Ellerman's Labor Theory of Property and the Injustice of Capitalist Exploitation

Theodore Burczak

Review of Social Economy, 2001, vol. 59, issue 2, 161-183

Abstract: The traditional Marxian arguments for the injustice of capitalist exploitation generally focus on the ownership patterns of productive property. Exploitation is thus viewed either as the result of illegitimate private ownership or as the result of the unequal distribution of productive assets. This paper seeks to contribute a different perspective on the injustice of exploitation. It argues that exploitation violates principles of appropriative and contractual justice, rather than distributive justice. To make this case, the paper shows how Ellerman's labor theory of property might be combined with Resnick and Wolff's Marxian theory of exploitation and enriched by Nussbaum's interpretation of Aristotelian moral theory to challenge the justice of the wage-for-labor-time exchange, without making reference to the existence or distribution of private property.

Keywords: Ellerman; Labor Theory Of Property; Exploitation; Justice; Marxism; Aristotle (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00346760110035572 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rsocec:v:59:y:2001:i:2:p:161-183

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RRSE20

DOI: 10.1080/00346760110035572

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Social Economy is currently edited by Wilfred Dolfsma and John Davis

More articles in Review of Social Economy from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().