Marx identified exploitation as involving asymmetric relationships between individuals or groups who hold different relative positions within the nexus of cultural, political, economic and social power and advantage. Based on a synthesis of critical ethnographic research,the present article provides an analysis of exploitation in an unexpected domain, that of Swedish higher education. Its focus is on one specific part of the higher education field, that of local trust-based leadership and its management of the Swedish government block grant for research, at three higher education institutions. Using mainly auto-and meta-ethnographic methods, and looking specifically at data and analyses related to the enactment of recent higher education governance and finance acts, the article uncovers a structure of decision-making that undergirds an exploitation of accumulated labor from teaching intensive fields, through a form of academic capitalism that is adding to the un-evening of the academic field. There are seriously negative effects on teaching intensive fields like teacher education. These fields now struggle to maintain adequate scientific research connections and career opportunities for research-qualified staff whilst seeded fields have difficulty finding qualified staff toteach undergraduate courses and programs. The patterns of extraction and redistribution have clear links to the social-class and gender hierarchies of higher education and society in material history and may be an illustration of class and gender injustice.