Lyric discussion by penny-lane 

Cover art for The Spirit of Giving lyrics by New Pornographers, The

I thought it was Marx and not Mark. I thought it made sense seeing the song seems to be about materialism (and I guess you could easily relate that to capitalism and then it makes sense to bring in Marx to critique).

I think it`s about capitalism and essentially it turning on the elites (possibly related to the market crash that was shortly after this song was released). I know it's looking a little far into it but it's how I take it.

In this sense I love the line "remember the wolves that you run with are wolves" because a materialistic and capitalist society is very dog eat dog, everyone works in their best interest.

Yeah, almost certainly Marx.