Surplus-Value, Distribution and Exploitation

Alberto Battistini ()

Department of Economics University of Siena from Department of Economics, University of Siena

Abstract: This paper introduces a notion of exploitation according to which participants in a cooperative production process are exploited to the extent that their earnings coincide with what they would earn from independent participation in the production process. This notion is then used to show that, in general, the institutional structure of production is not the solution to the problem of (opportunistic) exploitation, but may instead be the condition itself for its occurrence. Starting from the observation that surplus-value is almost always created by the collective undertaking of non additively separable investments, the key to the result is to take groups as units of analysis in a Marx-inspired framework driven by the evolutionary principle of differential, multilevel profit realization

Keywords: between-group competition; within-group competition; intra-group relationships; inter-group relationships; efficiency-enhancing distribution. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A12 D20 D33 D74 J21 J64 L22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-10
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:usi:wpaper:518

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