The computer salesmen takes advantage of the ignorance of the customer. The priest takes advantage of the stupidity and superstition of the lay person. The monopolist takes advantage of the absence of competition to charge what the market will bear. The advertiser takes advantage of the impressionability of the masses. And it is through the instrument of government that businessmen, welfare-frauds and others exploit the public at large.
Sheer circumstance can make anyone vulnerable to exploitation.
Laurence Labadie describes the case of a man having fallen into a water-well in a remote area. Labadie is also responsible for the argument that every occupation has a vested interest in the ill that it is designed to cure. Dentists have a vested interest in cavities, repairpersons have a vested interest in malfunctions, psychiatrists have a vested interest in emotional upset, teachers have a vested interest in ignorance, etc. There has been an increasing interest in the subject of exploitation of women by men. Of physical weakness and child-bearing it must be admitted that these handicaps make women less reliable as employees and therefore less likely to command as high a wage.