> I'm pretty sure Marx himself saw that, though I don't have the passage
> I'm
> thinking of handy.
I think it's implicit in his general theory of the rise of capitalism -- the "conditions are coercive" in that, for capitalism to work, a working class must be created by depriving the majority of a people of the means of production, so that they have no way of living except by selling their labor power to the owners of said means. Pretty coercive conditions, I would say.
In that sense, Roemer's view that inequality, not exploitation, is the problem with capitalism seems nonsense to me. Exploitation *is* inequality -- the inequality of the owning vs. the working class.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ When I was a little boy, I had but a little wit, 'Tis a long time ago, and I have no more yet; Nor ever ever shall, until that I die, For the longer I live the more fool am I. -- Wit and Mirth, an Antidote against Melancholy (1684)