On the Irrelevance of the Justice of Exploitation

While a paper on any philosopher should consider the philosopher as a whole and consider the ideas of the philosopher only within the other thoughts of that philosopher, that counts evermore so for Marx’s Capital¹. Thus, while this paper will focus on the arguments of philosophers responding to Marx’s claims about exploitation in a capitalistic society, it is necessary to look at how Marx comes to such a conclusion in Capital, and what he means by the term ‘exploitation’.

The dialectical structure of Capital means any attempted summary of the work will necessarily cut corners, for the purpose of this essay the main steps considered in Capital will be the labor theory of value, the determination of the value of a worker’s labor power, and finally the extraction of surplus value and the role of exploitation in it.

Capital begins with an analysis of a commodity². A commodity is an object produced by a person which exists external to them and is in some way useful to a person. Marx believes that such a commodity has two sorts of value, firstly as a use-value, there is a need or a want that the person has which the commodity fulfills³. Secondly there is the exchange value of a commodity which is the value that a commodity has by the fact that it can be exchanged for x amount of another commodity. The exchange value of a commodity raises a question, why does a certain amount of one commodity exchange for a certain amount of another commodity? Simply put why does 3 coats = 25 feet of leather for example?

Exchange value, at first sight, presents itself as a quantitative relation, as the proportion in which values in use of one sort are exchanged for those of another sort, a relation constantly changing with time and place. Hence exchange value appears to be something accidental and purely, relative and consequently an intrinsic value, i.e., an exchange value that is inseparably connect with, inherent in commodities seems a contradiction in terms. Let us consider the matter a little more closely.

A given commodity, e.g. a quarter of wheat is exchanged for x blacking […] in short, for other commodities in the most different proportions. Instead of one exchange value, the wheat has therefore, a great many. But since x blacking […] represents the exchange value of one quarter of wheat […] must as exchange values be replaceable by each other, or equal to each other. Therefore, first: the valid exchange values of a given commodity express something equal; secondly exchange value, generally, is only the mode of expression, the phenomenal form of something contained in it yet distinguishable from it.⁴

In the first paragraph of this citation Marx expresses the problem that the exchange value of a commodity poses, namely it seems to be relative to a period and a place, yet we feel that we can claim that one thing is equal in exchange value to another, and that those commodities can thus be exchanged. In the second paragraph Marx argues for a solution to this issue, namely when we claim two commodities to have the same exchange value we posit them as equal. This exchange value which is equal in both must be something that both commodities contain in equal amounts yet is a distinct thing to which they are both reducible. From here Marx will go on a search for what this third thing is⁵ to which he concludes it is the labor required to create the commodity. He specifies further that it is the socially necessary labor time, which is the average amount of labor required at the average productivity of a society⁶. Thus, the value that a commodity holds on a market is the socially necessary labor time required to produce it.

The next important step to understand Marx’s theory of exploitation, is the value of the commodity which a worker sells. The only commodity which a worker holds, as they hold no means of production, is their labor power⁷, or their capacity to labor for a certain amount of time.⁸ The exchange value of this commodity is determined by the socially necessary labor time needed to produce the commodities necessary to produce the labor power, in other words food, housing, etc.⁹

The unique nature of capitalist commodity exchange is the generation of profit through the purchase of a commodity with capital, money, and the transformation of that commodity into a commodity which can be sold at a higher price, yielding a profit.¹⁰ To explain how this surplus value is extracted out of the commodity Marx relies on exploitation. Namely the capitalist purchases the labor power of a worker, which has a value of say 3 hours, the capitalist provides the conditions of production and the workers first three hours of labor is spent creating value equal to what the worker’s labor power is worth¹¹. Any of the hours of labor after the worker has produced value equal to the value of their labor power is surplus labor and creates surplus value for the capitalist.¹² In other words, the workers actual labor creates more value than the value of their labor power; this surplus value is enjoyed purely by the capitalist in the form of profit. The wage that the worker earned has less value than the value of labor he expended to earn that income. And thus, the labor of the worker has been exploited to create surplus value.

Many interpreters take Marx to be arguing that capitalism, is not a system of equal benefit where all share in the experience of profit, but it is a system which has one dominant class hold the means of production allowing them to constantly create surplus value through the exploitation of the subordinate classes labor power. Such a system is seemingly unjust and thus a capitalist society is unjust¹³. And then there is the obvious implicit step than an unjust society is a bad society which should be discarded.

I will argue in the rest of this paper that the interpretation of Marx’s critique is flawed. Marx is not making a normative claim about exploitation; he is not judging it as just or unjust. I believe that such an interpretation rests on the absence of a proper understanding of Marx’s conception of historical materialism. The analysis that Marx is performing in Capital is a descriptive/scientific analysis which analyzes the mechanisms of Capitalism, such as exploitation of labor to extract surplus value, and arguing that those mechanisms necessitate the collapse of capitalism. If Marx is making a critique simply through the stipulation of the existence of exploitation, then I believe along with Allen Wood¹⁴ that this is a critique based on alienation and structural inequality and not injustice¹⁵.

I think it relevant to argue this point as a common capitalist defense that I have run into against Marx, in my own previous education¹⁶, and in some philosophical texts that I have read¹⁷, is simply that what Marx considers exploitation is in fact a just transaction. The argument goes as follows a general rule for what counts as a just transaction is stipulated, in VWO Economie this is the Pareto principle, which claims that a transaction is justified and non-exploitive if at least one person in the transaction benefits and none of the participants of the transaction are worse off after the transaction. Then that general rule which stipulates what is a just transaction and what is not, is used to show that capitalists transactions, the hiring of a worker’s labor power to extract surplus value, is a justified transaction. In the case of the Pareto principle this is justified as both the worker, who now has an income which can be used to survive, and the capitalist which has a means to produce commodities are both better off then before the transaction. If these are just transactions then there is no exploitation involved.

Marx claims that human society is a collective system of productive activity, aimed at meeting needs and desires of man, man’s institutions, ideologies, and relations are all aspects of this productive activity¹⁸. This is fundamental for understanding Marx’s definition of society, namely that man has to himself solely the ability to participate in productive activity where he may produce. This productive activity is always performed while in relation to others, these are productive relationships, which are always formed by the period man finds himself in, and the unique methods of production available to him¹⁹. The relationship between the capitalist and the worker differs heavily from that of the hunter and the gatherer. In a certain moment these factors, man’s needs in a specific period, the production methods available to him, and the unique productive relationships he is in form a collective of human activity, which Marx refers to as the economic structure of a period or a mode of production²⁰. Examples of these are feudalism, capitalism, and communism.

Associated with such a mode of production are unique forms of social life, cultural life, within its men have a unique human nature etc. These are what Marx refers to as the legal and political superstructure which are dependent on an economic structure, and to which correspond differing forms of social consciousness²¹. As Marx writes in the preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, “The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life, it is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.”²² The mode of production the way society organizes the production and distribution of material goods shapes the legal, political, and ideological forms that emerge in that society.

Conceptions about justice and morality are not universal principles that exist independently of historical conditions. Rather, they arise from and reflect the social relations of production in each society²³. Each mode of production generates its own definitions of justice appropriate to its functioning and social relations. These standards are not arbitrary, but rather reflect what is necessary for that mode of production to operate and reproduce itself.

Under capitalism, what counts as just is what facilitates commodity exchange and capital accumulation the very principles that make the capitalist mode of production function. Capitalist justice requires that exchanges occur at equivalent values, that property rights are respected, that contracts are honored, and that individuals are free to act on the market as they see fit. The Pareto Principle is not an abstract moral principle that capitalism happens to satisfy, or universal truths that we use to evaluate capitalism. They are the juridical forms that arise from and enable capitalist production itself. Capitalist law emerges from capitalist economic relations, not the other way around.

Marx argues that concepts of justice are part of the ideological superstructure that arises from the collective productive activity that makes up the mode of production of a specific period. The point of the concepts of justice such as the Pareto Principle, and more broadly the ideological super structure is to justify the mode of production²⁴. While this means that these definitions of justice might not be false, as they do reflect the logic of commodity exchange prevalent during a certain mode of production, it does mean they can’t stand outside capitalism as neutral standards by which to judge it. You can’t use capitalist justice to condemn capitalism.

Marx does not believe that a definition of justice can be used independently of its corresponding historical period, I argue thus that Marx is not claiming that exploitation is unjust. Capitalist defenders who argue that Marx is incorrect in saying that capitalist transactions are unjust are committing a category error. They misinterpret Marx as making a normative claim that capitalist transactions are unjust, and they respond by showing these transactions are, according to a general definition of justice of their choosing, just. But if Marx isn’t claiming capitalism is unjust, then these defenses answer a question Marx never asked.

One might point to the fact that Marx uses heavily charged language when discussing some of the mechanisms of capitalism such as when he refers to capital as “dead labor which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor.”²⁵ If he is performing a purely scientific/descriptive analysis of capitalism why use such emotive language, does it not imply his normative stance? I’d argue that such language serves a purely rhetorical purpose yes making Marx’s critique more vivid and engaging, but it of itself does not imply a normative stance or imply moral condemnation. Another objection one might have is that while Marx may not make any explicit claims in his writings surely he must personally believe capitalism to be unjust, otherwise why else write a book like Capital? The point Marx is attempting to make is that independent of one’s normative opinion of capitalism whether positive or negative is irrelevant to his critique. The material interests of the working class and the capitalists are what will cause them to conflict with one another not simple moral awakening!

In conclusion in Capital Marx describes the mechanism behind Capitalism attempting to show that the mechanism which make up Capitalism themselves will lead to its collapse. In this process it is easy to read into Marx a normative condemnation of capitalism and it is easy to believe that that is the extent of Marx’s critique. But I have argued with Wood’s analysis of Capital and Marx’s historical materialism that such an understanding is a misinterpretation and commits a category error when attempting to defend capitalism.

Bibliography

“Economic Manuscripts: Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy.” Accessed January 23, 2026. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface.htm.

Karl Marx, Capital Volume 1, trans. Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling, (Wordsworth Editions Ltd, 2013).

Wolff, Jonathan, and David Leopold. “Karl Marx.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Fall 2025, edited by Edward N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2025. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2025/entries/marx/.

Wood, Allen W. “The Marxian Critique of Justice.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 1, no. 3 (1972): 244–82.

A note on citations: my two Marx sources are Capital (the Wordsworth edition from 2013 which is the one laying around my home) and a Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy from the Marxist archive. My two academic sources are the SEP article on Marx and Wood, and my nonacademic sources are my notes from high school about the Pareto Principle and would’ve been either directly from the study book or an interview with my old economics teacher would I have had access to either of those options. I was unable to find a second nonacademic source.