Exploitation and 'Injustice' in Marx's Theory Mohinder Kumar I READ with interest Vidhu Verma's article 'Exploitation and Justice: Should We Be Interested in a Theory of Exploitation?' (January 17). The very formulation of the problem, from the beginning itself, goes wrong. The link between the two concepts exploitation and Injustice' is mistaken by the author The author, under some false and impressionistic reading of Marx's labour theory of value, has tended to identify/equate 'injustice' with exploitation, and simply opted to use these two concepts inter- changeably, without distinction. As a matter of corollary, this fallacy of substitution leads Vidhu Verma to commit another important theoretical mistake, that is, to perceive Marx's theory of exploitation as a political theory on distributive justice (p 115), rather than viewing it as an empirical economic analysis of capitalism, In essence, Marx's theory of exploitation (or labour theory of value) is least a political or legal discourse on 'injustice' (unlike Vidhu Verma's mistaken view). It can be safely argued that Marx, in his theory, had left untouched the question of justifiability (or otherwise) of class-exploitation. Therefore, it is surprising to find the way Vidhu Verma has attempted in vain to draw inferences about injustice' from Marx's theory of exploitation in her article.
