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Is Marx's Theory of Exploitation Outdated? A Review of Negri and Hardt's Theory of Exploitation Based on “the Common”
Zhou Xiao, Wang Fengming
Teaching and Research
2024, 58 (9):
31-42.
Negri and Hardt question and criticize Marx's theory of exploitation based on material production, based on the transformation of the labor paradigm from material labor to “immaterial labor” or “biopolitical production” in the postindustrial era. They believe that, on the one hand, the object of capital exploitation is no longer surplus value, but the socalled “common”; on the other hand, the subject of capital exploitation is no longer the working class, but the socalled “multitude”. As for the former, although they discuss the new changes and characteristics of capital exploitation under the conditions of emerging digital technology, they confuse not only the “deprivation” of natural resources and public property in primitive accumulation with the “exploitation” of hired workers by capitalists, but also the onedimensional determination of the value of commodities (such as urban buildings) at the essential level with the multidimensional determination of prices at the phenomenal level. As for the latter, since the exploitation relationship is essentially an economic and production relationship, the new changes and characteristics of capital exploitation in time and space, as discussed by them, have not formed a negation and deconstruction of Marxs theory of exploitation. The specific images of the socalled multitude, as portrayed by them, are nothing more than descriptions of the production and living conditions of the working class, and therefore have not formed a negation and deconstruction of Marxist category of the working class. Whether it is “the multitude” or “the common”, due to the unclear connotation and overly broad extension, these two are not scientific concepts that reveal essences and laws, but rather daily expressions that fall into the phenomenal descriptions.
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