This paper contributes to our understanding of the determinants and dynamics of Marxian exploitation using quarterly UK data, 1955-2008. Initially a simple model is introduced for the purpose of defining exploitation and its component parts, before elaborating on theoretical issues which are...

In a recent contribution on this journal, Matsuo (2009) has provided an interesting argument to refute the Generalised Commodity Exploitation Theorem (GCET), by highlighting a potential asymmetry between labour and other commodities. In this paper, a novel characterisation of the relation...

This paper provides a mathematical analysis of the Marxian theory of the exploitation of labour in general equilibrium models. The two main definitions of Marxian exploitation in the literature, proposed by Morishima (1974) and Roemer (1982), respectively, are analysed in the context of general...

In the standard Okishio-Morishima approach, the existence of profits is proved to be equivalent to the exploitation of labor. Yet, it can also be proved that the existence of profits is equivalent to the “exploitation†of any good. Labor and commodity exploitation are just different...

Ever since capitalism came to be recognized as a new economic system, it has had vociferous critics, of whom none was more wide-ranging than Karl Marx. Marx recognized that behind its ideological patina of freedom, capitalism, like the exploitative systems of slavery and feudalism, was a social...

This article deals with a theoretical point: the alleged consistency of the Marxian notion of exploitation with the Sraffian theory of prices. The problem is examined in a historico-critical perspective. The discussion is centred on the idea that in a circular model of production with vertically...

The paper refers to selected problems of exploitation in the face of justice. The analysis is based on the definitions of exploitation contained in the Polish Penal and Civil Codes. The main subject of our interest is the identification of the necessary and sufficient conditions for the...

In subsistence economies with general convex technology and rational optimising agents, a new, axiomatic approach is developed, which allows an explicit analysis of the core positive and normative intuitions behind the concept of exploitation. Three main new axioms, called Labour Exploitation in...

This paper critically analyses the strongly subjectivist approach to exploitation theory recently proposed by Matsuo ([7]), in the context of general convex economies with heterogeneous agents. It is proved that the Fundamental Marxian Theorem is not preserved in his subjectivist approach,...

This paper provides an innovative axiomatic analysis of the notion of exploitation as the unequal exchange of labour, focusing on the relation between exploitation and profits. General convex economies with heterogeneous agents endowed with unequal amounts of physical and human capital are...