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I'd like to respond to the claim that utilitarianism would justify extreme exploitation. R. M. Hare, a leading utilitarian, took on this argument very directly in an article he wrote on slavery. He considered the basic question whether utilitarianism could be used to justify slavery. In his view, the answer was that it could not.

Hare's argument is complex, but the gist of it is as follows:

The answer is that the objection rests on an appeal to our ordinary intuitions; but that these are designed to deal with ordinary cases. They give no reliable guide to what we ought to say in highly unusual cases. But, further, the case desiderated is never likely to occur. How could it come about that the existence of a small number of slaves was necessary in order to preserve the happiness of the rest? [R. M. Hare, "What is Wrong with Slavery," Philosophy & Public Affairs 8, no. 2]

You may think that it is easy to construct imaginary cases in which utilitarianism justifies all sorts of terrible things, but I would claim that these cases are in fact nearly impossible.

Take the case of the story of Omelas, in which the happiness of a town depends on the extreme misery of a single child. That's impossible. Or take the case of Stalin, who was willing to use slave labor to cut timber, mine gold, and carry out vast construction projects like the White Sea Canal. The slave labor involved was highly inefficient and the quality of work was poor. The whole project could have been accomplished with wage labor and avoided the extreme misery of those who worked on it. The use of slave labor didn't maximize happiness or welfare at all.