting wages (including benefits) of like jobs is, more or less, the same because it has to be. It's more or less based on competition, human nature and the distance from one's home. A job that involves too much of a commute is impractical. Even if the job is shitty, a person won't work for a less than competitive wage if he can find a similiar job in his area. That's why the real issue, when all the periphery things are peeled away, comes down to the way a person is treated by his employers and whether a person's job gives him some sense of pride or purpose in what he does.

[ziggytrix]

Or whether or not they beat you if they don't think you're sewing fast enough.

[kellychaos]

Sew like the wind, Li-S'hun!