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Conflating the Marxian economic concept of “rate of exploitation” and the modern usage of the word “exploitation” is disingenuous. You could similarly say that

Conflating the Marxian economic concept of “rate of exploitation” and the modern usage of the word “exploitation” is disingenuous. You could similarly say that a FAANG engineer earning $400k is several hundred percent more exploited than a millworker two hundred years ago - which sounds preposterous of course.

sudosysgen 5y ago
It's not really the Marxian concept at play here. There's no measure of the organic composition of capital and of returns on capital to measure the exploitation rate that a Marxian economist would use. A Marxian economist would rather find that the rate of profit per unit of capital which is equal to the average rate of exploitation is relatively within norms. A Marxian economist would probably consider that Google at a 20% overall profit margin with the vast majority of expenses being labour or themselves mostly a labour cost in their production to be, while exploitative, much less exploitative than paying 20$ in wages to make a product then sold at a 400$ profit. Certainly the Apple hardware divisions are much more exploitative. Certainly not even close to the level of exploitation that there was in 19th century England when the rate of return on capital was of around 30%, and where the most profitable mills often had over 50% profit margins, well ahead of even Google on their best years. Instead I'm using the common, modern usage of exploitation, which is to pay someone very little to make a lot of profit from them.
- owenversteeg 5y ago
  No, I'm sorry, the "rate of exploitation" is purely a Marxian economic concept, and it is a simple ratio: that of the total amount of surplus-value to the total amount of wages paid. The article we are discussing here clearly refers to the Marxian concept and not anything else. You are conflating so many different things (gross profit margin, net profit margin, rate of return on capital, rate of exploitation) that I do not even know where to start. I would recommend a primer on economics.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    Do you suggest another way of quantifying exploitation? How do you judge who is more or less exploited? It stands to reason that if you're getting paid less but your employer is making a lot of money, you're more exploited than otherwise. There is no good way of approximating the rate of exploitation of Google. All we know is that it is lower or close to the gross profit margin unless cost of raw resources are significant. We also know that the rate of exploitation is necessary higher than the rate of return on capital for capital heavy industries, which was the case of the mills in 19th century England. So despite low quality data on the rate of exploitation we know that it's higher than for Google. Also net income is closely related to the rate of exploitation. I'm not confusing them, they're just the closest proxy. If you take the "non-labour costs" as themselves a sum of indirect labour costs and ultimately rents, you will understand why.

sudosysgen 5y ago

It's not really the Marxian concept at play here. There's no measure of the organic composition of capital and of returns on capital to measure the exploitation rate that a Marxian economist would use. A Marxian economist would rather find that the rate of profit per unit of capital which is equal to the average rate of exploitation is relatively within norms. A Marxian economist would probably consider that Google at a 20% overall profit margin with the vast majority of expenses being labour or themselves mostly a labour cost in their production to be, while exploitative, much less exploitative than paying 20$ in wages to make a product then sold at a 400$ profit. Certainly the Apple hardware divisions are much more exploitative. Certainly not even close to the level of exploitation that there was in 19th century England when the rate of return on capital was of around 30%, and where the most profitable mills often had over 50% profit margins, well ahead of even Google on their best years. Instead I'm using the common, modern usage of exploitation, which is to pay someone very little to make a lot of profit from them.

owenversteeg 5y ago
No, I'm sorry, the "rate of exploitation" is purely a Marxian economic concept, and it is a simple ratio: that of the total amount of surplus-value to the total amount of wages paid. The article we are discussing here clearly refers to the Marxian concept and not anything else. You are conflating so many different things (gross profit margin, net profit margin, rate of return on capital, rate of exploitation) that I do not even know where to start. I would recommend a primer on economics.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  Do you suggest another way of quantifying exploitation? How do you judge who is more or less exploited? It stands to reason that if you're getting paid less but your employer is making a lot of money, you're more exploited than otherwise. There is no good way of approximating the rate of exploitation of Google. All we know is that it is lower or close to the gross profit margin unless cost of raw resources are significant. We also know that the rate of exploitation is necessary higher than the rate of return on capital for capital heavy industries, which was the case of the mills in 19th century England. So despite low quality data on the rate of exploitation we know that it's higher than for Google. Also net income is closely related to the rate of exploitation. I'm not confusing them, they're just the closest proxy. If you take the "non-labour costs" as themselves a sum of indirect labour costs and ultimately rents, you will understand why.