Needs, labour, and Marx's conception of justice

This paper attempts to clarify the conception of justice that underpins Marx's tacit justice-based critique of capitalism. It argues that Marx's critique was based upon a Needs Principle, according to which each person has an equal right to needs satisfaction. It attempts to reconstruct this Needs Principle and, drawing on this reconstruction, shows how Marx's charge that the capitalist robs the worker of labour product is based on a view about the connection between income entitlement and work that is not only consistent with, but immanent within, the Needs Principle. Attribution of a rival Labour Principle to Marx, according to which each person has an equal right to his!her labour product or its labour-time equivalent, is thus not necessary to explain this charge.