Abstract

Contemporary theoretical discussions of exploitation are dominated by thinkers in the liberal and Marxian traditions. Exploitation: From Practice to Theory, pushes past these traditional and binary explanations, to focus on unjust practises that both depend on and perpetuate inequalities central to exploitation.

Using real-world examples, the chapters in this collection address key questions, including, in what ways are exploitation practices globalised, racialized and gendered? How do cases of organ selling, price gouging and commercial gestational surrogacy change our understandings of exploitation? What possible social and economic remedies do these new conceptions prescribe?

Case studies in this volume span the globe, dealing with developed and developing countries alike and in a variety of national and transnational contexts.
An important and provocative collection of essays, Exploitation: From Practice to Theory forces us to ask tough questions about what it means in practice to protect the vulnerable.
Matt Zwolinski, Professor of Philosophy, University of San Diego
Monique Deveaux is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Guelph, Canada, where she holds the Canada Research Chair in Ethics and Global Social Change.

Vida Panitch is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Carleton University, Canada.
We cannot understand exploitation – let alone what’s wrong with it – unless we carefully scrutinize how it works in the real world. In particular, we need to understand how exploitation is rooted in social structures. That is what this rich, engaging collection helps us do. Anyone who cares about exploitation should read this book.
Michael Neu, Senior Lecturer in PPE, University of Brighton
This volume brings together work from an impressive and diverse array of thinkers. It makes a major contribution to our understanding of exploitation by applying philosophical analysis in a wide range of practical contexts.
Stephen Wilkinson, Professor, Lancaster University
Philosophical discussion about exploitation has so far been dominated by two approaches, one Marxist and another liberal. The Marxist tradition views exploitation as a phenomenon that results from economic and social systems of oppression. By contrast, the liberal tradition frames the phenomenon as reducible to impaired consent or unfair pricing in various transactions. Exploitation: From Practice to Theory challenges the two main frameworks that dominate the literature, showing how exploitation can both recognize systematic or structural issues while acknowledging how transactions can generate and sustain exploitative practices. This excellent volume constitutes a highly welcome contribution to several debates in ethics, social and political philosophy, and applied ethics. Through useful discussion of many case studies this collection also emphasizes the need for legal and economic reforms that reduce vulnerability to exploitation.
Gillian Brock, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Auckland, New Zealand
This book moves us beyond the binary debate of liberal versus Marxist conceptions of exploitation to see inequalities as the bedrock of exploitative relations. The authors combine insights from the study of socio-structural injustice with liberal-transactional accounts of exploitative agents, to pave a broader path for understanding exploitation. Employing a new practice-to-theory methodological approach, the authors begin with real world examples to demonstrate the inadequacies of traditional liberal or Marxist accounts of exploitation. Solutions to exploitation lie in remedying the inequalities that render some groups vulnerable to exploitation at the hands of more powerful others.
Julie Murphy Erfani, Director, MA Program in Social Justice and Human Rights, New College, Arizona State University
Contemporary theoretical discussions of exploitation are dominated by thinkers in the liberal and Marxian traditions... "Exploitation: From Practice to Theory" pushes past these traditional and binary explanations, to focus on unjust practices that both depend on and perpetuate inequalities central to exploitation... A model of seminal scholarship, "Exploitation: From Practice to Theory" is enhanced with the inclusion of an eighteen page Bibliography, a ten page Index, and a three page listing of the contributors and their credentials, making it unreservedly recommended for both community and academic library Political Science & Philosophy collections.