In capitalist society, workers are exploited by the ruling capitalist class. But exploitation of workers is not the only form that exploitation takes; there are other particular forms of exploitation. For example, the exploitation of Black and Indigenous people by white colonizers through chattel slavery and genocide, which facilitated further exploitation, creating an underclass within the underclass.

Another very prominent kind of exploitation is gender-based exploitation, which in our current era exists in the form of patriarchy, which is then further shaped by the conditions of capitalism. While patriarchy is harmful to all people, it involves and is facilitated primarily by the oppression of women. Women’s exploitation contributes to the power of the capitalist class; therefore, the liberation of women and the end of gender-based exploitation of all kinds is a necessary component of socialism.