Some Marxists posit what they deem to be Karl Marx's theory of human nature, which they accord an important place in his critique of capitalism, his conception of communism, and his materialist conception of history. Marx does not refer to human nature as such, but to Gattungswesen, which is generally translated as "species-being" or "species-essence". According to a note from Marx in the Manuscripts of 1844, the term is derived from Ludwig Feuerbach's philosophy, in which it refers both to the nature of each human and of humanity as a whole.
In the sixth Theses on Feuerbach (1845), Marx criticizes the traditional conception of human nature as a species which incarnates itself in each individual, instead arguing that human nature is formed by the totality of social relations. Thus, the whole of human nature is not understood, as in classical idealist philosophy, as permanent and universal: the species-being is always determined in a specific social and historical formation, with some aspects being biological.
The sixth thesis on Feuerbach and the determination of human nature by social relations The sixth of the Theses on Feuerbach, written in 1845, provided an early discussion by Marx of the concept of human nature. It states:
Feuerbach resolves the essence of religion into the essence of man [menschliches Wesen = 'human nature']. But the essence of man is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In reality, it is the ensemble of the social relations. Feuerbach, who does not enter upon a criticism of this real essence is hence obliged: 1. To abstract from the historical process and to define the religious sentiment regarded by itself, and to presuppose an abstract — isolated - human individual. 2. The essence therefore can by him only be regarded as 'species', as an inner 'dumb' generality which unites many individuals only in a natural way.
Thus, Marx appears to say that human nature is no more than what is made by the "social relations". Norman Geras's Marx and Human Nature (1983), however, offers an argument against this position. In outline, Geras shows that, while the social relations are held to "determine" the nature of people, they are not the only such determinant. However, Marx makes statements where he specifically refers to a human nature which is more than what is conditioned by the circumstances of one's life. In Capital, in a footnote critiquing utilitarianism, he says that utilitarians must reckon with "human nature in general, and then with human nature as modified in each historical epoch". Marx is arguing against an abstract conception of human nature, offering instead an account rooted in sensuous life. While he is quite explicit that "[a]s individuals express their life, so they are. Hence what individuals are depends on the material conditions of their production", he also believes that human nature will condition (against the background of the productive forces and relations of production) the way in which individuals express their life. History involves "a continuous transformation of human nature", though this does not mean that every aspect of human nature is wholly variable; what is transformed need not be wholly transformed.
Marx did criticise the tendency to "transform into eternal laws of nature and of reason, the social forms springing from your present mode of production and form of property". For this reason, he would likely have wanted to criticise certain aspects of some accounts of human nature. Some people believe, for example, that humans are naturally selfish – Immanuel Kant and Thomas Hobbes, for example. (Both Hobbes and Kant thought that it was necessary to constrain our human nature in order to achieve a good society – Kant thought we should use rationality, Hobbes thought we should use the force of the state – Marx, as we shall see, thought that the good society was one which allows our human nature its full expression.) Most Marxists will argue that this view is an ideological illusion and the effect of commodity fetishism: the fact that people act selfishly is held to be a product of scarcity and capitalism, not an immutable human characteristic. For confirmation of this view, we can see how, in The Holy Family Marx argues that capitalists are not motivated by any essential viciousness, but by the drive toward the bare "semblance of a human existence". (Marx says "semblance" because he believes that capitalists are as alienated from their human nature under capitalism as the proletariat, even though their basic needs are better met.)
Needs and drives
In the 1844 Manuscripts the young Marx wrote: