"The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof" - Karl Marx. John, Chris and Tomer

The main idea in this reading is Karl Marx trying to analyze how comodities get their value.
there is a difference between the value of a comodity as percieved by man, to the actual cost and time of labour needed to make that comodity.
In trying to explain where that difference comes from, Marx turns to the realm of Religion: people throughout history have explained rational indiscrepencies through acts of god, and Marx compares this void to the rational voids filled by religion.
He explains the "hidden" attributes that a product recieves, that give it it's "worth", as comodity fetishism.
A "fetish" is "an object believed to have magical powers...", though in this case it is not so much "magical" as it is "not easily explained", or rather "not obvious".
Marx also talks about the commerce of commodities:
When a product is produced, by a group of individuals, it recieves a marketable value.
This implies that it actually has two uses. One is the basic use for which it was created,(furniture, books, clothing) and the other use is for the producer to "exchange" this product for something else that he needs (as currency).
Therefore when we look at "value", a product must not only be usefull, but be usefull to others.
Marx also has a bit of critisism aimed at the existing capitalist system, romanticizing the ideal of every individual creating what he needs, and thus the modes of production will not belong to the ruling class.
This is seen in his Robinson Cruso's example and the comparison to Medieval economy.

In our opinion, when viewing Karl Marx's work, one cannot ignore the man behind the writing, and disregard his other works, namely the "Communist Manifesto".
Karl Marx did invent the idea of Communism, and though this work is not radical in nature, one can still read the undertone that lies between the lines.
Almost all of the facets of communism are in this work, though they appear more discreatly then his full-blown books about Communism.
Marx critisizes the capitalist lifestyle of purchasing products we don't necassaraly need. He critisezes the entire idea of commerce, stating that the work that is done regarding the commerce of commodities is thus "wasted" labour that could be used for actual production.
Communism is secular in it's nature, and Marx critisizes religion in this work too.
Marx states that "christiany is most fitting for a society that treats their products as commodities and values."
The main idea of Communism is restoring the "means of production" to the people, so it is not controled by a ruling class.
In this work Marx states that we live in a society where the process of production has mastery over man, not the other way around.

Our question from this reading is:
Karl Marx's analysis of the capitalist market and about the "fetishism" of commodities, is in our time more prevalent then ever.
While Communism has been proven ineffective and obsolete by modern history, does that necassirily mean that all of Mark's anti capitalist market ideas have no merit? Or can we gain to benifit from some of his concepts when viewing and criticing our consumer mentality today?