What Would Karl Marx Say About Exploitation in Regards to Child Labour

In recent news, undercover investigations conducted in Istanbul, Turkey, revealed a high number of Syrian refugees adopted into the clothing manufacturing industry. More concerning, some of the working refugees were young as 8 years old. This was not the first discovery of child labour in Turkey and we should be aware that a proportion of the branded garments produced reach our high-street stores in UK. (BBC, 2016). As expected, working conditions are not eligible with safety standards but the children are still required to work 12 hour days which would earn them less than $10, regardless of their level of productivity – some individually producing around an astonishing 400 shoes a day. (The Guardian, 2016). In this essay, I will be exploring theories and ideas of Karl Marx / ‘Marxism’ (1818 – 1883) and how they are relevant to the current day issue of exploitation in child labour.

Firstly, if we are to resort back to The Communist Manifesto, 1848, we are given an insight into Marx’s ideal society (Marx, 1848: 92). The 10th point stated declares all children should have entitlement to free education alongside the abolition of children’s factory labour. But almost two centuries later, society is still trying to make these amendments. We are told Turkey cannot accommodate all children to be in school due to the existing schools are maximised in capacity. This results in the children turning to work, to provide for their family. This reveals economic factors are at the heart of the unprivileged proletariat, which is a direct encouragement from Capitalism. Marx mentioned that these measures will differentiate dependent on the country but if the country reaches an advanced status, the ideal society should be generally achievable.

Karl Marx strongly expressed that commodities should be sold at not above, but at their real value. (Marx, Karl. 1969) He opposes of the Capitalist idea of generating a profit or surplus when it isn’t rewarded entirely to the labourer for their hard work. This can be assumed in the topic of discussion as we are told, the refugees are working for a just a little over a pound per hour, a rate which doesn’t come even relatively close to the Turkish Minimum Wage. For this reason, Marx would not approve of the exploitation as the Capitalists’ attempt to supress the labourers wage, is clear. However, we must consider in this particular situation, the value of the commodity isn’t completely determined by the total quantity of labour contained since there are probably