Douglas Ehring

Wesley Salmon has developed a theory of causation which makes use of the concepts of a "causal process" and a "causal interaction." Roughly, a causal process is a process which transmits its own structure, and a causal interaction is an intersection of processes which transforms the character of these processes. The cause-effect relation is analyzed as a causal interaction followed by a causal process which terminates in a further causal interaction. In this paper I present a series of problem cases which run "counter" to Salmon's account.

G. A. Cohen, in his ‘The Structure of Proletarian Unfreedom,’ addresses the classical Marxist claim that workers are forced to sell their labour power under capitalism. This claim has been the object of much debate and controversy. Cohen brings his very considerable analytical skills to bear on this question with the result that he supports, in distinctive but non-conflicting ways, both sides of the controversy. On Cohen’s analysis this claim is ambiguous, i.e., the term ‘proletariat’ has two importantly different senses. In the distributive sense, workers need not be coerced, but in the collective sense, they are coerced, i.e., each individual worker is free to leave the working class, but the class of workers' as a whole does not possess a similar freedom. In this paper, I will argue that Cohen’s argument does not establish that the proletariat qua individuals are not forced to sell their labour power. It will also be argued that, in fac;t, there is no definite answer to the question of whether or not workers are forced to sell their labour power. Freedom and coercion are matters of degree, for the relevant range of cases, and, hence, it is not appropriate to ask whether or not the workers are coerced. I will, however, attempt to show that, contrary to the spirit of Cohen’s thesis, proletariat as individuals suffer from a diminished degree of freedom in the sale of their labour power.

G. A. Cohen in “More on Exploitation and the Labour Theory of Value” defends the thesis that the Marxist charge of exploitation against the capitalist cannot be supported by way of the labour theory of value. He suggests an alternative, non-labour-theoretic argument for this charge which depends on premises he takes to be more obvious than the labour theory of value. Cohen claims that his argument is the only way a Marxist couldjustify attributions of “exploitation” to the capitalist, if any such justification is possible. In this paper, I will argue that, given Cohen's objections to the labour-theoretic argument, his “Plain Argument” itself retains too great a similarity to that argument. A new interpretation of the basis of the charge of exploitation is offered which requires neither the labour theory nor that which is dubious in Cohen's formulation.