[..] Life under the master-desire is exploited life. But in what sense exactly is it exploited? Probably not in the way Marxian theory imagines it. For exploitation in the Marxist sense of the term only makes sense in conjunction with a substantialist labour theory of value, according to which exploitation is the name of the capitalist appropriation of surplus-value, measured by the difference between the total product and the value-equivalent assigned to the reproduction of labour-power – what is paid out in wages. The definition of the value of the labour-power that must be reproduced is however among the most uncertain, and is in fact circular: instead of the objectively and independently calculated value of the labour-power that must be reproduced determining wages, the wages themselves indicate the actual value reserved for the reproduction of labour-power. The chief problem however is that in order to follow the Marxian definition of exploitation, one must accept a substantialist theory of value whose substance is the duration of abstract labour.