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FERENC ÍRK
and long-term common values. Was it maybe because of this realization that the
member states of the European Union have failed to approve of the Agreement?
Failing to come to the necessary agreement has serious conseguences as
Ágnes Heller pointed out in an interview shortly before her death?. According to
Szilárd Teczárs interpretation Heller, a philosopher emphasized that as there is
no European Constitution those who act against the common European interests
cannot be called to account because it cannot be said that they act against the
Constitution but only that “they don’t comply with the European values, which is
a rather vague concept”.
The validity of the above statements will be tested in the following against the
way the exploitation of the workforce is dealt with in the European Union.
THE CONCEPT OF EXPLOITATION AND THE WAY IT OPERATES
The concept of exploitation can be identified with a certain kind of purposeful
action, which means taking advantage of someone or something unjustly or cruelly.
There are various ways of exploitation just as the number and the composition
of the groups of people involved are varied. The concept involves forced (or slave)
labour, and the groups of perpetrators and victims characterized by their age
group, gender and occupation.
When analysing this gross form of the misuse of power (advantage) experts
most often focus on the issues of economic exploitation. This concept means that
a person generates profit with his or her work for another person without being
offered or given fair remuneration. There are two known forms of it: organiza¬
tional or “micro-level” and structural or “macro-level” exploitation. The former
means the commercial power of economic enterprises in the area of commercial
activities. The latter — especially in connection to free trade — focuses exploitation
on wide layers of society. This approach means a close connection to the Marxist
theory, according to which the capitalist class is an exploiting entity and capital¬
ism itself is based on exploitation.*
Forced and slave labour can be regarded as an especially serious kind of
exploitation of labour. The relevant sources of literature also confuse these two
concepts several times and they often mention forced labour and slave labour
together. Therefore, both will be defined in the following.
3 Teczar, Szilárd, Agnes Heller: , Orbánnak ilyen a természete, ösztönösen erre törekszik".
Interview, Magyar Narancs (9 May 2019), https://magyarnarancs.hu/belpol/ez-valami¬
uj-119535.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploitation. There are also so-called neoclassical and
neoliberal theories of exploitation but I am not going to expound them here.
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