'Material basis' and class.

Yes, of course, Marx was hardly alone in pointing out the way capitalism acted to corrode so many aspects of human society. What separates Marx from his peers was his emphasis on two things: 1) As diogenes notes below, the way in which our technologies -- our tools -- shape the social order in which we live, almost dictate it. One has to wait until the late Neil Postman to get a sharper or more relevant analysis. (Alas, Postman died just on the eve of the explosive growth of the internet). 2) Class. Marx stressed the critical importance of class -- the way in which members of a given class come together almost instinctively to protect/assert their privileges. (Marx was wrong about class-consciousness among the proletariat but dead-on about elites -- his analysis sharpened by Gramsci.) This is where the significance of these thinkers -- Marx/Gramsci -- lies for us. We are almost by nature class traitors. Overwhelming evidence exists that marriage partners sort themselves out by class (to be sure, women tending to marry slightly "up" and men often preferring to marry "down" -- but not too far). Most of us, however, are really intrigued -- smitten almost -- by boys of a different class. And we tend to inculcate ways of thinking and acting that can undermine class solidarity. It is a key reason why, in the contemporary world, we are so hated and seen as such a threat to the social order (which we are -- or we have the potential of becoming). Oh, and thanks for your kind comments on my posts. SR