Exploitation in the New Marxism of Collective Action

Abstract

The ‘new Marxism of collective action’ is a term Lash and Urry have recently used to describe a new intellectual current in Marxism which seeks to apply rational choice theory, and particularly game theory, to key Marxian concepts like collective action, class, revolution and exploitation. This current is seen as part of a general shift within social science away from structure towards agency. This paper focuses on a concept which Lash and Urry's outline ignored: namely, exploitation. Granting the concept this attention is useful for a number of reasons. Firstly, by summarizing the general debate on the concept, both within the new Marxism of collective action and outside, the paper allows the discussion of exploitation to be placed in the context of the more general debate between structuralist and humanistic versions of Marxism; especially in the context of the debate about whether there can be a Marxist theory of ethics and injustice. Secondly, by outlining how the concept is understood by advocates of the new Marxism of collective action, the paper accords the concept the central status which advocates reserve for it. In consequence, the paper identifies differences between advocates of the new Marxism of collective action with respect to how exploitation is to be understood, which suggest that the intellectual current is not as homogeneous as Lash and Urry imply. Moreover, the paper stresses that the differences between them with regard to exploitation are more than just unhelpful disagreements over matters of definition, but represent fundamental disagreements about the validity of Marx's original formulations in contemporary society.