https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8197-0364
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Benjamin Ferguson, Roberto Veneziani, Exploitation as Domination?, Analysis, 2024;, anae007, https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/anae007
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1. Introduction
Historically, many philosophers have proposed analyses of exploitation that imply that it is tantamount to an unfair distribution of benefits (Arneson 2013, Roemer 1982, Steiner 1984, Wertheimer 1996, Zwolinski et al. 2022). A growing number of authors now agree that purely distributive accounts are insufficient to capture exploitation (Ferguson 2021), but there is no agreement about what else might be required.
Nicholas Vrousalis has provided the most original and most critical response to purely distributive accounts. Over the past decade, he has argued not only that accounts of exploitation based exclusively on maldistribution are insufficient, but also that appeals to fairness are unnecessary for exploitation (Vrousalis 2013, 2016, 2018, 2021). Instead, he has consistently argued that exploitation is domination for self-enrichment; ‘a dividend of servitude’ (Vrousalis 2013: 167).1
His current monograph offers the most comprehensive and developed version of his account. Its scope and ambition are impressive. It includes a novel taxonomy of theories of exploitation in Chapter 1; an expansion, revision and defence of his core account, in Chapters 2 through 4; and an application of his account to capitalist exploitation and international relations in Chapters 5 and 6. Chapter 7 concludes with three alternatives to capitalism that might avoid exploitation as domination: unconditional basic income, property owning democracy, and workplace democracy. Vrousalis argues that only the latter two can eliminate exploitation.
