Charon took dead souls across the river of death but only for profit. As far as I know Karl Marx never wrote about that. He did however write about the body as machine but where the soul’s concerned Marx had little to say except to point out that religion is the soul of soulless conditions which is unhelpful if Charon is hanging around outside your house and waiting for his obolus.
I visited Marx’s tomb once. It’s adjacent to George Eliot’s eternal resting place. She wrote:
“O may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence; live
In pulses stirred to generosity,
In deeds of daring rectitude…”
I love “daring rectitude” which somehow reminds me of darling reticule but never mind, Charon doesn’t have it, demanding his payment in order that your eternal soul won’t be lonely.
Which means Charon was illiterate.
Planet of the Blind 