For Profit Prisons and Ethics Essay

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US PRIVATE PRISONS & PRISONER LABOR

Event

First Theory: Karl Marx

Analysis of the Evidence

Second Theorist: Max Weber

Analysis of Evidence

Event

The event being investigated in this study was published in the New York Times on May 24. 2014. The article is about the very low pay for working prisoners in the U.S. private jails and about allegations about them being exploited. The article is written by Ian Urbina and is titled "Using Jailed Migrants as a Pool of Cheap Labor." The article is available at the following link: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/us/using-jailed-migrants-as-a-pool-of-cheap-labor.html.

The article describes the plight of illegal immigrants into the U.S. and how the government policy has prevented them from being employed in the U.S. However, when these very illegal immigrants land up in the prisons, especially in the private prisons of the country, they are forced to contribute labor at very low rates or even without pay. The article states: "it (the prison system) is relying on tens of thousands of those immigrants each year to provide essential labor -- usually for $1 a day or less" (URBINA). This happens at the prisons, especially the private ones, where the illegal immigrants are held when caught by the authorities.

In 2013, the article states, more than 60,000 immigrants were made to work I the U.S. prisons which is more than the number of people employed by any other employer in the U.S. This was available from the data disclosed by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The data states that very low payments of 13 cents an hour saves the private companies running prisons more than $40 million or more a year. This money goes to the private companies as the work that is forced upon the inmates would otherwise have had to be outsourced to contractors and thus the private companies would have had to pay the bills.

The report also stated: "some immigrants held at county jails work for free, or are paid with sodas or candy bars, while also providing services like meal preparation for other government institutions" (URBINA).

First Theory: Karl Marx

Marx's theory on capitalism states that workers are exploited under capitalism. Marx proposes that the law of value sates that the commodities are exchanged on the basis of equivalent value or as exchange of goods and services that are equivalents. Marx sys that the at the starting point where money is transformed into capital there is an exchange of equivalents which explains the transformation. Capitalists tend to buy the goods or the raw materials at their value and sell the same articles at their value. And for capitalists, the process of selling ends with the capitalist drawing out more value from the sale than he did while he out the value into the process in the beginning. This is the crux of capitalism, according to Marx (Bloch).

Hence the definition of capitalism can be made as those trades where profits are explained by a little addition of a bit more price to the articles for themselves. Capitalists therefore operate with a notion that adds a standard mark up to the original price. However the first price war among the capitalist market was viewed in the 1940s with the development of technology and the advent of the machines.

Marx claims that the capitalists continually try and overdo other capitalists as well as the working class by constantly pushing up the prices which would in increased profits. However they are also often restricted in their attempts that are imposed by the law of value which is considered as a regulator for the system of pricing. Moreover, price marking-up results in gains for one while resulting in losses for the other. This, to Marxist economists is difficult to understand -- how the capitalists manage to fill up their pockets more and more just sitting at their homes and waiting for the dividends to plop on to their bank accounts.

The capitalists, according to Marxists economists, is given a whip in their hands by the historic dispossession that the ancestors of the working class like the peasants and artisans, follow the hard work way of earning for a living. Marx's theory states that in this condition, the capitalists need to find a commodity market where there is availability of a free worker. While such a worker has to be able to dispose of the labor power that he possesses into the commodity in a manner that it was his own and the worker should not have any other commodity to sell. Marx says that such workers also need to be 'free' from everything that helps to realize the labor power (Bowles).

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In the natural world people believe that they get paid for the work they do such as on weekends when we do extra work we expect to get additional money and when we get off work we lose money. In general, many are in the piece work segment where the money obtained is linked directly to the effort that is put in while at work. That is how the general perception about the relationship between work and pay is to the common man.

But according to Marx, a determinate lump of work that is done is not bought by capitalists. Rather they tend to buy the capacity and to make the most profits, the capitalists tend to churn out the most of the capacity from the workers to the greatest extent as is possible.

In modern economy, experts tend to explain the difference in pay by the efficiency wage theory where some workers are paid more than the minimum pay. They explain that the capitalists want to hang on to the skills of such workers by paying them more than the minimum pay. This can result in such workers according some form of loyalty and commitment to the employer and may also feel that their future is secure. However even the efficiency wage theory tends to accepts that fact that the employers of such workers get the capacity of the worker by paying more.

According to Marx the terms labor power or capacity is the accumulated amount of the bodily and mental capabilities that are present in a human being. This is used to produce use-value of any kind by such human beings. The period of time that is required for production is denoted by the value of labor power. This characteristic of labor is like any other commodity. This value of labor power is also denoted in eh reproduction of the article as well. 'A definite amount of average social labor' is what the value of such labor is -- according to Marxian theory, which is inherent in the labor. Therefore, the capacity of a living individual is the only existence of labor power. This is related to the production presupposed the worker's existence. Therefore, the reproduction of himself is the only dependent factor for production of labor (Engels).

Therefore, from the above discussions based on Marxian theory of capitalism and labor power, it can be said that the what a worker is paid for by an employer is not commensurate with the work he or she does. It is actually a value for keeping the worker at work.

In a capitalistic economy, since a worker does not have access to an independent means to production. Therefore, a capitalist can simply come around with money and hire a worker. The means of production is generally owned by the capitalist class in the society as a whole. The amount of money or wage that is paid to a worker is just enough to keep the soul and the body together -- that is just enough for existence, at a rate that is the present normal living standard for the workers in the society at that point in time.

In the modern times and in greatly developed capitalist economies, the normal basic living standards could be quite high by historically or through a period of struggle. Such living standard can be related to having a nice house that is full of electronic kits, may be a car and a freezer that is often full of food. However, despite this, the gap between the workers and the capitalists are very wide and in the modern day society, this gap is wider than ever. In such situations, the capitalists would be provided with a never-ending flow of unearned income as the workers would tend to hold on to that living standard as is normal for a worker and thereby carry on with the job that is at hand and provided by the capitalists.

Question

How does this event associate with boundaries defined within the exploitative relationship between the capitalist and the worker?

Hypothesis

The Capitalistic tendency is to pay for capacity of the worker and extract as much of the capacity from the workers as is possible to make the largest possible gain/profit.

Analysis of the Evidence

Marx's theory first deals with the definition of capitalism and….....

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