"'Value...is the property of things, riches...of man. Value...necessarily implies exchanges, riches do not'...'Riches...are the attribute of man, value is the attribute of commodities...A man or a community is rich, a pearl or a diamond is valuable...A pearl or a diamond is valuable as a pearl or diamond'" (243).

Half of what Marx says reminds me of a geometry proof and, therefore, goes in one ear and out the other. This particular point Marx makes, however, I actually understand. Marx is making the distinction between value and riches. Inevitably, it is all relative. Things with value are comparable. Riches are not. Value is an attribute of a commodity; riches are an attribute of man.

"The value of commodity...varies directly as the quantity, and inversely as the productivity, of the labor which finds its realization within the commodity" (225).

Just talking about direct and inverse relationships makes me cringe. Help anyone?

It has occurred to me that Marxist philosophy opposes that of Gandhi. Marx says, "...the division of labor implies the conflict between the interest of the individual or the individual family and the communal interest of all individuals having contact with one another...In communist society...where nobody has an exclusive area of activity and each can train himself in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production, making it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, breed cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I like, without ever becoming a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critic" (119). Marx describes an idealist community where no one has a specific role. Each person can do whatever he pleases at any given moment of any given day. Gandhi, however, believes in a Varna system. In this form of society, each individual has a different job, but each job has an equal significance. The job of each individual is passed down through families. Gandhi and Marx have very different views about the division of labor of society.

"Morality, religion, metaphysics, and all the rest of ideology and their corresponding forms of consciousness no longer seem to be independent...men who develop their material production and their material relationships alter their thinking and the products of their thinking along with their real existence. Consciousness does not determine life, but life determines consciousness. In the first view the starting point is consciousness taken as a living individual; in the second it is the real living individuals themselves as they exist in real life, and consciousness is considered only as their consciousness" (Marx 112).

This passage really messed with my mind. It is almost as if Marx is questioning and tempering with reality. What is consciousness? What is awareness? I keep thinking of The Matrix trilogy. The humans of that world are conscious, but their level of consciousness does not perceive reality. Their lives determine their consciousness. They see only what they are programmed to see, not what really is. If you can't trust your own consciousness, what can you trust? Consciousness is all a person has to maintain his perception of reality.

What is interesting to me in reading Karl Marx after Gandhi is the fact that both men had a very distinct goal. Marx and Gandhi seem to portray their goals and means of attaining these goals in a similar fashion. Both men assert their goals, explain a brief history of how civilization became corrupted into its current state, and provide a list of their most important points. However, Gandhi an Marx have severely different goals and values. Gandhi wants India to be free from the English and the grasp of Western ideas. He wants to abolish factories and education, placing all emphasis on religion. Gandhi explains the importance of Varnas and castes. Marx wants the proletariat class to rise above the bourgeoisie. He wants to extend the number of factories and instruments of production. He also wants free education for all children in public schools. Both men want equality, but they have different ideals and visions of how society should be.

In Marx's Communist Manifesto he states, "But every class struggle is a political struggle" (166). Not only does this bold statement sum up the importance of his first section, it also ties into what we are discussing in my History of Jamestown class. Yesterday we discussed Jamestown in 1610 under the martial law of Dale. My professor actually made a direct reference to Karl Marx when explaining the class structure and laws that were upheld. In William Strachey's, Laws Divine Moral and Martial, it is stated, "Everything that comes under the laws moral and politic is 'no less subject to the martial law'" (33). It didn't matter whether the crime was moral or political, all laws were subject to physical punishment. Some were even punishable by death. The formation of society and class structure became a political issue. People had a class identity, not a personal identity. Marx deals with the individual versus the group as well.

We were asked to write about our lives as individuals, roommates in dorms, and dorm life in halls. The differences in responsibility are similar and at the same time different. I have my personal definition of cleanliness and need for neatness. Fortunately, my roommate and I share the desire for a neat room. Also fortunately, we have messy tendencies. Usually our room is cluttered throughout the week and we will have a big cleanup on Sunday. We need to agree on noise levels and lights out times. There is a lot of compromise and a need for understanding. My roommate and I luckily share sleeping and study habits, but we are just one dorm in the hall of many. Some girls stay up until 3am with visitors; some girls go to bed by 12 because of early morning classes. Our RA has had to send out reminders to all of us to be courteous of our neighbors and their habits. As an individual, I am responsible for doing my share of cleaning and taking care of my things in my room. As a roommate, I am responsible for not only taking care of my needs but for meeting my roommate half-way with adhering to her needs as well. As a hall member, I am responsible for controlling the noise and activity in my room late at night. Gandhi spends a lot of time talking about the differences of importance in individuals and as the individual as a group member. "As with the individual so with the universe is an unfailing principle which we would do well to lay to heart" (Gandhi 76). People do not have individual purposes alone; they have to take into consideration the groups they form and the people around them.

Connections

In the section on Ahimsa, Gandhi brings up the subject of fearing death. "If we are unmanly today, we are so, not because we do not know how to strike, but because we fear to die" (97). This statement reminded me of other works we have read this year. Gandhi's statement corresponds with The White Castle and with Socrates. In The White Castle, the narrator says of Hoja, "...he didn't fear the plague; disease was God's will, if a man was fated to die he would die...If it was written, so it would come to pass, death would find us. Why was I afraid? Because of those sins of mine I'd written down day after day?" (Pamuk 73). In The Trial and Death of Socrates, Socrates says, "Neither I nor any other man should, on trial or in war, contrive to avoid death at any cost...It is not difficult to avoid death...it is much more difficult to avoid wickedness, for it runs faster than death" (Plato 40). All three men share the belief that one must face death in order to be courageous. This common theme is essential in the platforms of each man's religious beliefs. In America, the common attitude towards death is fear and sadness. This attitude is far different from that of other cultures and time periods.