Subject: Reading "Toward a Critique...."

Besides Simon's introduction, focus your attention on p. 28 (the last statement ends on top of p. 29), where Marx writes about religion. This is a very rich analysis, useful not only to locate religion in the context of the base-superstructure relationship but also to discern the essence of the Marxist analysis of the relationship between material conditions, forms of consciousness and ideology.

P. 34 - first paragraph in p. 35
Examines the role of ideas in social change and the relations between objective or material conditions and subjective conditions for change.

pp. 36-39 - Marx discusses the nature of revolutions, differentiating between radical and utopian revolutions and the role of classes in the revolutionary process. He also posits the proletariat as the class fated to struggle for universal emancipation. Could we describe the proletariat today in the same terms? Why?