Defining Exploitation in America(SumBlog6)

Video Link: Walmart Strike

This week we spent a considerable amount of time discussing Karl Marx and his theory of exploitation.  I believe that a lot of times when people think of exploitation, they think of sweatshops in third world countries.  This is a valid thought considering how terrible the conditions are in many of the factories that produce our clothes and technological accessories.  However, there are also examples of exploitation right here in America that should be considered.  I chose to include the above video because it demonstrates how exploitation occurs here too.  This domestic example may not be as severe as those in third world countries, but that does not mean it should continue to be overlooked.

Exploitation, by definition, is a rather complicated thing to understand.  The first important concept involved is that employers purchase our labor through our wages.  However, they also gain from our labor through the capital that they gain from the finished product.  In the end, the employees are being exploited because they are not gaining the full benefits from their labor.  Also, many people end up giving free labor to their employers because the employers get more profit out of their employees than what they pay them.

Walmart is a department store that has yearly fiscal revenue in the hundreds of billions of dollars.  Yet, according to this video, many of their full time employees make below the poverty line (of a two person household).  The video clip attached to this post shows a group of employees that feel that they are being exploited by the corporation that they are working for.  Even though they make above the federal poverty line for an individual, they argue that they deserve to be paid more due to the immense profit that Walmart makes each fiscal year.  I like the perspective of this video because it shows exploitation from a way that most people don’t see it.  People can still be exploited without being poor or working in terrible conditions.  All it takes to be exploited is a system that demands a specific number of hours of labor that results in the employer making more capital off of each employee than they are paying that employee for their services.