(243).
For Marx, the force that determines social relations is economic and is identified by the relationship of the human being to labor. Marx has a conception of human history based on dialectical materialism, a perspective which includes the idea that the determining factors in the development, relations, and institutions of mankind are not mystical or ideological but economic. Human motivations are rooted in the labor activities of human beings. Human beings have to secure a livelihood, and to accomplish this they organize their productive forces in a way that is based on the level of development of society and thus the type of economic system that has been produced. For Marx, everything in life rests on these economic foundations. Society is made up of social classes, with one class dominant at a given time based on the control of the means of production. Human nature is expressed in the way individuals relate to class and the way they are controlled by that relationship. The workers sell their labor and are alienated from the product of their labor because of it. They do not own the means of production, while the capitalist who does sells the product of the labor of the workers. This exploitation of one class by another produces class hostilities which are constant and which are based on material inequalities. The class struggle is the defining fact of societal life and will lead in time to the violent overthrow of the capitalist class by the working class, producing the dictatorship of the proletariat for a certain period until a completely classless society is produced.
In Capital, Marx indicates that each commodity produced has an exchange value that is determined by the amount of labor which went into producing it. Surplus value is generated when there is a difference between the sale price of the commodity and the wages of the worker. This reflects the method and the analysis seen in Section C of The Gr...