eparation of classes based upon power and wealth. This material organization of society is what Marx calls "class consciousness." This, in turn, created the social conflict that drives society.
             All of this is made worse by capitalism which only increases the disparity between the wealthy classes and the labor classes. Confrontation between them is unavoidable because those classes are driven by historical forces beyond anyone's control. Capitalism also creates one new misery: exploitation of surplus value.
             For Marx, an ideal economic system would involve exchanges of equal value for equal value, where value is determined simply by the amount of work put into whatever is being produced. Capitalism interrupts this ideal by introducing a profit motive - a desire to produce an uneven exchange of lesser value for greater value. Profit is ultimately derived from the surplus value produced by workers in factories.
             A laborer might produce enough value to feed his family in two hours of work, but he keeps at the job for a full day - in Marx's time, that might be 12 or 14 hours. Those extra hours represent the surplus value produced by the worker. The owner of the factory did nothing to earn this, but exploits it nevertheless and keeps the difference as profit.
             Economics, then, are what constitute the base of all of human life and history - generating division of labor, class struggle, and all the social institutions which are supposed to maintain the status quo. Those social institutions are a superstructure built upon the base of economics, totally dependent upon material and economic realities but nothing else. All of the institutions which are prominent in our daily lives - marriage, church, government, arts, etc. - can only be truly understood when examined in relation to economic forces.
             It should be clear now that religion is one of those social institutions which are dependent upon the material and economic realities ...