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Karl Marx: Working
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It should be noted... that Marx's metaphorical use of Judaism and money was standard for Jews of his time. Moses Hess, for example, self-consciously Jewish and proto-Zionist, used language almost exactly similar to Marx's in his "On the Money System." The equation of Judaism with money was standard for Marx's period, even by Jews.[5]
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Why does Marx begin his book with the analysis of the commodity? What is the "double-character of the commodity? (Recall Aristotle's distinction between use value and exchange value). Is use value a specific social form of wealth? Is exchange-value? Is the commodity?
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The notion of labor is fundamental in Marx's thought. Basically, Marx argued that humans have the capacity to transform their circumstances, and he calls this process of transformation "labor" and the capacity to transform circumstances labor power. For Marx, this is a natural capacity for a physical activity, but it is intimately tied to the human mind and human imagination:
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The change of social systems could not be explained, according to Marx, by extra-social factors such as geography or climate, since these remain relatively constant in the face of major historical transformations. Nor can such change be explained by reference to the emergence of novel ideas. The genesis and acceptance of ideas depend on something that is not an idea. Ideas are not prime movers but are the reflection, direct or sublimated, of the material interests that impel men in their dealings with others.
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Here it is very important to give special signicficance to the fact that Marx and his friends, being against God, were not atheists as modern Marxists call themselves. Although they denied God publicly, they hated the One Whose existence they never doubted.
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How has Marx shown that a commodity is "a very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties" (274). From what, according to Marx, does this "mystical character of commodities" (274) arise? What does it not arise from? Why is the commodity "a mysterious thing" (274)?
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