Question

Benjamin Waterhouse says, “When Americans today think about the economics of slavery, most people tend to think about the value of the labor slaves performed for their owners.”

Why is this view of slavery incomplete, and what other ways were slaves exploited for profit?  

Answer 1

The idea of surplus labor was given by Karl Marx. This idea stated that the wages paid to the labor were less than the value created by the labor and this led to exploitation of labor and thus increased profits of the capitalists in the market. This is only one of the ways in which labor was exploited. The view can be considered incomplete as there are other ways also which leads to exploitation of labor. Not providing workers with the social security benefits and compensation is another way of exploitation. This is mainly seen in case of informal labor in the market. This reduced overall wage structure of the workers and thus increased profits of the workers. Making the workers work overtime is also another form of exploitation where workers work for more than the total number of hours but the wages are paid only for few hours. Thus, labor exploitation has various forms and surplus labor form is incomplete.