In the previous article, we talked about Marx’s criticism of capitalists. However, there’s actually a genius philosopher who dares to criticize Marx’s theory of exploitation, arguing that the capitalist’s exploitation of workers is not unjust. This philosopher is the American philosopher Robert Nozick.

As we all knows, Dr. Nozick is famous, and his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia caused a lot of controversy and criticism among scholars when it was published, becoming a classic “provocative” work. It’s also become the subject of many doctoral dissertations. You should know that causing controversy among peers in academia is actually an honor because if your paper made no sense at all, other scholars would just ignore it. The reason Nozick’s work sparked so much criticism is that many scholars couldn’t accept his critique of Marx’s theory of exploitation but found his arguments compelling, so they had to come up with even more convincing arguments to counter Nozick’s critique.

So, what kind of critique did Nozick level against Marx’s theory of exploitation? We know that Marx’s theory of exploitation can be boiled down to two main pillars: First, the labour theory of value, which asserts that the value of a commodity is created by labour, and that the capitalist does not pay the worker wages equal to the value of the goods they produce, but instead appropriates the surplus value created by the worker’s surplus labour without compensation; and second, that this appropriation of surplus value is essentially a form of coercion, because the worker does not own the means of production, which are monopolized by the capitalist. As a result, the worker cannot produce goods on their own and must, in order to survive, work for the capitalist and be exploited by them, which is a form of forced labour. These are the two main pillars of Marx’s theory of exploitation.

Nozick criticized both of them. Let’s first look at Nozick’s critique of the second one, forced labour. Nozick argued that there is no coercion involved when workers go to work in a factory; workers choose freely and voluntarily to work for the capitalist. Marxists argue that while workers may appear to have the freedom to quit their jobs, this freedom is illusory because, in the end, workers do not own the means of subsistence, so to survive, they must work for the capitalist and be exploited. This “must” manifests as either “voluntarily” working overtime or facing unemployment and starvation. So, this nominal freedom is nothing more than the freedom to be exploited, which is essentially a form of coercion.

To counter this Marxist argument, Nozick devised a thought experiment to demonstrate that workers are actually free. Imagine a world with only 26 straight men and 26 straight women, from Man A to Man Z and from Woman A to Woman Z. They are all of marriageable age and single, and all looking for a spouse. We all know that there is a hierarchy of desirability in the marriage market, meaning some people are more sought after than others. Let’s assume that this alphabetical order represents each person’s desirability in the marriage market, ranked from high to low. Naturally, every man would want to marry Woman A, perhaps because she’s as beautiful as Ariel Wang (I hope so); similarly, every woman would want to marry Man A, perhaps because he’s as handsome as Joker Xue.

But marriage requires “mutual consent”. You may want to marry Ariel Wang, but Ariel might not want to marry you; she, like all the other women, most desires to marry Joker Xue (lol I am just kidding). So, ultimately, the pairing ends up with Man A and Woman A, Man B and Woman B, and so on down the line. At this point, when Man B is paired with Woman B, you can’t say that Man B is being coerced into marrying Woman B simply because he would have preferred to marry Ariel but “had to” marry Woman B instead. You can’t say that because, although on the surface Man B “had to” marry Woman B, he still voluntarily chose to marry Woman B since Woman A has the right—note the use of the word “right” here—to refuse to marry Man B. Otherwise, whenever you don’t get your ideal choice, you could claim you were coerced. (Why not just ask for the moon then?)

Now, let’s look at the last man, Man Z. He only has two options: either marry Woman Z or remain single. He would much rather marry any of the other 25 women, but they’ve all rejected him. But at this point, you can’t blame the other 25 women for exercising their right to refuse to marry Man Z. So when Man Z chooses to marry Woman Z, it’s a voluntary choice.

The same logic applies when we move this thought experiment from the marriage market to the labour market. The marriage partners now become the labor force and the capitalists, and just as marriage requires mutual consent to establish a partnership, labor contracts require mutual consent between labour and capital to establish an employment relationship. Now let’s consider Worker Z. Like Man Z, who had to choose between marrying Woman Z or staying single, Worker Z faces a choice between working for Capitalist Z for the lowest wage on the market or being unemployed. If we accept that Man Z’s choice to marry Woman Z is voluntary, then Worker Z’s choice to work for Capitalist Z is also voluntary. There’s no coercion involved. If you feel forced to work for Capitalist Z, it’s like blaming Ariel Wang for not marrying you LMAO 😀

Nozick used this thought experiment in the marriage market to show that workers are not coerced. At this point, Marxists might respond by saying that Nozick’s thought experiment misses the point. The real reason workers are coerced is because of the private ownership of the means of production. Workers do not own the means of production, so to work and sustain themselves, they must work for the capitalist and be exploited. So, private ownership of the means of production is the root cause of exploitation.

Nozick countered this Marxist argument with another thought experiment. Imagine a society where the means of production are publicly owned, meaning most businesses are collectively owned by all employees, with decisions made by employee votes, and profits shared among all employees. In such a publicly-owned enterprise, there is literally NO EXPLOITATION. Now, suppose this society also has a few privately-owned enterprises. To attract workers, the private enterprise owner offers higher wages, and some employees of publicly-owned enterprises switch to the private enterprise for better salary. At this point, you can’t claim that those who went to work for the private enterprise are being exploited, because they weren’t coerced; they had the option to work for the publicly-owned enterprise. Since they chose not to work for the publicly-owned enterprise and instead opted to work for the private enterprise, it was a voluntary, free choice, and there was no coercion involved.

Now, let’s suppose that over time, the publicly-owned enterprises become less efficient, and more workers switch to private enterprises for higher wages, until eventually, the publicly-owned enterprises disappear, leaving only private enterprises, with no change in wage levels. So, is there exploitation in this society, where only private enterprises exist? Nozick argues that there isn’t, because if there was no exploitation in a society with both publicly-owned and privately-owned enterprises, then there can’t be any exploitation in a society made up entirely of private enterprises, which arose from people freely choosing to switch jobs.

In this way, Nozick’s thought experiment aims to show that the private ownership of the means of production does not lead to exploitation~~~

未完待续 To be continued~