“And of course the capitalist himself is just as alienated from himself”
Really? Why? We can do a hard day’s work, earn some money, and have our needs met.

If we’re entrepreneurial, we can even form a whole new product line that meets people’s needs.

My wife and I run a design business. We’re engaged with the work we do. It’s fun. It’s meaningful, and contributes to the value of our client’s products and image and adds beauty. The fact that we get to buy and own our computers and run it the way we want to is an added bonus. But it’s not just because I am the owner of the means of production that I’m engaged. I’ve been involved in public work as well, and even in small business. I would argue that it is the jobs themselves can be more interesting and engaging than others. You can’t just read Marx as an article of faith without comparing it to the real world and arguing the case!

Just as there are many types of work there are many types of alienation. Some face depression. Others face the consequences of our poor suburban design, where we don’t engage each other in the long gone public square any more but drive from the box where we work to the box where we sleep. Some had poor communication skills. Some hate their job because they never got the education they needed to work to their potential. This thing we call ‘capitalism’ is a multi-faceted thing that is far to complex to be squished into Marx’s prescriptive labels.

Marx also used Bulverism, which is a cheap logical fallacy. The “opiate of the masses” is one such example. Instead of proving *that* Christianity was wrong, he psychoanalysed *why* it was wrong. Cheap trick.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulverism

Still, Marx produced some interesting arguments. I personally hope society goes down the “Kim Stanley Robinson” Mars path, where big corporations end up giving all employees equitable shares. CEO’s don’t get 400 times the cleaner!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_trilogy#Corporations

"contributes to the value of our client’s products and image and adds beauty".. that really depends what the products are, doesn't it?

Adding 'beauty' to a fag packet is not worth bragging about is it?

But fag makers certainly need a cleaner image, so some plonker makes a mottza out of 'em, dreaming up names that sound like beach resorts, and comparing a filthy fag to a mountain stream ... and so on.

Dear Eclipse Now,
the only item of Marx's thought that I, or anyone, is obliged to take as an "article of faith", is that individuals and humanity can be so much better than they are. This is a faith (non-empirical proposition) I'm proud of. The rest of Marx's theoretical framework is perfectly logical and born-out by historical events---apart from the fact that capitalism has lasted longer than he predicted. Contrary to popular misconceptions, Marx did not see communism as dialectically inevitable and wouldn't have discounted the idea of an economically-induced Armageddon as just as likely. Indeed, as I've said elsewhere, barely one in one hundred thousand people understands Marx's thought (Darwin's the same) and are too wrapped up in their ideology to care.
I really don't have the time to educate you about the concept of alienation, which is difficult to grasp since we've never known any other condition, and the whole superstructure of our civilisation naturally and unquestionably reflects this "reality". Suffice it to say that despite bravado your life, whether you know it or not, is a mean and dispiriting caricature of what it might have been under a more conducive dispensation (though at least you're not working underground in China). You defray the cost to your shrunken "being" by fetishising a commodified church---extraordinary, really, that lives rationally predicated on the dismal science can simultaneously cleave to the supernatural--your drug of choice.
Instead of ridiculing all this (as I expect you will), why don't you subject your life and your your lifeworld to a bit of scrutiny?
..Of course it can be a devastating realisation when it dawns.

The Blue Cross,

Spot on! Just ask Yul Brynner or the 'Marlboro Man' can't they died of lung cancer.

The Age religion reporter, Barney Zwartz,
has pointed out the difficulties that
the informed religion reporter faces.
"There are hardly any religion specialists
in the media in Australia, there is no
instructor, and it's a subject that often
inspires strong passions."

Also many in the media are fixated on
particular stories which are covered relentlessly.
1) One, the church is dying.
2) The troglodyte church gets in the
way of gays and women.
3) Priests and pedophilia.
Swartz tells us that, "All of these are important,
but if that's all you ever write about you're
missing the story."

More deeply entrenched than the stereotype is the
media's assumption that the church has nothing
significant to say on the issues that trouble
people today. Those who affect the course of debate
set their own agenda. No one mentions the churches...

I guess one of the reasons why the churches are often
left out of discussion especially as far as Catholic
representation is concerned is because Catholic
representatives still have difficulty with public
discourse. And then we come to people like the author
of this article. Jesuit priest, Father Frank Brennan,
who can handle the media.

I say, God Bless Father Brennan! He is widely respected,
(even if Paul Keating called him a "meddlesome priest").
Father Brennan has fearlessly articulated the church's
social teaching, represented the church in some of the
hardest questions that cross the political-religious
divide, defended Aborigines and refugees, and written
a book on conscience in public life, that is widely
read and respected.

People love to hear what others think about all types of
things from moral standards and social mores to good manners
and correct behaviour. That's why talk-back radio is so
pervasive. We debate our standards. They are not handed down
from above as absolutes. Off-the-shelf answers and
authoritative pronouncements are no longer believed.

This is very hard for the hierarchical mind-set to comprehend.
It's hard to do if you think you already have the truth.

Squeers; You're right that communism have never really been tried in the sense Marx envisaged it.

Perhaps the closest we've had were the kibbutzim in Israel.

But even these now link in with the networks of the global economy; are not self reliant; are dependent on a sprawling international division of labour.

My conclusion has been that communism as envisaged by Marx is probably just not possible - or not now at least!