Exploitation in contemporary societies: An exploratory comparative analysis

Abstract

This paper undertakes an exploratory comparative analysis of exploitation among contemporary capitalist Western, and comparable, societies such as OECD countries. It aims to contribute to a better understanding of the patterns and factors of economic exploitation among these societies. It reconsiders the concept of labor exploitation in earlier economics and sociology by providing an overview of relevant contemporary conceptions and analyses of labor and similar exploitation. It outlines a theoretical framework such as the AGIL model for analyzing exploitation, it formulates hypotheses proposing that exploitation will vary with certain types of social systems. It presents comparative data on the variables used to estimate the degree of exploitation for OECD countries, This paper reports descriptive and regression findings on rates of exploitation for these countries. The findings generally support the hypotheses that exploitation widely and systematically varies across types of contemporary social systems, notably that exploitation is considerably lower in liberal society as a whole, and welfare capitalism in particular, than in other societies.