Throughout history, different species, humans included, have exploited themselves and others in the name of furthering one’s economic comforts or one’s survival. Parasites have fed upon other species and mutual partnerships have formed between different species for mutual benefit - for example, some birds and some mammals for feeding/ cleansing purposes.
For the purpose of this text it should be noted that exploitation refers to the phenomenon where one makes use of a third party entity to bring about benefit for the self through unacceptable coercion. Therefore the bond between a hunter and his dog might not be exploitative and yet the driving of a mule to pull a cart of logs might.
In fact the first cases of exploitation were probably amongst humans themselves - the establishment of authority and reaping the benefits of tribute from the tribe. The exploitation of animals were to follow, especially with the adoption of agricultural practices. Then began a trend where the land itself was exploited. Soils were spent and tribes moved over the landscape with a growing number of animals enslaved for sustained feeding and working purposes.
In feudal times a king and his vassals held sway over peasants in a region and the concept of class exploitation was born. People who were born into a class typically died in it and a portion of the labours of the peasant class were paid to the lord vassals and the king in the form of feudal rent.
When Blacks were exported from Africa to British colonies and America it was the Church that lent legitimacy to the slave trade through its mechanisms of influence.
In the times of the industrial revolution and beyond a new class structure of land owners, factory owners and workers set the trend for a chain of exploitation far more familiar to today’s generation. While a lot has changed and the nature of the labours have also changed the system remains not too very dissimilar.
So is life all about exploitation? It is has been so in the past does it remain so for the present and if so does it necessarily have to be so for the future?
Many would argue that it shall be necessary for some time to come. The mechanism of exploitation has become so entrenched within society that we could be forgiven for thinking that there is no other way. And yet so many things have changed that one has to stop and think. Thanks to technological and organizational changes that have occurred in the past half century one person can now produce what 50 persons could back then (symbolically speaking). yet that person remains on a wage which tends not to reflect this increase. This is justified through capital expenditure by the employer. The only reason that a person is able to produce more is because the employer purchased machinery that allowed him to do so… and so the role of the worker is increasingly marginalized.
Furthermore human populations are burgeoning and more people means more interests to cater for which in turn means a smaller share of resources available per unit of interest. It seems no accident that the countries displaying the greatest growth-rates tend to also be the countries illustrating the greatest degree of poverty and this again is largely thanks to a perversion and corruption of the chain of exploitation by the few who benefit from such.
It is my opinion that the next chain of exploitation is just waiting to happen and would have happened were it not for the fact that the rest of society may not be ready to adapt to it. Such is the loss of everybody.
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