This paper provides a novel axiomatic analysis of exploitation as the unequal exchange of labour in economies with heterogeneous optimising agents endowed with unequal amounts of physical and human capital. A definition of exploitation is proposed, which emphasises the relational nature of...

In the standard Okishio-Morishima approach, the existence of profits is proved to be equivalent to the exploitation of labor. Yet, it can also be proved that the existence of profits is equivalent to the “exploitation†of any good. Labor and commodity exploitation are just different...