Exploração do trabalho no capitalismo contemporâneo e desigualdade

Resumo

Capitalism has suffered deeper transformation since the Marx's classic work on the exploitation of labour by capital, which proposed the clear duality among capitalists, on one side, and the homogeneous mass of workers, on the other side. Currently, one can observe a very heterogeneous group of workers, not only for their productive characteristics but also for the way they are part of the capitalist way of production. The mass of workers is no long homogeneous because they turned out to compete among themselves in order to gain professional and financial ascension. In this new circumstances, labour markets have become real lotteries or casinos where workers make bet on investments on human capital with a view to become winners. The investments on human capital are like tickets of this lottery or tokens of this casino. However, just like in a lottery or casino, there will be necessarily winners and losers due to reasons which transcend the economic logic. In these conditions, workers with poor qualification or low human capital are, a priori, losers, since they are excluded from the lottery. As a result of this new structure of the capitalist labour market in which winners appropriate the labour of losers, a new form of labour exploitation arises with human capital as instrument and this is similar to the way the traditional form of labour
 exploitation instrumentalises physical capital. This new form of exploitation, in
 association with the traditional exploitation of capital as described by Marx, reinforces the intrinsic tendency of the capitalist economic system and of the labour market in generating inequalities. From the point of view of public policy, this situation imposes limitations to the
 democratisation of the investment on human capital as a form of fighting against
 inequalities, since the labour market is structured by reasons which transcend the
 economic questions, so that there are winners and losers. The fight against inequality is not a mere problem of democratisation of education, being to some extent a result which is intrinsec to the capitalist economy. Despite the fact that democratisation of human capital is necessary to reduce inequality, it is surely insufficient. This structure of capitalist labour market reinforces the macroeconomic trade-off between efficiency and equality, which is the result of the pursuit of professional and finacial success by individual agents. The microeconomic incentive for efficiency is inequality. From this point of view, the fight against inequality demands a new structure of labour markets. The change of relationship between macroeconomic growth and microeconomic equality demands transformations on individual behavior that motivates such growth.

Ficha do documento

Tipo

Estudo

Ano

2005

Instituição

Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada (Ipea)

Fonte

Repositório do Ipea

Idioma

Português

Acesso

Acesso aberto

Identificador

oai:repositorio.ipea.gov.br:11058/1658

Licença

Licença Comum

Temas

EconomiaPolíticas Públicas

Palavras-chave

Mercado de trabalhoDesigualdade socialTrabalhadores