Analysis 4: One man thought that he could resist drowning by resisting the idea of gravity.

"In contrast to German philosophy, which descends from heaven to earth, here we ascend from earth to heaven. That is to say, we do not set out from what men imagine, but from real active men. Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life. When empty talk about consciousness ceases, and real knowledge takes its place philosophy as an independent branch of knowledge loses its medium of existence" (Marx 656).  Marx is trying to say that all of mens cognitive abilities, their consciousness, derives from need and from history, history and need are not derived from it.  In "German Ideology" he details how societies arose in their four steps into feudalism and the class system that he further outlines and calls into action in "The Communist Manifesto".
In his manifesto, Marx tells how the Bourgeoisie were able to over throw the aristocratic elite and become the new dominant class, and that this evolution was lead by capitalism.  He says that capitalism and the merchant zeal lead to the bourgeoisie to enslave the world with capitalism and destroyed the family and society with industrialization.  He goes on to state that the proletariat is being ruled by the Bourgeoisie, and that the workers are selling their labor to the ruling class individuals. The Communist Manifesto is a warning and a call to arms saying that the working class can destroy the ruling class much the way that the bourgeoisie overcame the aristocrats.


In "Capital" he states that commodities can only truly be compared in the time it takes to make the commodity (labor time) and that the only value it can then be weighed in is money. He also argues that by putting a monetary value on an object it loses the labor-value and is only seen in the aspect of monetary worth which then makes the public lose touch with the amount of labor put into the product. this means that capitalism is focusing more on the money and less on the labor price which allows for the company to pay workers less and still charge more money for the object, and allows workers who produce nothing that can be consumed (marketeers) to make more than the laborers.


Yet he fails to take into account that after the proletariate takes over they will become the ruling class.  His essays focus on how society is born from class struggle, and this class struggle pushes society on to the next evolution (evolution through revolution).  In a society with out any monetary value, only labor value will rule, so unless their is a system with no skilled workers only a shared rotation of work (i.e. one individual farms one day, then smiths the next) there will exist another class struggle.  That would be a struggle between the desirable jobs and the undesirable.  A farmer would be more desirable than a stable hand, and a smith would be more desirable than the trash collector, a doctor most desirable of all.  The credit would not be weight in money, but in labor time and reluctance to do the job. If every one were to share and get equal shares of everything, it would soon become evident that the individual making clothes had to do less back breaking labor than the individual making buildings so the division in labor would still be evident.  The class system would not be devised by money, but by desirable position.  Marx is only calling for the evolution of the next class system, for their is no true way to break from class.  If all individuals shared and rotated jobs, then their would be no doctor or no truly skilled farmers, crops would succeed or houses would be erected one day, only to be placed in the hand of a less skilled individual.  this could lead to instances of shoddy houses, ruined harvests, or poisonous medicines.  It is seen in history that humanity started living longer and became more productive with the idea of specialized jobs and skills.  So either humanity would have to resort to a more primitive time, or their would be a class division among trades. 
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Marx, Karl. "Capital". ed. Leitch, Vincent B. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2010. Print. 
Marx, Karl. "The Communist Manifesto". ed. Leitch, Vincent B. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2010. Print. 
Marx, Karl. "The German Ideology". ed. Leitch, Vincent B. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2010. Print.