Hayeks Response to Markxs Exploitation

Exploitation occurs between the capitalists and the workers. Capitalists are those who own the both the physical and material means of production. Their only goal is the creation of more wealth for themselves. While workers are those who “have neither material goods they can sell nor the material means of producing the things they need for themselves.”

For Marx, the only way for Capitalists to create profits is to exploit their workers. Exploitation can be defined as that which involves unjust non-reciprocal benefit. This is where one person benefits another without the first giving in return the benefit back to the second person in a just way. The issue of surplus value is what Marx determined to be how Capitalists exploited the workers. Surplus value can be determined by the ‘necessary labour time’ which the workers must work in order to produce goods whose value is able to sustain themselves and their livelihood.

However, the average worker in a Capitalist society simply can not go home once this value of work has been reached, they have to work a full working day in order to get paid their wages. This work that is performed after the necessary labour time is termed the ‘surplus labour time’. As Conway (1987) explains, this is exploitation according to Marx because the Capitalist owners of the means of production were not making a reciprocal return to the workers for their surplus value. This taking of the surplus value is a form of exploitation of the workers in that under Capitalism, workers are forced into engaging into the working relationship with the capitalist because they are the ones who own the means of production. The working class only have their ability to work to sell, and for profits to be made they need to work with the means of production which is owned by the capitalist. So lacking the means of production of their own, workers are forced to accept a wage contract in which they are bound to perform surplus labour.

Capitalists have three ways in which to increase this surplus labour and thus through further exploitation of workers, increase their profits. These are one to lengthen the hours of the working day to increase the work that the worker performs. Secondly the capitalist can use their control over production to intensify the working day, making them work harder and more rapidly so that every moment of the day they are producing capital. Last, the capitalist can decrease the wage given to the workers by either giving the jobs to migrants who are willing to work for cheaper or to move the production facility to a place where cheap labour can be found.

Hayek’s response to Marx would be that it is skill and luck, and the processes of the market forces that determine the position an individual has on the income ladder. Also exploitation cannot occur as exploitation needs to be unjust, and as Hayek argues that there is no such thing as social justice, there cannot be exploitation.

The issue of the market and social justice are