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From: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: What is socialism?
Message-ID: <197@ubvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 25-Feb-85 17:49:07 EST
Article-I.D.: ubvax.197
Posted: Mon Feb 25 17:49:07 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Feb-85 10:23:50 EST
References: <325@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> <711@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA> <190@ubvax.UUCP>, <736@ucbtopaz.CC.BerkRe: What is socialism?
Organization: Ungermann-Bass, Inc., Santa Clara, Ca.
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>In particular, how can you distinguish this from the case where there
>are people who are chosing to live in ways you would find abhorrant, and
>from the case where there aer people who are a product of adverse
>cirmcumstances that are a result of chance rather than exploitation?
>
>Laura Creighton

A person is exploited if her unequal relationship to someone else forces her
to make decisions which leave her worse off than if she and that someone
else were on an equal footing.  "Decisions" are like choices in a game
where both of the unequal participants compete.

In the case of property differences, if a person lacks property and has
to make hard life choices that she wouldn't have to worry about if she and
someone else had equal property holdings, then she's exploited.

If people are choosing to live in ways I'd find abhorrant, then they would
(I presume) still choose to lead their abhorrant lives if they and I were
on an equal footing.  Then they aren't exploited.

People who are unlucky are not exploited if they could have been just as
unlucky in a fair game.  Of course, the comparison between chances in
one game and chances in another can only be done when more than one case
is involved (distributions and all that).

In the real world, where most competitive situations involve risk and
chance, one can't say in a particular case that exploitation is going on.
But one can say that exploitation is going on if many cases are compared
and the differences between group outcomes correspond to inequalities
in important resources.  Once a finding of exploitation has been made,
the inference can then be made that each member of the exploited group
is exploited as an individual.

In the context of socialism, people are exploited by capital if they
would be better off (would choose to live a different and more satisfied
life) in a situation where capital differentials were (more or less)
eliminated, i.e. in socialism.  Whether they would be better off is
a pragmatic, historical question, a question of what the alternative
socialist system would look like in a given period of history and
political-economic development.

The power of Marx's vision was that he saw a time when the capitalist
economy would be so advanced and there would be so much potential opportunity
for all that the exploited would clearly see that it was in their interest
to throw off the shackles of capital for a society where those shackles
would no longer exist.  At that point, the non-exploited and exploiting
classes would present an obstacle to change that perhaps only revolutions
would be able to overcome.

Tony Wuersch
(amd!amdcad!cae780!ubvax!tonyw)