Does Marx Have a “General Conception of Exploitation”?

Allen Buchanan and others have put forward a popular view that Marx holds a “general conception of exploitation,” in which one individual benefits by exploiting the interests of others. However, a close reading of Marx’s texts reveals that this interpretation lacks theoretical grounding and is, in fact, an ideological construction that can be traced back to the utilitarian theory of exploitation. Marx exposed this ideology as rooted in the sphere of production and closely connected to the rise of capitalist relations of production. Following the method of critique of political economy, which proceeds from the concrete to the abstract and then rising to the concrete, Marx further takes “individuals producing in society” as his starting point for a critical analysis of relations of production. The concept of exploitation must be understood within the specific context of capitalist production relations, rather than as a general notion of harm between individuals. Marx therefore consistently emphasizes the class nature of exploitation and rejects the views of bourgeois political economy, which interpret exploitation from individualistic or moralistic perspectives.