I've been a spectator for years of the phenomenon known as 'economics' - be it as a philosophy student, a manager of small businesses, an active reader of economics texts and journalism, or just an individual, observing my own daily life. I've always been a bit flustered by the metaphors employed, from all sides of the spectrum, be it pigs at the trough or rising boats, because none really signify the subject matter. It is because 'economics' needs no metaphor. It is a cult - with its high priests and renegade clergy - and the object of genuflection is capitalism.
Not a single 'economist', including Marx and his line, has ever questioned capitalism as the organizing principal of social life.
Some might take issue with that statement. Some would say we've had 'pre-capitalist' economies and capitalism was a 'revolution'. Some would say we've had 'pre-capitalist' economies showing progressive trends toward capitalism. Some would say we still have 'pre-capitalist' economies. Some would leave their fibrous astrocyte at our feet from their exploding heads at the notion I would consider Marx a capitalist.
On the one hand I could say that 'economics' only developed as a discipline with the rise of capitalism [which is, in fact, true]. I could also say that 19th century theories, looking at history as a series of birthing events yielding the golden child of capitalism, might be [retrospectively] a tad historo-centric. I could also say that our view of other currently existing systems is horribly tainted by the developed dogma and thus doesn't really apprehend the matrix at work. But all of these retorts share the shallowness of the questions.
The real question is why we developed a 'science' to justify the continued ascendancy of aristocratic interests over the interests of the hoi polloi. Ask yourself - what is the difference today between the ancient world and the modern world? Great, we don't have slaves, but don't we? Great, we have democracy, but do we? Great, we don't have an elaborate system of land owning aristocrats dictating everything from our basic sustenance to when we die in wars... oh sorry, we have that too.
Enter capitalism.
It is universally agreed [Marx included] that a 'capitalist' mode of social organization brings about greater freedom to the individual. From the early scribblings of Smith to elaborate scheming of current financial gurus it is assumed that people making gidgets, trading gidgets, trading on future contracts on people making gidgets, trading on land that might be bought by people that might be making gidgets, trading on the things that are needed to make gidgets, trading on wars needed to develop the resources to make future gidgets possible... all of this, somehow, makes human beings more free. It may make us more free because of greater variety in the labor offered us. It may make us more free because the urbanization, or internationalization brings a greater number of people into contact with diverse cultures, broadening horizons. It may make us more free because it expands the global supply of money, making it possible for a peasant to experience, in part, the life of those who know no bounds. For Marx, all of this was supposed to instill the idea of equality among those subject to it - which is why capitalism itself is responsible for the revolution.
And we have our matrices, our graphs, our explanations, our theories, our historical waxing on why it is so incredible that we have developed this way of living together. But in the basic mechanics, I don't see how this is any different from the tales I've read of the ancient world. Capitalism has replaced the gods - be they one or many. Our self-worth as human beings now hinges on how we float or drown within a tide hidden within a wave hidden within a tsunami. We have more education, we are more differentiated, we have the illusion that our lives are our own, but nothing in our real lives has changed from the days in which community A conquered community B because the latter had better land.
Our moral platitudes are just that. Empty - vessels of an ancient world that erases the idea. We worship a god that betrays, belittles and demeans us. We erect altars to its glory, and we base a science on the idea that the sun revolves around the earth and think that somehow makes us all the lords of creation, when we're simply the slaves we've always been.