Rob Weir on Karl Marx's theory of exploitation

Q: What do Libertarians and economists on Quora think of the Surplus Value exploitation brought up my Marxists? 

A: From an economic perspective it is incoherent nonsense.  But it lingers on for its rhetorical value. 

Remember, it was never the case that Marx sweated over his economic thinking, writing two thick books and nearly finishing a third, before he arrived at the conclusion that capitalism was bad and socialism was the way forward. 

It was nothing like this.  Marx came to his conclusion relatively early in his life, based on his philosophical leanings, stuff he cobbled together from Hegel and others.  He went to economics in an attempt to make a “scientific” argument for what he already thought to be true. 

That economic argument was a total mess, and no serious economist takes it seriously today.  It is only good for slogans now.  However, the underlying philosophical insights that led Marx along this path, views on things like alienation, exploitation, class, dialectic, historical materialism, etc., all these non-economic ideas, have been quite durable and pervade the humanities and the social sciences, to this day.

~ Rob Weir, Quora, January 4, 2021