W H. Auden purportedly quipped, “We are all Freudians now.” The same could be said about Marx, who made such signal contributions to our understanding of human socio-economic life that much of what he theorized in the nineteenth century is now taken for granted. Among else Marx showed us that religiosity varies within societies along socio-economic class lines, as the rich and powerful tend to be less religious than the poor and the powerless.

Arguably the most important insight Marx offered for the study of culture is that the rich and powerful maintain their socio-economic privileges not by force alone but also by the construction and transmission of cultural myths that rationalize the status quo and disproportionately benefit the wealthy. For instance, in the past thirty years in the United States, “supply side” economic theory has dominated fiscal policy. Supply-side economic theory argues that lowering federal incomes taxes benefits society by enabling all people to keep more of their earned incomes, which they in turn spend, which creates demand, which results in more jobs.

A Marxist would argue, however, that this “low tax” story is a myth whose real effect is to disproportionately benefit the wealthy at the expense of the poor. How so? “Equal” reductions in taxes on earned income amount to more savings by those with higher earned incomes than lower incomes (e.g. a 10 per cent tax reduction in taxes paid on earnings of $200,000 nets more savings than a 10 per cent reduction in taxes paid on earnings of $20,000).