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Marx Human Nature

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On page 150 of The German Ideology, Marx states “As individuals express their life, so they are.” This essay will explain how Marx did not believe in a single trans-historical human nature. His conception of an unstable state of human nature, combined with the modes of production, produces a cycle of tools and needs in which our lives and the lives of future generations are continually changed and shaped. In order to understand the cyclical process posed by Marx, one must first understand how we express our life. According to Marx, we express our life and ourselves through modes of production. The position of individuals and groups is determined by the type of production, which are “the methods employed in agriculture, industry and commerce.” …show more content…

Modes of production shape historical epochs. Marx claims, “The premise from which we begin are not arbitrary ones, not dogmas, but real premises… they are real individuals, their activity and the material conditions under which they live, both those which they find already existing and those produced by their activity.” Human nature is therefore determined by the modes of production, which also shapes material conditions. There are definite material limits, presuppositions, and existing conditions that define what an individual will be born into. Marx does believe there is a sort of human essence always present. Throughout each phase, humans’ modes of production are shaped and impacted by the previous generation’s contributions. But despite this, Marx rejects the notion of a fixed human nature, arguing that “we do not set out from what men say, imagine, conceive… We set out from real, active men, and on the basis of their real life-process we demonstrate the development of the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life-process” If human nature echoes an individual’s life-process, we can determine that there is not a single human nature that could be applied to all human beings in different times. One generation’s human nature cannot be applied to another since human nature is constantly modified my presupposed factors. In fact, a person’s human nature varies and fluctuates according to the socioeconomic status of the previous generations. Their struggles will be different. Humans within the same generations will be born into different social

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