The capitalist relations of exploitation are not established by any ideologically sanctioned relations of domination and subordination. They reproduce themselves by the same means as any other commercial exchange, the mutual pursuit of self-interest. The end result, that shareholders accumulate wealth whilst workers have only enough to survive till the next payday is ensured by the very principles of freedom itself. All are free to dispose of what they have to sell as they wish, choosing the alternative that suits them. The alternative for one is either work or go hungry, and for another, it is investing in oil or property. This class difference can indeed give rise to political conflict, but at the economic level, the exploitation mechanism proceeds whether the worker believes in socialism or in free market economics. The central message of Marx’s Capital is that capitalist exploitation is an automatic result of the operation of the laws of the market.

Paul Cockshott: Critique of Althusser’s Theory of Ideology Part 1