marxism

There's a lot of cultural stereotypes that go into the idea of "exploitation" in liberal ideology. Even many people who literally cannot afford necessities may not think of themselves as exploited, because liberal ideology teaches us that the markets give us what we deserve.

In some situations, such as factories in 19th century England or sweatshops, the brutality of wage labor can reach a level where liberals think "nobody deserves to be treated like this" and "the market is a force of goodness, but it should be regulated".

However, the thing that makes these ideas liberal is that like all ideologies of class societies, they are blind to the reality of what makes the market system perpetuate across the generations. Instead, ideologies make us go round and round in circles talking about morality and who should get what.

The simple physical reality on the other hand is that exploitation of humans is the lifeblood of every class society that has every existed and ever will exist. Every country in which an exploitable working class cannot be reproduced over time simply dies. This applies to societies as varied as the roman empire (which had to constantly conquer slaves to fuel itself) to modern south Korea (which is on track to ageing itself out of existence).

In my experience, everybody who has learns about this dynamic about class societies becomes 10 times more class conscious.