Abstract

Are guest-worker programs exploitative? Egalitarian and neoclassical theories of exploitation agree that they always are. But these judgments are too indiscriminate. Privileged guests are the exception, and the exception points toward a more sensitive standard for identifying exploitation. This more sensitive standard, the sufficiency theory of exploitation, is used to analyze several guest-worker programs. Even when guest-worker programs are exploitative, it is argued that the unfairness should be tolerated if the exploitation is modest, not severe, and if the most likely nonexploitative alternative worsens the plight of the disadvantaged.