Exploitation

This thesis is organized into two parts. In the first, I focus on concepts, ones which include a series of critiques on past human behaviors and mindsets. I trace how rationalist ideologies and worldviews developed into conformist schematics, and how these schematics have been implemented via central state authority. I also examine the results of this process, focusing on dehumanization, silencing, and objectification. Informed by Scott, I describe legibility construction. In the process of making people and places legible to central (...) authorities, large swaths of detail become obfuscated or lost. Oftentimes this leads into attempts to reconstruct the territory in the image of the rationalized map. This conformist vision pays no attention to the locality, tradition, or context of the people and places being bulldozed in the process. I also draw from and analyze speculative fiction, a medium which allows the imagining of potential futures. Fiction can help inform the future and articulate failures of the past and present. -/- In the second part, I outline my own working conception of how to move toward a more equitable and sustainable future. Rather than providing a prescriptive blueprint of how I think the world ought to operate, I instead outline general goals that I believe are worth moving towards, along with potential strategies for getting there. (shrink)

The letter analyzes the country-specific structural stigma in the modern media development of People’s Republic of China. It raises the issues on unconventional cybersecurity risks in mental & psychological health with a lens of justice in gender & marriage, and critical discourses in the media environment with the Chinese revisionist nationalism. It studied media coercion in relation to the breaches of humanitarian law in the constitutionalism context of PRC, and adopted a critical theory approach to religion with the background of (...) the militarization of religion by the Chinese “United Front”. With the non-identity problem in the totalitarian regime, structural stigma is analyzed with coercion theory and religion in queer gender. Ménage à trois is justified by case specificity in human development and global economy. (shrink)

This paper presents a robust stage-based system for equitable resource allocation, using water as a proxy for all essential resources and Bitcoin (B1) as Earth’s primary currency. The system ensures fairness by resetting Bitcoin’s value to 1 water unit post-hack, progressively eliminating malicious actors via an infinite Bitcoin trap (B2), and updating block hashes with new timestamps to counter blockchain hacks without re-mining. A key principle is that the Bitcoin genesis block hash, created by Satoshi Nakamoto (000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f), is the only (...) constant hash across all Bitcoin-based systems, holding intrinsic value greater than all hackers’ wealth combined. This hash anchors trust, immutability, and fairness, ensuring Satoshi symbolically retains 1 BTC as the system’s cornerstone. Simulations confirm the system supports non-malicious individuals, eliminates hackers, and upholds the genesis hash’s primacy, aligning with economic principles (Smith, 1776; Keynes, 1936) and systems theory (von Bertalanffy, 1956). (shrink)

In this chapter I consider a common refrain among critics of digital platforms: big tech "exploits" us. It gives voice to a shared sense that technology firms are somehow mistreating people—taking advantage of us, extracting from us—in a way that other data-driven harms, such as surveillance and algorithmic bias, fail to capture. Exploring several targets of this charge—gig work, algorithmic pricing, and surveillance advertising—I ask: What does exploitation entail, exactly, and how do platforms perpetrate it? Is exploitation in the platform (...) economy a new kind of exploitation, or are these old problems dressed up as new ones? What would a theory of digital exploitation add to our understanding of the platform age? First, I define exploitation and argue that critics are justified in describing many platform practices as wrongfully exploitative. Next, I focus on platforms themselves—both as businesses and technologies—in order to understand what is and isn’t new about the kinds of exploitation we are witnessing. In some cases, digital platforms perpetuate familiar forms of exploitation by extending the ability of exploiters to reach and control exploitees. In other cases, they enable new exploitative arrangements by creating or exposing vulnerabilities that powerful actors couldn't previously leverage. On the whole, I argue, the language of exploitation helps express forms of injustice overlooked or only partially captured by dominant concerns about, e.g., surveillance, discrimination, and related platform abuses, and it provides valuable conceptual and normative resources for challenging efforts by platforms to obscure or legitimate them. (shrink)

Informing others about the world is often a helpful act. In this paper, I study agents who conduct experiments to gather information about the world, committing in advance to fully disclose the nature of the experiment together with all experimental findings. While this appears to be a benign activity, I characterize a type of exploitative informing that is possible even within this restricted setup. I show how exploitative informants use public experiments to predictably manipulate interlocutors’ beliefs and actions to their (...) own advantage. I discuss epistemic and practical grounds on which it may be permissible for agents to resist acts of exploitative informing, then conclude by discussing implications for epistemic injustice and duties to gather evidence. (shrink)

Today, housing remains a paradigmatic site of debate about broad socio-political matters: individual autonomy and responsibility, state perfectibility, democratic health, leisure, and familial reproduction. This essay revisits Friedrich Engels’s canonical pamphlet 'The Housing Question' (1872) to interrogate the enduring association between home ownership, place attachment, and conservation—or conservatism. I demonstrate that strong and productive connections exist between the Housing Question debate, contemporary politics, and contemporary housing discourse. Engels’s rebuke of Proudhonist housing-related commendations continues to hold significance in discourses on what (...) housing is, and what it should and should not be. Drawing on his pamphlet, I conceptualize the figures of the Engelsian “unfettered jailbird” and the Proudhonist homeowner as respectively embodying revolutionary mobility and idle rootedness. Idle rootedness is conceived as freedom in the Proudhonist approach. This directly contrasts with the Engelsian approach which casts home ownership as unfreedom.! These two opposed approaches are also two perspectives on the impacts of being housed. In Engels’s account, housing participates in encouraging or preventing man’s idleness and unfreedom. Proprietorship and place attachment, in this latter sense, are conceptualized as practically antithetical to emancipatory futures. (shrink)

This article argues that the relations of social and political power that obtain between humans and pets are illegitimate. We begin by showing that pets, a largely neglected population in political philosophy, are subject to socially and politically organised power, which stands in need of justification. We then argue that pets have three moral complaints against the relations of power to which they are subject. First, our power over pets disrespects their moral independence: the fact that they are not simply (...) available to be used to serve the interests or projects of others. Second, our power over pets systematically sets back their interests in exercising control over their own body, actions, and environment. Third, in subjecting pets to asymmetric relations of power in which they are heavily dependent on humans for the satisfaction of their interests, we subject them to objectionable risks of harm. Together, these complaints support our thesis that the power relations central to the institution of pet keeping are illegitimate. The practical upshot is that we have a strong moral reason to abolish this institution. (shrink)

In Maskivker’s recent “Justice and Contribution,” she argues that, under normal circumstances, the failure to guarantee that life-sustaining workers are above the non-struggle point is not merely disrespectful and a failure of beneficence, but a violation of the norms of fair play and, as such, a “low blow.” In this article, I offer a critical reply to Maskivker. I begin by explaining her reasoning. Then I turn to critique, focusing on two key weaknesses and, in so doing, drawing out two (...) larger lessons. -/- Dans son récent article « Justice and Contribution », Julia Maskivker soutient que, dans des circonstances normales, le fait de ne pas garantir que les travailleurs essentiels à la vie reçoivent une compensation suffisante pour ne pas avoir à lutter pour leur subsistance (« non-struggle point ») constitue non seulement un manque de respect et un manque de bienfaisance, mais aussi une violation des normes du franc jeu et, par conséquent, un « coup bas ». Dans cet article, j’offre une réponse critique à Maskivker. Je commence par expliquer son raisonnement. Puis, je passe à la critique, en me concentrant sur deux faiblesses clés et, ce faisant, en tirant deux leçons plus importantes. (shrink)

Some contemporary philosophers, such as Gary Chartier, Matt Zwolinski, and Miranda Fleischer, propose that a basic income should be seen as an instrument for rectifying historical injustices. This article examines the arguments for this proposal based on Robert Nozick’s historical theory of justice. The first part of the article formulates the normative basis of Nozick’s theory, as well as his three principles of distributive justice: the principle of original appropriation, the principle of voluntary transfer, and the principle of rectification. Nozick (...) himself believed that, in modern societies, the principle of rectification may require the redistributive policies envisaged by John Rawls’s difference principle. The second section examines reasons why historical justice theorists should prefer basic income, including the arguments by Milton Friedman, Matt Zwolinski, and Philippe Van Parijs. The third section responds to several objections to rectification redistribution proposed by Loren Lomasky and Jan Narveson. In order to counteract these objections, Hillel Steiner’s liberal theory of exploitation is proposed, which serves as an additional argument in favor of the fact that rectification can be organized through a basic income. (shrink)

This contribution lays out five criteria for a successful argument proving that employers impermissibly exploit their workers when they pay them an unfairly low wage. Michael Kates has recently provided two metrics of fairness which satisfy the first two. The contribution argues that while Kates has significantly advanced the discussion, the final three criteria have yet to be satisfied. The contribution then identifies several difficulties posed by such an endeavour, and questions whether it is worth the trouble. It may indeed (...) be unnecessary to prove that workers are exploited by their employers to justify higher wages. (shrink)

This essay undertakes an archaeological examination of Homo Normalis—the imagined “normal” human produced by the modern sciences of order. Beginning with Quetelet’s l’homme moyen and Galton’s moralisation of deviation, it follows how statistical averages hardened into ethical imperatives and administrative norms. Psychology, sociology, and critical theory each perpetuate this logic of legibility, translating life into measurable compliance. The study traces the migration of normality from virtue to infrastructure, revealing how biopower governs not through repression but through optimisation and care. In (...) the contemporary palliative society, even emotion is quantified and neurodiversity commodified. Against this regime of legibility, the essay proposes an ethics of variance: a refusal to restore wholeness or coherence, and a commitment instead to lucidity—the disciplined awareness of the apparatus that renders life governable. The Myth of Homo Normalis forms part of the ongoing Anti-Enlightenment project alongside Against Agency and The Discipline of Dis-Integration. (shrink)

In cases where structural oppression conditions the broader public sphere, the democratic ideal of a receptive public may be threatened by at least two possible outcomes which appear to undermine its stated goal of increasing understanding of counterhegemonic ideas amongst mainstream, oppressive groups. Either (a) counterhegemonic ideas are defanged to make them sufficiently palatable to a new audience, or (b) counterhegemonic ideas are taken up intact, and as a result the extant networks of publics which depend on oppressive structures and (...) hierarchies will be destroyed. As we will argue, in certain cases of colonialism such as the Straits Philosophical Society in colonial Singapore, the conditions which receptive publics are supposed to ameliorate: (i) the social costs of speech, (ii) inequality of epistemic labour, and (iii) the antagonism between groups, are not only an irreducible feature of counterhegemonic efforts, but are in fact increased in the attempt to maintain receptive publics. However, this may be more a feature than a bug: receptive publics need not be seen only as communicative intermediaries for oppressed groups, but as a possible dialectical step towards new modes of socio-material life. (shrink)

I develop an egalitarian account of what's objectionable about coercion. The account is rooted in the idea that certain relationships, like those of master to slave or lord to peasant, are relationships of subordination or domination. These relationships are morally objectionable. Such relationships are in part constituted by asymmetries of power. A master subordinates a slave because the master has more power over the slave than vice versa. Coercion is objectionable, I argue, because it creates such asymmetries of power and (...) so creates relationships of subordination. This account, moreover, illuminates what's wrong with blackmail, exploitation, withholding aid, and compulsion. (shrink)

A partir de una breve consideración filosófica de la relación entre el trabajo enajenado en Marx y la ética protestante en Max Weber, se analizan sus consecuencias para la vida del individuo contemporáneo, atendiendo tanto a las teorizaciones de Albert Camus sobre lo absurdo como a las de Lobsang Castañeda sobre el hombre-maquinal y el mal del ímpetu. Así pues, se expone cómo las imposiciones capitalistas de la funcionalidad civilizatoria han orillado al ser humano de nuestros días a una negación (...) práctica del valor del ocio, el descanso y la relajación como condiciones indispensables para el bienestar. En respuesta a esta problemática, y en un intento de replantear en clave política la aceptación camusiana de lo absurdo, se propone el desprendimiento como una praxis de rebeldía existencial y resistencia pasiva, expresado a través del concepto de habitar este espacio. A nivel individual, esto constituye una forma de protesta pasiva contra el trabajo enajenado y el discurso hegemónico que lo justifica. (shrink)

Is a basic income ethically justifiable? This article offers several arguments in favor of a basic income from the perspective of Robert Nozick’s historical theory of justice. The first section outlines three basic principles of Nozick’s theory and explains its connections to libertarianism and natural rights theory. The second section argues for the adoption of the Lockean proviso as a limitation on the principle of original appropriation. It then presents three interpretations of the Lockean proviso: the Nozick’s proviso, the sufficiency (...) proviso, and the egalitarian proviso. All three provisos, albeit on different grounds, offer justification for a basic income. The third section turns to the principle of rectification of historical injustice. Together with Rawls’s difference principle and Steiner’s liberal theory of exploitation, the principle of rectification can also provide a justification for a basic income. The article concludes that, from an ethical perspective, a basic income is a promising form of redistribution. (shrink)

The human race has been socially organizing itself for probably about 1.8 million years. The first form of human organization was the hunter-gatherer, which was the form of organization in which man lived for about 99 % of his history. This mode of life caused humans to organize themselves into small groups and lead a nomadic life. The nomadic life ensured that these groups had no possessions and no wealth could be accumulated. In this manner, this form of human organization (...) ensured egalitarianism, a form of primitive communism. This changed dramatically with the development of agriculture in the so-called Neolithic Revolution in 10,000 BC. With the development of agriculture and the consequent development of technology, man became sedentary, the first towns were formed, and the class system made its appearance, that is, the separation between an administrative class and a productive class. The egalitarian and communist primitive society gave way to an increasingly centralized and hierarchical society. From network theory, they have been insisting for years on the benefits of the so-called scale-free networks, networks governed by certain privileged nodes called hubs. These networks are said to be slightly vulnerable and highly robust to errors. In this work, we perform a deep network analysis of a group of centralized-hierarchical networks and a group of decentralized-distributed networks. This work provides clear and compelling evidence that, contrary to what is maintained, decentralized-distributed networks are the least vulnerable and most robust networks, and are the networks that ensure an equitable and equal distribution of power and influence among their members. These results are analyzed in the context of network theory, and are discussed in relation to the theories of Jeremy Rifkin, Ernst Schumacher, Alexander Bogdanov and Aldous Huxley. (shrink)

The case for reparations for grievous acts of historical injustice has been getting a lot of attention lately. But I aim to broaden the discussion in two ways. First, I am not only going to talk about reparations as a means of rectifying the injuries inflicted by slavery and the genocide of indigenous peoples, the theft of their land, and the ongoing ripple effects of these historic wrongs. I am also going to talk about reparations for a wider variety of (...) historical injustices, including, most importantly, the long-term economic oppression of women, and the historical exploitation of labor. Second, I am not going to base my argument on the principle of equality, as most people currently do, but on the principle of liberty, as it is understood by libertarians on both the right and the left, at least as long as they believe what they say they believe. Not because I think that egalitarian demands for reparations are wrong. Rather, my point is that the principle of liberty, which is often raised as a defense to claims based on the principle of equality, actually leads to exactly the same place. Finally, I will discuss one possible form of reparations that has largely been ignored, but which has a special connection to libertarian principles, and I will show how it can provide some real relief without provoking the opposition that society-wide redistributive remedies usually face. (shrink)

Concerns about threats to human autonomy feature prominently in the field of AI ethics. One aspect of this concern relates to the use of AI systems for problematically manipulative influence. In response to this, the European Union’s draft AI Act (AIA) includes a prohibition on AI systems deploying subliminal techniques that alter people’s behavior in ways that are reasonably likely to cause harm (Article 5(1)(a)). Critics have argued that the term ‘subliminal techniques’ is too narrow to capture the target cases (...) of AI-based manipulation. We propose a definition of ‘subliminal techniques’ that (a) is grounded on a plausible interpretation of the legal text; (b) addresses all or most of the underlying ethical concerns motivating the prohibition; (c) is defensible from a scientific and philosophical perspective; and (d) does not over-reach in ways that impose excessive administrative and regulatory burdens. The definition is meant to provide guidance for design teams seeking to pursue responsible and ethically aligned AI innovation. (shrink)

A dialogue, in three parts, on utilitarian vulnerability to exploitation.

Modern and contemporary politics of P. R. China contain many elements similar to neo-Nazism if not anti-communist. The derivation from Communist doctrines was a less-known debate inside the CPC party leadership soon after the declaration on the founding of People’s Republic of China - notably between Mao, Zedong and the state leadership which resulted in the criminalization of the first president Liu, Shaoqi. The researcher, as a self-identified cisgender homosexual male and Christian, observed the cultural revisionist developments of the P. (...) R. C. regime from early childhood to date. The article enumerates some elements of the Chinese culture’s characteristics in taming and eliminating psychological and social identity formation that constitutes the regime stability in its dictatorial diplomatic rhetorics. It adopts the Christian theology and queer theology in a Gestalt recombination for the non-identity problem albeit with predominant militarization of religion approaches by the “United Front Working Group” for populist enslavement. The article hypothesizes a receptive psychosocial identity from such population in general, and the similar for Buddhist cultural origins. With the influences of designed propaganda media in media psychology, the political responses in mass psychological phenomena from the suppressed regime is considered to be a reflection on their inner senses of helplessness from the active and reactive failures of identity formation. The amplification of such phenomena is contributed by the nationalism propagandas and a gaslighting technique applied to International relations, which results in subjective Stockholm syndrome in some portions of the population. Relative intersubjectivity and absolute personal identity will be discussed in the conclusions, and its implications to dictatorial politics. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine how the availability of massive quantities of data i.e., the “Big Data” phenomenon, contributes to the creation, spread, and harms of online misinformation. Specifically, we argue that a factor in the problem of online misinformation is the evolved human instinct to recognize patterns. While the pattern-recognition instinct is a crucial evolutionary adaptation, we argue that in the age of Big Data, these capacities have, unfortunately, rendered us vulnerable. Given the ways in which online media outlets (...) profit from the spread of misinformation by preying on this pattern-finding instinct, we conceptualize the problem that we identify as a morally objectionable form of “epistemic exploitation.” As we argue, the consumer of digital misinformation is often exploited by having her pattern-recognition instinct used against her. This exploitation is morally objectionable because it deprives her of an epistemic good to which she has a right. This epistemic good is the integrity of the pattern-recognition instinct itself which, we argue, is a capacity that allows us to participate in uniquely human goods. While our primary goal is to bring attention to this form of epistemic exploitation, we conclude by briefly evaluating some general solutions to the growing problem of online misinformation. (shrink)

This article is a review of the contemporary ‘leftist’ republican project. The project stands on two legs, and we examine them both in turn. The first leg is a novel reading of history. This reading suggests, on the one hand that, contrary to some popular assumptions, republicanism does have a leftist, even a radical stream. But on the other hand, it also suggests that several authors and movements that did not self-identify as republicans actually did, in fact, employ a characteristically (...) republican thinking. The second leg of the project is a normative one. It is essentially an attempt by political philosophers to demonstrate that there is something in republican theory from which all these leftist, even radical streams spring forth. Primarily, it is suggested that it is republicanism’s sensitivity to the freedom-restricting role of great inequalities of power that provides the normative resource for the development of a characteristically republican critique of capital and capitalism. We briefly review the main arguments in favor of these claims, and also, as a conclusion, raise a few challenges that the ‘leftist’ republican project potentially faces. (shrink)

How could it be wrong to exploit—say, by paying sweatshop wages—if the exploited party benefits? How could it be wrong to do something gratuitously bad—like giving to a wasteful charity—if that is better than permissibly doing nothing? Joe Horton argues that these puzzles, known as the Exploitation Problem and All or Nothing Problem, have no unified answer. I propose one and pose a challenge for Horton’s take on the Exploitation Problem.

We argue that the ethical case for instituting vaccine benefit programs is justified by 2 widely recognized values: (1) reducing overall harm from COVID-19 and (2) protecting disadvantaged individuals. We then explain why they do not coerce, exploit, wrongfully distort decision-making, corrupt vaccination's moral significance, wrong those who have already been vaccinated, or destroy willingness to become vaccinated. However, their cost impacts and their effects on public perception of vaccines should be evaluated.

El presente texto está compuesto por tres capítulos en los cuales se esboza la filosofía política de Elías Canetti y Thomas Hobbes, en torno al concepto de la conformación de masas y el Estado civil; con el fin de responder a uno de los temas más controversiales, vigentes y constantes de las sociedades humanas como es el continuo movimiento y creación de masas bajo diferentes motivos. De esta manera, se develan los aspectos sobre la necesidad de pertenecer a un grupo (...) para buscar un objetivo en común. Sin embargo, también surge la duda de ¿Por qué y cómo se mantienen unidos los hombres en sociedad? Para darle respuesta, inicialmente, en el primer capítulo se exhibirá el pensamiento de Canetti abordando el concepto de masa, violencia y poder, en diferentes apartados de Masa y poder, en el segundo capítulo desde la perspectiva de Thomas Hobbes, se expondrá los conceptos de la naturaleza humana, contrato social y el poder que ejerce desde el Estado sobre los individuos para su control desde la obra el Leviatán. Por último, en el tercer capítulo se comparan y analizan la disimilitud de conceptos entre Hobbes y Canetti, como una síntesis del abordaje bibliográfico desarrollado. (shrink)

Optogenetics is an invasive neuromodulation technology involving the use of light to control the activity of individual neurons. Even though optogenetics is a relatively new neuromodulation tool whose various implications have not yet been scrutinized, it has already been approved for its first clinical trials in humans. As optogenetics is being intensively investigated in animal models with the aim of developing novel brain stimulation treatments for various neurological and psychiatric disorders, it appears crucial to consider both the opportunities and dangers (...) such therapies may offer. In this review, we focus on the memory-modifying potential of optogenetics, investigating what it is capable of and how it differs from other memory modification technologies. We then outline the safety challenges that need to be addressed before optogenetics can be used in humans. Finally, we re-examine crucial neuroethical concerns expressed in regard to other MMTs in the light of optogenetics and address those that appear to be unique to the memory-modifying potential of optogenetic technology. (shrink)

In this article, I firstly discuss the person-affecting view of harm, distinguishing between the liability and the structural models of responsibility, and also explaining why it is unsatisfactory, from a moral point of view, to interpret a given harm as a loss with respect to a diachronic baseline. Then, I take sweatshops as an example and I entertain two further issues that are related to the assessment of harm and that are necessary for operationalising a comprehensive model of responsibility, that (...) takes into account both liability and structural injustice. The first one is how to interpret harm when it is coexistent with a diachronic benefit and/or the parties involved in the social structures leading to harm seek to unload their responsibility by hiding behind a cooperative deadlock. The second one is how far along the chain of actions leading to harm can structural responsibility be extended. (shrink)

Many of us assume that all the free editing and sorting of online content we ordinarily rely on is carried out by AI algorithms — not human persons. Yet in fact, that is often not the case. This is because human workers remain cheaper, quicker, and more reliable than AI for performing myriad tasks where the right answer turns on ineffable contextual criteria too subtle for algorithms to yet decode. The output of this work is then used for machine learning (...) purposes to generate algorithms constructed from large data sets containing thousands of correctly coded observations. The fact that ghost workers are treated as consumers distorts the basic logic of the employment relationship, effectively placing the worker-as-consumer in the worst of both worlds, in which they hold the legal rights of neither group. This puts them in a regulatory limbo position in which they have little or no protection, control, or guarantee of return on investment. This is because the platforms that facilitate ghost work have orchestrated a three-way virtual relationship that absolves all parties of responsibility, while placing nearly all the risks and opportunity costs squarely on the shoulders of the workers. As a result, we believe such a work arrangement as it stands, does not uphold basic standards of Rawlsian justice as fairness. (shrink)

This essay frames systemic patterns of mental abuse against women of color and Indigenous women on Turtle Island (North America) in terms of larger design-of-distribution strategies in settler colonial societies, as these societies use various forms of social power to distribute, reproduce, and automate social inequalities (including public health precarities and mortality disadvantages) that skew socio-economic gain continuously toward white settler populations and their descendants. It departs from traditional studies in gender-based violence research that frame mental abuses such as gaslighting--commonly (...) understood as mental manipulation through lying or deceit--stochastically, as chance-driven interpersonal phenomena. Building on structural analyses of knowledge in political epistemology (Dotson 2012, Berenstain 2016), political theory (Davis and Ernst 2017), and Indigenous social theory (Tuck and Yang 2012), I develop the notion of cultural gaslighting to refer to the social and historical infrastructural support mechanisms that disproportionately produce abusive mental ambients in settler colonial cultures in order to further the ends of cultural genocide and dispossession. I conclude by proposing a social epidemiological account of gaslighting that a) highlights the public health harms of abusive ambients for minority populations, b) illuminates the hidden rules of social structure in settler colonial societies, and c) amplifies the corresponding need for structural reparations. (shrink)

This paper offers a normative exploration of what exploitation is and of what is wrong with it. The focus is on the critical assessment of the exploitation of workers in capitalist societies. Such exploitation is wrongful when it involves a contra-solidaristic use of power to benefit oneself at the expense of others. Wrongful exploitation consists in using your greater power, and sometimes even in making other less powerful than you, in order to get them to benefit you more than they (...) ought to. This account of exploitation is appealing because it simultaneously captures three morally significant dimensions of exploitation—its material and social background, the relational (interpersonal and systemic) attitudes it enacts, and the final distributive results it generates. Exploitation is indeed a multidimensional social process. The flipside of the proposed critical characterization of this process is a positive ideal of solidaristic empowerment in the allocation and use of economic power, which the paper articulates in terms of the socialist Abilities/Needs Principle (“from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs”). The Abilities/Needs Principle is grounded in human dignity. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

In this paper, I present an outline of the oppression account of cultural appropriation and argue that it offers the best explanation for the wrongfulness of the varied and complex cases of appropriation to which people often object. I then compare the oppression account with the intimacy account defended by C. Thi Nguyen and Matt Strohl. Though I believe that Nguyen and Strohl’s account offers important insight into an essential dimension of the cultural appropriation debate, I argue that justified objections (...) to cultural appropriation must ultimately be grounded in considerations of oppression as opposed to group intimacy. I present three primary objections to the intimacy account. First, I suggest that in its effort to explain expressive appropriation claims (those that purportedly lack an independent ground), the intimacy account doubles down on the boundary problem. Second, I question whether group intimacy possess the kind of bare normativity that Nguyen and Strohl claim for it. Finally, I argue that these objections give us reason to accept the importance of group intimacy to the cultural appropriation debate, but question the source of its significance as identified by Nguyen and Strohl. (shrink)

The modern concept of ideology was established by the liberal politician and philosopher Destutt de Tracy, with the objective of creating an all-embracing and general science of ideas, which followed the sensualist and empiricist trend initiated by Locke. He also built his political economy upon the liberal concepts from Adam Smith and Thomas Malthus. The Malthusian concept of struggle for existence wrongly assumed that population grew faster than the means of existence. This "natural” law contained implicitly the idea that the (...) poor and least gifted would not survive. This idea led to the progressive development of the concept of natural selection, whose definitive version was given by Darwin. Mechnikov took both these concepts and conceived immunity as a struggle between a host and its invader, the so-called phagocytosis theory. This theory created the necessity to possess mechanisms to discriminate between the own and the foreign, and led to the conception of the immune self. These concepts were not developed from ideas coming from perceptions or sensations, but from ideas coming from their values: individual interest, inevitable inequality, property, utility and profit. Values are ideals that constitute an ideological matrix that exerts a numinous activity and drive us and impulse us towards certain directions. (shrink)

Among the millions of pages of print and web pages and incessant chat and chatter on TV and blogs and speeches, there is a notable absence of a short clear honest, accurate, sane, intelligent summary of the catastrophe that is destroying America and the world. This is partly due to a lack of understanding and partly to the suppression of free speech by the leftist/liberal/progressive/democratic/socialist/multicultural/diverse/social democratic/communist/third world supremacist coalition. I attempt to fill that gap here. -/- An integral part of (...) modern democracy is The One Big Happy Family Delusion, i.e., that we are selected for cooperation with everyone, and that the euphonious ideals of Democracy, Diversity and Equality will lead us into utopia, if we just manage things correctly (the possibility of politics). The No Free Lunch Principle ought to warn us it cannot be true, and we see throughout history and all over the contemporary world, that without strict controls, selfishness and stupidity gain the upper hand and soon destroy any nation that embraces these delusions. In addition, the monkey mind steeply discounts the future, and so we cooperate in selling our descendant’s heritage for temporary comforts, greatly exacerbating the problems. -/- I describe the great tragedy playing out in America and the world, which can be seen as a direct result of our evolved psychology, which, though eminently adaptive and eugenic on the plains of Africa ca. 6 million years ago, when we split from chimpanzees, to ca. 50,000 to 150,000 years ago, when many of our ancestors left Africa (i.e., in the EEA or Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation), is now maladaptive and dysgenic and the source of our Suicidal Utopian Delusions. So, like all discussions of behavior (philosophy, psychology, sociology, biology, anthropology, politics, law, literature, history, economics, soccer strategies, business meetings, etc.), this book is ultimately about evolutionary strategies, selfish genes and inclusive fitness (kin selection, i.e., natural selection). -/- One might take this to imply that a just, democratic and enduring society for any kind of entity on any planet in any universe is only a dream, and that no being or power could make it otherwise. It is not only ‘the laws’ of physics that are universal and inescapable, or perhaps we should say that inclusive fitness is a law of physics. -/- The great mystic Osho said that the separation of God and Heaven from Earth and Humankind was the most evil idea that ever entered the human mind. In recent times an even more evil notion arose, that humans are born with rights, rather than having to earn privileges. The idea of human rights, as now commonly promulgated, is an evil fantasy created by leftists to draw attention away from the merciless destruction of the earth by unrestrained 3rd world motherhood. Thus, every day the population increases by 200,000, who must be provided with resources to grow and space to live, and who soon produce another 200,000 etc. And one almost never hears it noted that what they receive must be taken from those already alive, and their descendants. Their lives diminish those already here in both major obvious and countless subtle ways. Every new baby destroys the earth from the moment of conception. In a horrifically overcrowded world with vanishing resources, there cannot be human rights without destroying the earth and our descendant’s futures. It could not be more obvious, but it is rarely mentioned in a clear and direct way, and one will never see the streets full of protesters against motherhood. -/- The most basic fact, almost never mentioned, is that there are not enough resources in America or the world to lift a significant percentage of the poor out of poverty and keep them there. The attempt to do this is bankrupting America and destroying the world. The earth’s capacity to produce food decreases daily, as does our genetic quality. And now, as always, by far the greatest enemy of the poor is other poor and not the rich. -/- America and the world are in the process of collapse from excessive population growth, most of it for the last century, and now all of it, due to 3rd world people. Consumption of resources, and the addition of some 3 billion more ca. 2100, will collapse industrial civilization and bring about starvation, disease, violence and war on a staggering scale. The earth loses at least 1% of its topsoil every year, so as it nears 2100, most of its food growing capacity will be gone. Billions will die and nuclear war is all but certain. In America, this is being hugely accelerated by massive immigration and immigrant reproduction, combined with abuses made possible by democracy. Depraved human nature inexorably turns the dream of democracy and diversity into a nightmare of crime and poverty. China will continue to overwhelm America and the world, as long as it maintains the dictatorship which limits selfishness and enables long term planning. -/- The root cause of collapse is the inability of our innate psychology to adapt to the modern world, which leads people to treat unrelated persons as though they had common interests (which I suggest may be regarded as an unrecognized -- but the commonest and most serious-- psychological problem -- Inclusive Fitness Disorder). This, plus ignorance of basic biology and psychology, leads to the social engineering delusions of the partially educated who control democratic societies. Few understand that if you help one person you harm someone else—there is no free lunch and every single item anyone consumes destroys the earth beyond repair. Consequently, social policies everywhere are unsustainable and one by one all societies without stringent controls on selfishness will collapse into anarchy or dictatorship. Without dramatic and immediate changes, there is no hope for preventing the collapse of America, or any country that follows a democratic system. This is happening even without climate change or the evil designs of Seven Senile Sociopaths who rule China, but they make it happen much faster. The only major change from the first edition of this essay is the addition of a brief discussion of China, which represents by far the greatest threat to peace and freedom worldwide. The policy of appeasing them, which all countries and most businesses pursue, is the worst of the suicidal utopian delusions. -/- Those wishing to read my other writings may see Talking Monkeys 2nd ed (2019), The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle 2nd ed (2019), Suicide by Democracy 3rd ed (2019), The Logical Stucture of Human Behavior (2019) and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019) . (shrink)

امریکا و جهان در روند فروپاشی از رشد جمعیت بیش از حد هستند, بیشتر از آن برای قرن گذشته, و در حال حاضر همه از آن, با توجه به مردم جهان 3. مصرف منابع و علاوه بر این از 3 میلیارد بیشتر ca. ۲۱۰۰ تمدن صنعتی را سقوط خواهد کرد و در مورد گرسنگی ، بیماری ، خشونت و جنگ در مقیاس سرسام آور را به ارمغان بیاورد. زمین از دست می دهد حداقل 1 درصد از خاک خود را در (...) هر سال ، به طوری که آن را نزدیک ۲۱۰۰ ، بیشتر از مواد غذایی خود را در حال رشد ظرفیت از بین رفته است. میلیاردها خواهد مرد و جنگ هسته ای است اما برخی دیگر. در امریکا ، این است که شدیدا با مهاجرت گسترده و تولید مثل مهاجر شتاب ، همراه با سوء استفاده ممکن است توسط دموکراسی ساخته شده است. طبیعت فاسد بشر به خوبی به رویای دموکراسی و تنوع در یک کابوس جرم و فقر تبدیل می شود. چین ادامه خواهد داد به پایمال امریکا و جهان ، تا زمانی که آن را حفظ دیکتاتوری که محدودیت خودخواهی. علت اصلی سقوط ، ناتوانی روانشناسی ذاتی ما برای انطباق با دنیای مدرن است که مردم را برای درمان افراد نامربوط به عنوان اینکه منافع مشترک دارند ، هدایت می کند. ایده حقوق بشر یک فانتزی شیطانی است که توسط چپی ها به منظور جلب توجه از تخریب بی رحم زمین توسط یک بسته مادری 3rd ترویج شده است. این, به علاوه جهل از زیست شناسی اساسی و روانشناسی, منجر به هذیان مهندسی اجتماعی از حدی تحصیل کرده که کنترل جوامع دموکراتیک. تعداد کمی از درک که اگر شما کمک یک نفر به شما آسیب شخص دیگری--هیچ ناهار رایگان وجود دارد و هر آیتم تنها هر کسی مصرف از بین میبرد زمین فراتر از تعمیر. در نتیجه ، سیاست های اجتماعی در همه جا ناپایدار هستند و یک به یک تمام جوامع بدون کنترل دقیق در خودخواهی به هرج و مرج یا دیکتاتوری سقوط می کنند. حقایق اساسی ترین ، تقریبا هرگز ذکر شد ، این است که منابع کافی در آمریکا و یا جهان وجود ندارد به بلند کردن درصد قابل توجهی از فقیر از فقر و نگه داشتن آنها وجود دارد. تلاش برای انجام این کار غیر امریکا و از بین بردن جهان است. ظرفیت زمین برای تولید مواد غذایی روزانه کاهش می یابد ، همانطور که کیفیت ژنتیکی ما است. و در حال حاضر ، مثل همیشه ، تا بحال بزرگترین دشمن فقیر فقیر دیگر و نه غنی است. بدون تغییرات چشمگیر و فوری ، هیچ امیدی برای جلوگیری از سقوط آمریکا یا هر کشوری که به دنبال یک سیستم دموکراتیک است ، وجود ندارد. (shrink)

This paper examines how a delusive social imaginary of criminal-justice has underpinned contemporary U.S. mass incarceration and encouraged widespread indifference to its violence. I trace the complicity of this criminal-justice imaginary with state-organized violence by comparing it to an imaginary that supported colonial violence. I conclude by discussing how those of us outside of prison can begin to resist the entrenched images and institutions of mass incarceration by engaging the work and imagining the perspective of incarcerated people.

How Propaganda Became Public Relations pulls back the curtain on propaganda: how it was born, how it works, and how it has masked the bulk of its operations by rebranding itself as public relations. Cory Wimberly uses archival materials and wide variety of sources — Foucault’s work on governmentality, political economy, liberalism, mass psychology, and history — to mount a genealogical challenge to two commonplaces about propaganda. First, modern propaganda did not originate in the state and was never primarily located (...) in the state; instead, it began and flourished as a for-profit service for businesses. Further, propaganda is not focused on public beliefs and does not operate mainly through lies and deceit; propaganda is an apparatus of government that aims to create the publics that will freely undertake the conduct its clients’ desire. Businesses have used propaganda since the early twentieth century to construct the laboring, consuming, and voting publics that they needed to secure and grow their operations. Over that time, corporations have become the most numerous and well-funded apparatuses of government in the West, operating privately and without democratic accountability. Wimberly explains why liberal strategies of resistance have failed and a new focus on creating mass subjectivity through democratic means is essential to countering propaganda. This book offers a sophisticated analysis that will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in social and political philosophy, Continental philosophy, political communication, the history of capitalism, and the history of public relations. (shrink)

There is broad agreement that child labor is wrong and should be eliminated. This chapter examines the three main moral objections to child labor and considers their limitations: harm-based objections, objections from failing to benefit children, and objections from exploitation. Harm-based objections struggle with baselines for comparison and difficulties with Non-Identity problems. Even if child labor is not harmful, it may be wrong because it prevents children from enjoying other benefits, such as schooling. However, is schooling necessarily more beneficial for (...) children than work? Some kinds of child labor may not be harmful, and may benefit children, but they may still be wrong because they are exploitative. I consider some ways to address exploitative child labor, inspired by campaigns led by child workers. The chapter ends with a surprising conclusion that challenges the broad consensus with which we began: we may have duties to promote child labor. (shrink)

This paper offers a justification of labor rights based on an interpretation of the idea of human dignity. According to the dignitarian approach, we have reason to organize social life in such a way that we respond appropriately to the valuable capacities of human beings that give rise to their dignity. That dignity is a deontic status in virtue of which people are owed certain forms of respect and concern. Dignity at work involves the treatment of people in accordance to (...) the ideal of solidaristic empowerment as it pertains to their life as workers. This requires that we generate feasible and reasonable social schemes to support each other as we pursue the development and exercise of our valuable capacities to produce in personally and socially beneficial ways. The spectrum of dignitarian justice goes from basic rights to decent working conditions to maximal rights to flourish in working practices that are free from domination, alienation, and exploitation. (shrink)

In a market economy, members of professions—or at least those for whom their profession is a vocation—are vulnerable to a distinctive kind of objectionable exploitation, namely the exploitation of their vocational commitment. That they are vulnerable in this way arises out of central features both of professions and of a market economy. And, for certain professions—the care professions—this exploitation is particularly objectionable, since, for these professions, the exploitation at issue is not only exploitation of the professional’s vocational commitment but also (...) of her even more basic commitment to morality. (shrink)

Life is the center of our existence. One would be tempted to say that first of all we live. However, our existence does not seem to pass in that modality. The exacerbated materialism in which our existence takes place, displaces life from the center of the scene. Our society is organized around production, consumerism, exploitation, efficiency, trade and propaganda. That is to say, our existence seems to have economy as the center of organization of our activities. The struggle of this (...) century that is beginning is to put life at the center of our existence, and to put economy in its proper place, that is, in the service of life. (shrink)

Herbert Marcuse was one of the most influential political philosophers in the 20th century. After his death, his popularity started decreasing and the philosopher somewhat sank into oblivion. This dissertation intends to investigate the Marcusean contribution to the subject of technics, so imbricated on his political philosophy, and demonstrate that it deserves reappraisal. We shall analyse the theoretical context of Marcuse’s work and put opposing stances, both technophobe and technophile, up for debate. The intent is to not only present the (...) topics that organized this discussion back in its day, but also to set Marcuse apart from such hardline approaches. We shall then elucidate the Marcusean criticism of the capitalist technological system of advanced industrial societies and present the fundamental lines of its new historical project, supported by a qualitative change made possible by the ambivalence of technics. Since, in Marcuse’s view, technics configure the basis for the organisation of the status quo, and also the basis which might modify it if duly reoriented, the ambivalent character which the philosopher identifies in technics becomes the nuclear idea in his thesis; it is the very foundation upon which he builds his philosophy of technics. The marcusean thoughtshall then be exposed to critique: we shall examine the most relevant objections raised against it, but also its most fruitful ideas. Through the contributions of Gorz and, more specifically, of Feenberg, we intend to confirm the relevance of Marcuse’s thought in the context of the hodiern technological reality. (shrink)

The paper presents the findings of ethnographic research and a survey of a Local Exchange Trading Scheme in North-East London and asks the question of whether the scheme delivers on the aims and objectives of its members. The research found that whilst its members express a strong politically motivated desire for an alternative to the prevailing economic system, the LETS scheme falls short of delivering on those ambitions. The findings raise the question of whether there is anything intrinsic to this (...) form of local community currency that leads it to be more inclusive, egalitarian and fair. (shrink)

This paper offers an account of human dignity based on a discussion of Kant's moral and political philosophy and then shows its relevance for articulating and developing in a fresh way some normative dimensions of Marx’s critique of capitalism as involving exploitation, domination, and alienation, and the view of socialism as involving a combination of freedom and solidarity. What is advanced here is not Kant’s own conception of dignity, but an account that partly builds on that conception and partly criticizes (...) it. The same is the case with the account of socialism in relation to Marx’s work. As articulated, Kantian dignity and Marxian socialism turn out to be quite appealing and mutually supportive. (shrink)

This is not a perfect book, but it is unique, and if you skim the first 400 or so pages, the last 300 (of some 700) are a pretty good attempt to apply what's known about behavior to social changes in violence and manners over time. The basic topic is: how does our genetics control and limit social change? Surprisingly he fails to describe the nature of kin selection (inclusive fitness) which explains much of animal and human social life. He (...) also (like nearly everyone) lacks a clear framework for describing the logical structure of rationality (LSR—John Searle’s preferred term) which I prefer to call the Descriptive Psychology of Higher Order Thought (DPHOT). He should have said something about the many other ways of abusing and exploiting people and the planet, since these are now so much more severe as to render other forms of violence irrelevant. Extending the concept of violence to include the global long term consequences of replication of someone’s genes, and having a grasp of the nature of how evolution works (i.e., kin selection) will provide a very different perspective on history, current events, and how things are likely to go in the next few hundred years. One might start by noting that the decrease in physical violence over history has been matched (and made possible) by the constantly increasing merciless rape of the planet (i.e., by people's destruction of their own descendants future). Pinker (like most people most of the time) is often distracted by the superficialities of culture when it’s biology that matters. See my recent reviews of Wilson’s ‘The Social Conquest of Earth’ and Nowak and Highfield’s ‘SuperCooperators’ for a brief summary of the vacuity of altruism and the operation of kin selection and the uselessness and superficiality of describing behavior in cultural terms. -/- Those wishing a comprehensive up to date account of Wittgenstein, Searle and their analysis of behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my article The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language as Revealed in Wittgenstein and Searle (2016). Those interested in all my writings in their most recent versions may download from this site my e-book ‘Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization Michael Starks (2016)- Articles and Reviews 2006-2016’ by Michael Starks First Ed. 662p (2016). -/- All of my papers and books have now been published in revised versions both in ebooks and in printed books. -/- Talking Monkeys: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071HVC7YP. -/- The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle--Articles and Reviews 2006-2016 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071P1RP1B. -/- Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st century: Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0711R5LGX . (shrink)

Epistemic exploitation occurs when privileged persons compel marginalized persons to educate them about the nature of their oppression. I argue that epistemic exploitation is marked by unrecognized, uncompensated, emotionally taxing, coerced epistemic labor. The coercive and exploitative aspects of the phenomenon are exemplified by the unpaid nature of the educational labor and its associated opportunity costs, the double bind that marginalized persons must navigate when faced with the demand to educate, and the need for additional labor created by the default (...) skepticism of the privileged. I explore the connections between epistemic exploitation and the two varieties of epistemic injustice that Fricker (2007) identifies, testimonial and hermeneutical injustice. I situate epistemic exploitation within Dotson’s (2012; 2014) framework of epistemic oppression, and I address the role that epistemic exploitation plays in maintaining active ignorance and upholding dominant epistemic frameworks. (shrink)

Despite the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, assimilationist policies continue, whether official or effective. Such policies affect more than the right to group choice. The concern is whether indeed genocide or “only” ethnocide (or culturecide)—the elimination of a traditional culture—is at work. Discussions of the distinction between the two terms have been inconsistent enough that at least one commentator has declared that they cannot be used in analytical contexts. While these terms, I contend, have distinct senses, (...) yet in cases of governmental and other institutional assimilationist policy for indigenous peoples, such ethnocide effectively entails genocide. Insofar as any people’s cultural practices and beliefs are essential for life and health, individuals in groups value, if tacitly, their culture as highly as their language or any artifact: Thus, attempts to eradicate a culture through assimilation in fact eradicate individuals’ lives and health and so are effectively murderous. Acknowledgement by worldwide organizations that assimilationist ethnocide is effectively genocide should affect policy concerning indigenous peoples and thus has significance for international law. (shrink)

"Introduzione" alla raccolta di articoli di Rahel Jaeggi "Forme di vita e capitalismo", curata e tradotta da Marco Solinas, e uscita per Rosenberg & Sellier nel 20016.

We argue that charging people to participate in research is likely to undermine the fundamental ethical bases of clinical research, especially the principles of social value, scientific validity, and fair subject selection.