Exploitation is the act of mistreating someone in order to benefit from their work. An example of exploitation can also be making use of natural resources to build a city. Sweatshops are examples of exploitation that still exist today. Karl Marx, a German philosopher, believed that the force behind capitalist production is the unpaid labor of workers. So for Karl Marx, exploitation is the key to a capitalist system. Exploitation can occur anywhere, and most of the time, it's very unjust. That's when we begin to ask ourselves, "How can we prevent this from happening" The Us department of Labor defines a sweatshop as a factory that violates two or more labor laws. Laws that can pertain to wages, child labor, hours, and more. Workers experience extreme exploitation in sweatshops. No living wage or benefits, verbal and physical abuse, and terrible working conditions make sweatshops horrific. Workers are trapped in an awful cycle of exploitation. This is because they make very little, and they aren't able to save up their money, so they'll never get out of their poverty. Defenders of sweatshops often say that even though sweatshops are wrong, they at least give people jobs they wouldn't have had otherwise. However, the jobs are so bad it barely improves their financial situation. The US Department of Labor estimates that more than half of the nation's 22 000 clothing factories are sweatshops, mainly in the apparel centers of New York, California, and Miami. In all locations, the wages are meager; they have no benefits, long hours, and unsafe working conditions. The workers who complain about these conditions are replaced very quickly. Restaurant and hotel workers are also underpaid with few benefits; they work long hours without overtime pay. If they complain, they could get fired. If it's common in America, then exploitation occurs in other foreign countries with sweatshops. With very few labor laws, it's widespread for exploitation to take place in other countries as well.
One of the most influential theories of exploitation ever set forth is that of Karl Marx. According to Marx, exploitation is fundamental to capitalism. He believed that workers in a capitalist society are exploited as they are forced to sell their labor power to capitalists for less than the total value of the merchandise they produce with their labor. According to Marx, a worker's day is split into two parts. During the first part, the laborer works for himself, so producing supplies equal to the value of the amount of money he receives. During the second part, the laborer works for the capitalist, producing surplus value for the capitalist for which he gets no equal pay. If exploitation is crucial to capitalism, then the logical conclusion is that an end to exploitation would require an end to capitalism. However, exploitation is not unique to capitalism; it's been a part of all class societies. Under slavery, exploitation is obvious to exploiters and exploited alike. ...
