Exploitation

Exploitation is the use of someone or something in an unjust or cruel manner, or generally as a means to one's ends.

Most often, the word exploitation is used to refer to economic exploitation; that is, the act of using another person as a means to one's profit, particularly using their labor without offering or providing them fair compensation. There are two major perspectives on economic exploitation:

• Organizational or "micro-level" exploitation: most theories of exploitation center on the market power of economic organizations within a market setting. Some neoclassical theory points to exploitation not based on market power.
• Structural or "macro-level" exploitation: focuses on exploitation by large sections of society even (or especially) in the context of free markets. Marxist theory points to the entire capitalist class as an exploitative entity, and to capitalism as a system based on exploitation.