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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. [3] In outline, Geras shows that, while the social relations are held to "determine" the nature of people, they are not the only such determinant.
Marxist humanism is an international body of thought and political action rooted in a humanist interpretation of the works of Karl Marx.It is an investigation into "what human nature consists of and what sort of society would be most conducive to human thriving" [1] from a critical perspective rooted in Marxist philosophy.
Karl Marx's theory of alienation describes the separation and estrangement of people from their work, their wider world, their human nature, and their selves. Alienation is a consequence of the division of labour in a capitalist society, wherein a human being's life is lived as a mechanistic part of a social class .
Marx and Human Nature: Refutation of a Legend is a 1983 book by the political theorist Norman Geras, in which the author discusses the philosopher Karl Marx's theory of human nature with reference to Marx's Sixth Thesis on Feuerbach.
For Marx, the human nature – Gattungswesen, or species-being – exists as a function of human labour. [ 231 ] [ 232 ] [ 234 ] Fundamental to Marx's idea of meaningful labour is the proposition that for a subject to come to terms with its alienated object it must first exert influence upon literal, material objects in the subject's world. [ 235 ]
In Marx's Concept of Man, Erich Fromm provides a detailed analysis of Karl Marx's ideas about human nature and how those ideas informed his economic and political theories. Fromm shows how Marx's conception of man as a "species-being" who is fundamentally social and cooperative, rather than selfish and individualistic, shaped his vision of a ...
Marx's "base determines superstructure" axiom, however, requires qualification: the base is the whole of productive relationships, not only a given economic element, e.g. the working class historically, the superstructure varies and develops unevenly in society's different activities; for example, art, politics, economics, etc.
Marxist philosophy or Marxist theory are works in philosophy that are strongly influenced by Karl Marx's materialist approach to theory, or works written by Marxists.Marxist philosophy may be broadly divided into Western Marxism, which drew from various sources, and the official philosophy in the Soviet Union, which enforced a rigid reading of what Marx called dialectical materialism, in ...