ABSTRACT
Exploitation is the appropriation by capital of a share of the value produced by the laborers. Its origin is that the capitalists, as owners of the means of production, buy the laborers' labor power and force them to work for a time longer than the time the laborers need to produce the means of their own reproduction (wage goods). Exploitation takes place first in production. Exploitation depends on the one hand on the value of labor power and on the other on the length of the working day and the intensity of labor. The value of labour power is determined by the value of the necessities of life habitually required by the average laborer. In neo-classical economics there is no exploitation in a well-functioning economy. Exploitation is due to the discrepancy between wages and the value of the marginal product. Marx's critics hold that exploitation cannot be measured in terms of labor time in the case of mental production.
