Marx and "Human Nature"

[Akshay!]

What were Marx's views on "human nature"?
And what do You think about it?

[GiantMonkeyMan]

I think Marx would have probably thought along the same lines as Engels' The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State. There's a few inaccuracies in the book but modern anthropologists still utilise the underlying themes in their studies of historical human societies. Basically; human 'nature' (or, more appropriately, human behaviours and customs) is a product of the economic structures you live in. Material conditions create conciousness, as it were. The concept that human beings are 'naturally' greedy or egalitarian is simply flawed when you realise the huge diversity of behaviours across society.

[egalitarian]

I don't think human nature exists as much as human nurture. We use our ability to reason to twist whatever nature remains to fit into society.

[Beeth]

There is certainly a thing called human nature, which is also common to most animals - the desire to survive at all costs, to struggle, etc. In human societies, this basic tendency manifests as accumulation, expansion, struggle for power, and so on. It is a biological reality, not a philosophical one.

[Dave B]

In 1844, before the publication of Stirners ‘Ego and His Own’, Karl was a Feuerbachian.

He adopted Fuerbachs idea that communism was a spontaneous expression of a cooperative social instinct, a human essence or human nature.

After Stirner Karl and Fred took the position that there was no scientific basis to that idea as regards where it could originate from; and the only ‘materialist’ motivation humans could have would have to be one of personal self interest or egotism.

Although even in November 1844 Fred himself hadn’t quite fully yet abandoned their “erstwhile” (as in German Ideology) ‘human heart’ position.



In the first place it's a simple matter to prove to Stirner that his egoistic man is bound to become communist out of sheer egoism. That's the way to answer the fellow. In the second place he must be told that in its egoism the human heart is of itself, from the very outset, unselfish and self-sacrificing, so that he finally ends up with what he is combating.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/letters/44_11_19.htm


later moving on to the position that the motivation and appeal for communism could only be the conscious, rational or self-aware collective material self interest of the working class.

In his second book, 1871, Darwin theorized that social animals, and possibly humans, could and did evolve cooperative (communist) ‘social instincts’.

In fact these social instincts were identical to Fuerbachs, and Karl's, 1844 conception of them which Karl had rejected in 1845 as lacking a possible scientific basis; which Darwin provided in 1871.

In fact Engels in 1875 went back to their original 1844 communist ‘human essence’ (social instinct) thesis after Darwin’s thesis of 1871.


(6) On the other hand I cannot agree with you that the war of every man against every man was the first phase of human development. In my opinion the social instinct was one of the most essential levers in the development of man from the ape. The first men must have lived gregariously and so far back as we can see we find that this was the case.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/letters/75_11_12.htm


This was taken up by two other scientists eg Kropotkin in his mutual aid and Anton Pannekoek’s ‘Marxism And Darwinism’.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/1912/marxism-darwinism.htm

Instincts are not rational they are emotively felt and experienced.



Social instincts would be experienced as an outrage disgust and aversion to ‘injustice’ cruelty and suffering of others and a desire to live cooperatively without conflict etc.

‘Communism’ or cooperation, as a behavior, can be rationalised as ultimately in the best interests of the ego’s of animals that have to live socially.

Also ‘behaviour’ that is ultimately in the best interests of the ego’s of animals that have to live socially can also be evolved as an instinct.

Thus hypothetically ‘rational communism’ and ‘social instinct’ (human essence) can become harmonised with a “the complete return of man to himself”.


thus from Karl of 1844;




(3) Communism as the positive transcendence of private property as human self-estrangement, and therefore as the real appropriation of the human essence by and for man; communism therefore as the complete return of man to himself as a social (i.e., human) being – a return accomplished consciously and embracing the entire wealth of previous development. This communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man – the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence, between objectification and self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species. Communism is the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this solution.http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm


Or the complete return of Karl and Fred to their 1844 position.

Feuerbach arrived at his position from a curious angle that early Christianity was proto communist anti rich and ruling class movement of oppressed and working class.

A position that Kautsky revisted in his Foundations of Christianity 1908)

http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1908/christ/index.htm

And Engels

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894/early-christianity/index.htm

Having researched it myself it seems to be true in the sense that from early 2nd material the original ‘christians’ seemed to view themselves and be viewed by their critics as a working class organisation eg.

Or an anti intellectual one; of “women, slaves and children” with a carpenter as their ‘God’ as the 2nd century critic of Christianity Celsum put it.

There was another 2nd century one about them being ‘cobblers and artisans and weavers of cloth’.

eg;




Next he asked them what property they had, or how much money they possessed. They both replied that they had only 9000 denaria between them, each of them owning half that sum; but even this they said they did not possess in cash, but as the estimated value of some land, consisting of thirty-nine plethra only, out of which they had to pay the dues, and that they supported themselves by their own labour. And then they began to hold out their hands, exhibiting, as proof of their manual labour, the roughness of their skin, and the corns raised on their hands by constant workhttp://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/hegesippus.html


The even younger 1843 Karl was just a liberal when Fred was a proper communist and writing some pretty good stuff.

[Hit The North]

After Stirner Karl and Fred took the position that there was no scientific basis to that idea as regards where it could originate from; and the only ‘materialist’ motivation humans could have would have to be one of personal self interest or egotism.


Do you have a textual source for this interesting nugget?

[Lucretia]

What were Marx's views on "human nature"?
And what do You think about it?

I would advise you read Norm Geras's fine book on this topic: Marx and Human Nature: Refutation of a Legend.

[Akshay!]

I would advise you read Norm Geras's fine book on this topic: Marx and Human Nature: Refutation of a Legend.

Thanks, I'll read it. But what's your view about human nature? Does it exist? If yes, how is it different from the liberal conception of "human nature"?

[blake 3:17]

I would advise you read Norm Geras's fine book on this topic: Marx and Human Nature: Refutation of a Legend.

I read it 20 years ago and can't remember it. Who was he responding to specifically? Althusser?

[Lucretia]

Thanks, I'll read it. But what's your view about human nature? Does it exist? If yes, how is it different from the liberal conception of "human nature"?

Yes, human nature exists as a kind of abstraction against which to evaluate social systems. It differs from a liberal conception insofar as it doesn't mistake the one-sided concrete manifestations of particular aspects of that nature -- like self-interest -- under class society with human nature in general, as though to abolish markets goes against human nature to compete.

[Lucretia]

I read it 20 years ago and can't remember it. Who was he responding to specifically? Althusser?

Oddly enough, both Althusserians and Hegelian Marxists were the targets. One of them, Sean Sayers, later got into a tiff with him about a decade later on the subject. Geras quite eloquently upended Sayers' book on human nature in New Left Review, I think it was.

[Dave B]

for post 6



Stirner’s book was essentially a criticism of Fuerbach’s thesis of an altruistic human nature or human essence.

I suppose you have to be familiar with both to appreciate that.

Feuerbach, and thus Karl and Fred in 1844, were not all that far removed from the ‘all you need is love’ flower power movement.

Fuerbach actually used the ‘love’ word as did Karl.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/letters/44_08_11.htm


That was their ‘erstwhile philosophical conscience’ that they set about putting and end to in their ‘German Ideology (which was a response to Stirner).

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1886/ludwig-feuerbach/foreword.htm

For the post 1844 Karl, ‘ideology’, including various ‘moralities’ was the product of the constant socially ‘evolving ’ of ‘practical’ solutions to satisfy innate ‘sensuous’ needs (personal pleasure) ie food, shelter sex etc etc.

Accordingly; compassion, sympathy, ‘justice’ etc are not innate or ‘sensual’ needs that necessarily require a ‘practical’ fulfilment.

But social ideological/cultural constructs.

It is not my idea.

Thus you get with ‘communism’ that it is ‘practical’ and selfish to be unselfish and that;



“…man is bound to become communist out of sheer egoism”http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx...s/44_11_19.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/letters/44_11_19.htm)

Which is the post 1844 ‘orthodox Marxist’ position.

Even Stirner (and Fred) though couldn’t completely get away from the idea of ‘love’ and the concern and compassion for others etc etc.

But it was relegated to the strictly personal and immediate with Stirners ‘kissing of the troubled brows’ of your loved ones etc.

General compassion, empathy for people you have never met and the rejection of the value system of exercising power over others (and its antithesis; ‘humility’) etc is bollocks and best left to the ‘original Christians’.


.

[KarlLeft]

To paraphrase from a recent film: If a child has one toy and wants two, that's human nature. If it has two toys and wants four, that also is human nature. But when an entire society's economic system is based on human nature, as capitalism is, then the potential is for it to become irrational and dysfunctional.