The Responses About Robert Nozick’s Challenges To Marx’s Theory Of Exploitation

In Anarchy,State and Utopia,Robert Nozick’s challenges to Marx’s theory of exploitation mainly revolve around two problems,one is workers of selling their own labor are forced or voluntary? The second is who really bears market risk ? On the one hand,Nozick thinks that workers are voluntary when they chose to sell their labor to the capitalists,it is achieved by free market exchange.He based on the rights of the individual to proved this point.At the same time,he proposed a hypothesis(public ownership of means of production coexist with private ownership of means of production)to increase the credibility.On the other hand,Nozick thinks the capitalists bears market risk,and the workers did not take that,so profit of the capitalists is compensatory payment.At last,Nozick refuted Marx’s theory of labor value angle to proved this point.In the face of Robert Nozick’s challenges to Marx’s theory of exploitation,Analytical Marxism reconstructed classical theory of exploitation to respond,such as Romer’s non labor theory of value theory of exploitation,this theory advocated that theory of exploitation should abandon the labor theory of value,to redefine the exploitation with time of socially necessary labor.It’s back to the capitalist production of the original inequality distribution to explain the injustice of exploitation.Elster of market exploitation theory,to defend the concept of “force” in Marx’s theory of exploitation,demonstrates the fact that workers were forced to sell their labor.And Cohen’s theory of normative exploitation,use a normative theory to redefine injustice of the original distribution of capitalist production and injustice of the current distribution system.This type of reconstructed response of Analytical Marxism enriched and developed Marx’s theory of exploitation,it is of great significance,but this response contains the misunderstanding of Marx’s theory of exploitation,so going back to Marx’s theory of exploitation is necessary.Based on Marx’s classical text,such as Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts in 1844,The German Ideology,The Poverty of Philosophy,Hire Labor and Capital,Economics Manuscripts from 1857 to 1858,and Capital,it proves that Marx’s theory of exploitation is in the sense of historical materialism,rather than purely ethics and the pure economics.In the historical materialism perspective,to respond to Nozick’s challenges,there are three main aspects: First,the difference between Nozick ’s defense and Marx’s historical analysis is huge,Marx made objective historical analyses of the internal contradictions of capitalism system,and Nozick spoke up in defense of capitalism.Second,Nozick’s theory refer to distribution contradictions and Marx’s theory refer to in the field of production.Nozick’s retorts are in view of distribution which is unequal,and Marx’s exploitation is mainly involved in the production field of private ownership.Third,the difference are Nozick’s personal retorts and Marx’s theory of exploitation on class.Nozick’s retorts are based on the perspective of the freedom of choice of individuals,and Marx’s theory of exploitation is based on the viewpoint of class.Therefore,Nozick’s challenges to Marx’s theory of exploitation is the misunderstanding of Marx’s theory of exploitation,in fact,the challenge is not established.In the historical materialism perspective,Marx’s theory of exploitation is important,its analysis of the occurrence and development of the global exploitation system has some significance,as well as having important significance on the solution of the inequality existing in our socialist society.