Volume 43, Issue 2, Summer 2024
Ridhiman Balaji

Pages 117-143
https://doi.org/10.5840/bpej2024610153
Sweatshops and Exploitation
A Critical Analysis of the Scholarly Debate
The paper examines how theoretical misunderstandings of Karl Marx¡¯s theory of value have affected scholarly debates on sweatshops and labour-exploitation more broadly. Participants to these debates tend to overlook the distinction between the form of value and the substance of value. The paper further analyses problems with an exchange-based conceptualization of the labour-process, adopted by many sweatshop-defenders. Rather than posit Marx¡¯s own perspective as the exclusively correct position, this paper seeks to foster a more informed dialogue on the issue of labour-exploitation in global sweatshops.