RacIaL exPLoItatIoN ( 119 )or poor working conditions, though these certainly make it worse. Rather,
exploitation has to do with the transfer of surplus value from the workers to
the capitalists. To the extent that there is a normative critique in Marxism,
it has often been taken to rely crucially on the claim that this relation is
an exploitative one. Moreover, it is not just capitalism but class society in
general that is exploitative, which is why we need to move toward a class-
less society. Finally, the exploitative nature of the system does not reside in
class prejudice, in hostile views of the workers, but rather in their structural
disadvantaging by this transfer of surplus value through the wage relation. If
Marx is right, class exploitation is normal; it does not require extraordinary
measures but flows out of the routine functioning of the system.
But Marx was also hopeful that exploitation would stimulate proletar-
ian resistance. It was in part precisely because of their exploitation that the
workers were supposed to develop class consciousness, form trade unions,
question the existing order, and ultimately participate in a revolution-
ary movement to overthrow capitalism. So exploitation provides both an
explanation for the logic of domination and a potential basis for its political
overcoming. What is supposed to make the socio- political wheels go round
are class interests of a material kind, tied to perceptions of economic advan-
tage, actual and possible (i.e., in an alternative society). But the problem is
that the claim that capitalism is necessarily exploitative historically rested
on the labor theory of value, and with the discrediting of this theory it has
now become harder to defend.^13
Liberal and Marxist ViewsThe case I want to make is that racial exploitation can provide a parallel,
perhaps in some respects superior, illumination of the inner workings of
modern society, and that it is greatly advantaged over the Marxist concept
by not being tied to a dubious economic theory. Comparatively little work
has been done on the concept of racial exploitation. I think this is because
it has fallen between both theoretical and political stools in an interesting
way. In his book on “mutually advantageous and consensual exploitation,”
Alan Wertheimer points out that though the term is routinely bandied
about, mainstream liberal theorists have had surprisingly little to say about
it: “Exploitation has not been a central concern for contemporary political
and moral philosophy.” He suggests that there are at least three reasons for
this silence: the concept’s guilt- by- association with Marxism; the aforemen-
tioned post- Rawlsian focus on ideal theory, the normative theory appropri-
ate for a perfectly just society (in which, by definition, exploitation would
not occur); and the fact that whereas exploitation is typically a “micro- level