Marx’s Theory of Exploitation
Workers create products. So workers should have a right to their value.
On Episode 12 of Bernie Sanders’ campaign podcast Hear the Bern, Sanders’ press secretary Briahna Joy Gray explained something she called “basic labor theory” with an example about making tables.
Let’s say that I’ve got a bunch of wood. I’m in the business of making tables. You’re a laborer. … I’ve got $10 worth of wood products because I have capital for reasons historically…maybe I colonized someone, who knows…but I have capital. So I have $10 worth of wood and I say to you, “Can you make this into a table?” You are able to do so. You fashion this table for me, and now I’m able to sell it to Bianca for $20. There is $10 worth of profit there. You made those $10 worth of profit.
On this analysis, one of the justifications for the reforms advocated by Sanders is that they allow workers to keep more of the wealth they created in the first place.
For starters, a $15 national minimum wage and various measures designed to make it easier for workers to form unions would reduce the amount taken out of workers’ paychecks in the form of profits. Also, workers would receive a greater share of the profits that are taken out via the redistributive instrument of higher taxation. More of that wealth would be…
