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[The Scout]

What does that have to do with the Marxist presumption of exploitation and oppression, besides assuming those sweatshops and factories are the result of oppression? I have news for you. Working in a sweatshop is something people do voluntarily for a wage. If I offer you 25 cents an hour to sew soccer balls and you accept, you can call it a lot of things, but you can't call it exploitation or oppression. You accepted it.

If I offer you not to hit you with a baseball bat multiple times for your wallet and you accept, you can call it a lot of things, but you can't call it exploitation or oppression. You accepted it.

See, the person above is getting paid to do something. This is just give me all your moeny peacefully, or I'll beat you to death and take it. That's pretty oppressive.

[Gantolandon]

See, the person above is getting paid to do something. This is just give me all your moeny peacefully, or I'll beat you to death and take it. That's pretty oppressive.

You do have a choice. You can try to outrun me. Do you think it's easy to run with a heavy bat?

[Leafsnail]

I don't actually think that's a valid analogy.  The classic exploitation analogy is:

I'm out driving in the desert, and I stumble across someone of the gender I'm attracted to.

They beg me to take them back to civilisation, but I refuse unless they agree to give me oral sex.  Is this exploitative?

In this case I am not in any way threatening force against the person.  They have a complete choice, and I'm not placing them under any kind of duress.  It's true that they'll almost certainly die if I leave them out in the desert, and that they almost certainly do not want to deliver oral sex, but that isn't my fault, right?  If they don't want to do it they should just find someone else to take them out of the desert.

[G-Flex]

I hope that last part of your post is just kidding. Forcing someone to do something traumatic and humiliating in exchange for their life is really, really bad even if you aren't the one to have put them in that situation. You're using a terrible circumstance as an excuse to get someone to do something they wouldn't otherwise do; that's what exploitation is.

[Leafsnail]

That was my point, yeah.

[Gantolandon]

In this case I am not in any way threatening force against the person.

I actually don't even think there is a big difference. Especially that in the case of the employer and employee, the matter is more complicated and the bat is still there to beat up people who would try to get some water without payment.

Of course, she could always try with the guy who lives in the next oasis and may only want a handjob.

[Leafsnail]

Well, the crucial difference in the analogies is that in this one I'm not the direct cause of the bad thing that would happen to the person if they refuse my offer (which I feel is the biggest flaw in the other analogy - it's clearly a straight up threat rather than "exploitation").  However, this analogy is still clearly exploitation and extremely morally wrong (and, I'd hope, legally wrong too).

I guess this analogy would be stronger if I specified that there were a culture of rescuers demanding that their rescuees perform sex acts on them (and therefore even if the person refuses my offer and gambles on the slim chance they'll find someone else offering rescue, they'll still probably only get a very slightly better "deal").

[Nikov]

Both of you realize you're not talking about communism or capitalism, as this thread was intended to discuss, but are instead discussing the ethics of forced sex, right?

[G-Flex]

They're trying to make analogies relevant to addressing your point. You can either attempt to understand it, or do whatever it is you're doing.

[Nikov]

Yeah, I'm trying to understand how a person getting a job from a factory owner is like a woman being raped in the desert in exchange for her life, but I keep banging my head against the wall on reflex. I will continue to beat my head against the wall until there's a hole in it, because we all know I can't argue with an absurdist strawman.

[G-Flex]

It's not absurdist. The point is that even if a deal is consensual, and in a sense mutually beneficial, it can still be exploitative. You find someone in a position of need, and you offer them some amount of what they need, but at a demeaning or ridiculous cost because they can't get it anywhere else, even if the profit to you is great. That's exploitative.

[Bauglir]

Well, the attempted point is that in each case, someone is in a position where they can offer a service that is probably necessary for somebody's survival (an income vs a ride out of the desert) in exchange for a service that the distressed person would never otherwise provide (menial labor with a high potential for personal harm vs oral sex). Essentially, they're positing that "Blow me or die in this desert" is equivalent to "Manufacture my soccer balls or die of starvation". Though I'll point out that the only way that really works is if the soccer ball manufacturing takes place under such conditions that the worker is likely to suffer physical injuries on par with the psychological injuries resulting from the rape; whether this is the case or not, I haven't yet read enough of the thread to tell.

EDIT: Aw, ninja.

[Leafsnail]

Yeah, exactly.  I admit I slightly lost sight of what I was originally trying to do with that scenario (show conclusively that a fully consensual deal can be exploitative) and tried to turn it into a more direct analogy, which didn't really work.  My point that unregulated job markets can lead to exploitation stands, though.

Incidentally, it doesn't have to be sex.  If made the same deal only with the person signing over the deed to their house it would still be clearly exploitative (so your point that I'm just arguing about the ethics of forced sex is incorrect).

As a final clarification, I'm absolutely not saying your position is equivalent to forcing sex on people in the desert.  Just that you can exploit people through consensual agreements and that sometimes it may be better to prevent some of these consensual agreements from happening.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

the problem is that in the real world, unless the government provides a service to rescue people lost in the desert, outlawing exploitative rescue is going to result in more people dieing.

[G-Flex]

the problem is that in the real world, unless the government provides a service to rescue people lost in the desert, outlawing exploitative rescue is going to result in more people dieing.

Or, you know, people will rescue them for a fairer price that is still profitable. Perhaps less so.

Or, to go further with the analogy, maybe the government should attempt to take a look at why people are disappearing in the desert to begin with.