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12th Summer School in Political Philosophy and Public Policy
July 15, 2021 - July 17, 2021
The Workings of Capital:
Perspectives on Exploitation in Law, Labor, and Distribution
July 15-17, 2021
Online |University of Minho, Braga – Portugal
Where: The school will be held online. We will monitor existing conditions and regulations, and if possible, we will reorganize the event into a blended format, featuring on campus lectures and online sessions. In case of a blended format, the event will be hosted at the Auditorium of the Institute of Letters and Human Sciences (ILCH) at the University of Minho.
Organization: This event is co-organized by the Centre for Ethics, Politics and Society of the University of Minho, and the Philosophy Department at the University of York
Convenors: Catarina Neves, Daniele Santoro, and Pedro Teixeira
Lectures by:
Martin O’Neill – University of York, UK
Katharina Pistor – Columbia University, USA
Nicholas Vrousalis -Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Bruno Lamas – UL-ISEG
Description
Since Marx’s early theorization, exploitation has been identified as a defining feature of the capitalist mode of production. Exploitation sheds light on the causes of the unfair distribution of resources, opportunities, and wealth, the commodification of the labor market, as well as the plundering of natural resources. It has also the normative significance of both a moral wrongdoing and a structural aspect of an unjust system that calls for change, activism, and revolution once again. As inequalities soar, and the concentration of wealth lacerates the social fabric of traditional welfare state societies, the exploitative nature of late stage capitalism has drawn the attention of a new generation of political philosophers, both in the critical and in the analytical traditions.
How does capitalist exploitation take place through legal, distribution and productive means? How should we understand the conceptual and normative dimensions of exploitation, and what policies should be pursued to create a less exploitative form of production? The goal of the 12th edition is to answer this question by exploring the role exploitation plays within new forms of capitalist production.
The critique of capitalism is a recurrent theme of the School. In past editions we discussed alternatives to the existing capitalist regime such as property-owning democracy (2014) and democratic socialism (2018). We also questioned the legitimacy of free market capitalism and the role of corporations (2019).
Our aim in this edition is to elucidate the concept of exploitation, investigate its distributive implications for public policy, its impact on labor and the labor market, and the legal framework enabling exploitative processes.
Among the questions we are particularly interested in debating are the following:
- What is exploitation? Is exploitation always unjust? How to distinguish exploitation from other forms of moral wrongdoing?
- What taxonomy of exploitation can we identify in capitalistic and socialist regimes?
- Are new forms of exploitation essentially distinct from traditional forms of exploitation?
- What forms of labor are most affected by current forms of exploitation? How can decommodification mitigate individuals’ exploitation in the labor market?
- How can policies of predistribution and/or redistribution address issues of exploitation?
- Can egalitarian policies mitigate exploitation, and if so, which ones are the most effective?
- Can exploitation also happen in an egalitarian society, and what can we do about it?
- What is the role of the law in perpetuating inequality and exploitation, especially through financial markets?