Adam Ferguson and the theme of exploitation.

A considerable amount has been written recently on the concept of exploitation, which has extended its meaning beyond Marx's original usage. While the concept has lost its association with the theory of surplus value and ideas about the right of workers to their product, there is still no agreement on how exploitation should be conceptualized. It is in the context of such conceptual debate that this paper brings a historical perspective by focusing on how Adam Ferguson, two and a half centuries ago, anticipated much of the modern reformulation of the concept. Methodologically, this anticipation is not shown by finding vaguely matching quotations from modern and classic works, but follows Foucault and examines the similarity in the meaning of the vocabulary in the context of the different problematics within which they occur. In this regard Ferguson's work has three characteristics which are also to be found in many modern works: exploitation is understood as economic exploitation; it is approached through the notion of human agency; and the discussion of exploitation is integrally linked to an ethical concern about its injustice. Such a historical interest is useful for a number of reasons. First, it augments the conceptual analysis which has so far dominated the debate about the term. Second, it demonstrates part of the origins of some of the modern reformulations of exploitation. Ferguson's work anticipates those writers who perceive exploitation to involve inequality of power and control in the labour process, and to involve situations where skills are not the determinant of economic reward and where workers are denuded, diminished and impoverished. In this respect Ferguson follows those modern writers who tend to merge exploitation with alienation. Finally, a discussion of these particular antecedents of the concept is useful to illustrate the distinctiveness of Ferguson's social thought and to define his major contribution to the development of sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]