Talk:Marx's theory of human nature

Gattungswesen

Gattungswesen is not identical to human nature, and Marx of course criticized the conception of an eternal and universal human nature (concerning reversal of recent edits). Regards, Santa Sangre 22:39, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore, you can't extrapolate from Norman Geras' book (no matter how good it is) and claim that's all that can be said. It is not generally admitted that Marx conceived of an eternal & universal nature! Santa Sangre 22:43, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it seems like a better title for this article would be "Marx's theory on species-being" or "on gattungswesen", although I'd be inclined to go with the english translation, since this is an english site, and that is the translation that is most likely to be searched.AnieHall (talk) 19:46, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

removed text

I removed this paragraph from the "Humans as free, purposive producers" section:

Can Marx's claims be substantiated? Allen Wood wrote that 'Marx gives no real argument for identifying labour or production as the most basic or essential human function' but that ‘human history (on Marx’s theory) is best made intelligible in terms of [the assumption that there is something such as] the fundamental human aspiration to develop and exercise the productive powers of society. Consequently, we have good evidence for regarding this as the fundamental or chief human good’. This claim seems to rely on the premise that the expansion of the productive forces in history can be attributed to the creative nature of humans. It's debatable whether this characterisation should be allowed though - see the below section on historical materialism. However, many of Marx's contentions are fairly strong intuitions for many people. It does seem to be characteristic of humans to make plans for what they build and what they do. And it does seem that humans do have a tendency to create which transcends the manufacture of what is necessary for survival.

It seemed to me that this was more critical analysis/discussion than encyclopaedic explanation, so I was bold and took it out. I was a little unsure about removing such a large block of text, however, so I'm putting this here. --superioridad ^(discusión) 02:40, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Essay

This reads like an essay, not a bad one, but not an encyclopedic article. It needs to be more inclusive of a variety of opinions (and not just in a polemical way).--Jack Upland (talk) 06:51, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

opinions such as?AnieHall (talk) 19:50, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Essay stolen?

During my search on Marx's work, I stumbled on this essay, which looks like a complete copy of the article. I am unsure as to which one came first, but someone mentionned the essay format of the article, so I figured I would point it out. I'm not sure what to make of this, any idea?

66.130.19.93 (talk) 08:05, 2 December 2011 (UTC)Valentin Castonguay-Harvey, December 2011

Hmm... I looked at the essay, and they are for the most part the same. but the wikipedia article is older than the essay. it looks more like this article was copied and posted on that website, perhaps by the main author? tough to say.AnieHall (talk) 19:44, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

on closer inspection, at the bottom of the above link, it provides the link to the Wikipedia page that it is from.AnieHall (talk) 01:08, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

bullsht marxism

Aside from the fact that analytical Marxism has been widely discredited and ignored by major theorists, why are some of the words in caps in Cohen's so called 'criticism' (to call it that is to give it more credit than it deserves, i mean really..):

Consequently, Cohen believes, 'A person does need to develop and ENJOY his POWERS, he needs to gain and gain until he is the best and no one else can overpower him, people are BAD" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.84.68.252 (talk) 20:33, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the point of the above comment is. Are you suggesting that the only theorist cited in for criticisms should be removed? If you have a good source that criticises the criticism, that could be included as well? although it might be better included on the analytical Marxism page if it isn't already? If some words are incorrectly capitalised, you could fix that... ? I don't think the section on Cohen's criticism was intended to be a propaganda piece, but if it reads like that, perhaps more neutral wording could be suggested, or added where obvious?

On another note, the citations are unclear -- I think foot notes would be easier to follow. It also appears that uncited material may have been added at some point in time.AnieHall (talk) 20:05, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I've deleted the following:

Consequently, Cohen believes, 'A person does need to develop and ENJOY his POWERS, he needs to gain and gain until he is the best and no one else can overpower him, people are BAD" He must, as Hegel saw, find something outside himself which he did not create, and to which something inside himself corresponds, because of the social process that created him' (p156).

I've highlighted in red the confusing areas, and where there should be a citation and isn't... seems like it could be re-included, but it is a mess, and I don't know where the periods and quotation marks belong, so can't fix it.AnieHall (talk) 20:20, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature

Remarkable fact that the editors have neglected to discuss Marx's doctoral dissertation, where Marx presents his first appreciation of the concept of nature. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.84.68.252 (talk) 03:38, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

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The Russian Loan

What is the evidence this text is authored by Marx? This is unsourced Hugeprostate (talk) 15:18, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

This quote should probably be removed as I don't think it can be surely attributed to Marx? I'm also taking note of the header claiming too many quotes in the article.

I think this discussion from Wikiquote talk segment by user "Jacob D" provides an overview on "The Russian Loan":

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Karl_Marx#%22The_Russian_Loan%22 Astroturff (talk) 02:52, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

David Ruccio moved from article

According to David Ruccio, a transhistorical concept of "human nature" would be eschewed by Marx who wouldn't accept any transhistorical or transcultural "human nature." much in the same way as in Marxian critique of political economy.

References

That extra dot has been here forever, indicating that no-one has ever properly reviewed this old contribution.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Marx's_theory_of_human_nature&oldid=1045409701 — from 20 September 2021

Not being much of a Marxist, I don't understand this assertion. It's not clear whether Ruccio is a source we should be giving this much prominence. I don't know why we've wandered into a sideline about "transhistoricism" whatever that might possibly be. I have no idea what "much in the same way" is intended to convey, as I have no mental reference on 'sameness' in this discipline.

All this leads me to doubt this should be in the lead at all, but clearly I'm unfit to judge, since I came here to learn from the page, rather than critique it from a lofty pre-understanding. — MaxEnt 20:43, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

The "Marx and race" section

The Marx and race section has nothing to do with Marx's position on human nature. Strongly suspect anti-communist POV. Might be a worthy subject for a (less biased) article of its own. I strongly considered just removing it but am looking for input from others. Shama From MySpace (talk) 04:08, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

It also cites Marx as an author of "The Russian Loan", while this is not proven, which I would say supports the POV. The whole segment should probably be removed though, the other quotes are cherry-picked and out of context.

See the talk page on Wikiquote by user Jacob D (https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Karl_Marx#%22The_Russian_Loan%22) on "The Russian Loan". Astroturff (talk) 03:02, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

It is also massively biased. "Just one year after the Trémaux letter (which Engels immediately rebuffed, Marx & Engels Collected Works (MECW), Volume 42, pp. 320-322.), Marx published Capital, Volume I. In it, he said, addressing the US Civil War:

"Labor in the white skin can never free itself as long as labor in the black skin is branded.". That he *published* in Das Kapital volume one (Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I, Chapter 10 ("The Working Day"), Section 7. Published 1867.)). yet it is not there. He was also massively against Social Darwinism and Racism in general after the Tremaux mishap which did not feature in any of his thought that he prepared for publication. The "Hobbesian" Critique (Letter to the Kugelmanns, 1870 / Engels to Lavrov, 1875) Marx and Engels often mocked the circular logic of Social Darwinists, after both Marx and Engels get on the same page:

"The whole Darwinian theory of the struggle for existence is simply the transference from society to animate nature of Hobbes' theory of the war of every man against every man and the bourgeois economic theory of competition, along with the Malthusian theory of population. This feat performed... these people proceed to re-transfer the same theories from organic nature into history and then claim to have proved their validity as eternal laws of human society." (Note: This phrasing is famously articulated by Engels, but it summarizes the critique Marx made in his private correspondence with Friedrich Lange in 1865) (Friedrich Engels, Letter to Pyotr Lavrov, Nov 12-17, 1875. (Also distinct similarities in Marx’s Letter to Kugelmann, June 27, 1870).

Critique of Friedrich Lange (Letter to Lange, March 29, 1865) Marx attacks the German philosopher Lange for trying to subsume all history under the single phrase "struggle for life":

"Mr. Lange... has made a great discovery. The whole of history can be brought under a single great natural law. This natural law is the phrase (in this application Darwin's expression becomes a mere phrase) 'the struggle for life'... So, instead of analyzing the struggle for life as represented historically in various definite forms of society, all that has to be done is to translate every concrete struggle into the phrase 'struggle for life', and this phrase itself into the Malthusian population fantasy. One must admit that this is a very impressive method—for swaggering, sham-scientific, bombastic ignorance and intellectual laziness."

2. Against Eurocentrism (The "Unilinear" Myth)

Letter to the Editor of Otechestvennye Zapiski, 1877:

"He feels he must metamorphose my historical sketch of the genesis of capitalism in Western Europe into an historico-philosophic theory of the marche générale [general path] imposed by fate upon every people, whatever the historic circumstances in which it finds itself... But I beg his pardon. (He is both honouring and shaming me too much.)"

Drafts of the Letter to Vera Zasulich, 1881:

"The analysis in Capital therefore provides no reasons either for or against the vitality of the Russian commune... [It] may gradually detach itself from its primitive features and develop directly as an element of collective production on a nationwide scale."

Letter to Nikolai Danielson, February 19, 1881:

"What the English take from them annually in the form of rent, dividends for railways useless to the Hindus, pensions for military and civil service men, for Afghanistan and other wars, etc., etc., – what they take from them without any equivalent... it amounts to more than the total sum of income of the sixty millions of agricultural and industrial labourers of India! This is a bleeding process with a vengeance!"

On Ireland (Letter to Sigfrid Meyer and August Vogt, 1870):

"Every industrial and commercial centre in England now possesses a working class divided into two hostile camps... The ordinary English worker hates the Irish worker as a competitor who lowers his standard of life. In relation to the Irish worker he regards himself as a member of the ruling nation... He cherishes religious, social, and national prejudices against the Irish worker. His attitude towards him is much the same as that of the 'poor whites' to the Negroes in the former slave states of the U.S.A." Parksind01 (talk) 01:54, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

Update: Removed it Parksind01 (talk) 02:48, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

It's undoubtably POV and it's in bad faith. Marx was not a theoretician of race, and his theories of human nature did not emphasize heredity, appearance, biological essentialism or any of the concepts bound up in "race" as we know it. The section has been deleted and restored repeatedly by different accounts with the same text each time, indicating an effort between multiple people, or at the very least, editors are copy-pasting the section from old revisions. This is a recurring issue. The decontextualized racist statements only add to the article the implication that Marx's theory of human nature is overall, misanthropic. You're right that it could form an interesting article on its own Special:Contributions/TheSands-12 10:11, 6 September 2024 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheSands-12 (talk • contribs)

If there is an edit war going on, I think it's reasonable to add a section NPOV tag. I would be interested in helping write a NPOV article about Marx's views on race in the future. Shama From MySpace (talk) 17:57, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

I've removed the section. Race could be due for inclusion if sources about Marx's theory of human nature describe it. But that's not relevant here, because this is an indiscriminate collection of quotes, which cannot be included in articles like this. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 04:11, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

It seems Jexpertlp has restored the inappropriate content, I assume they haven't seen this discussion. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 00:30, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

I thought he did the prejudices of his period at XIX century. Jexpertlp (talk) 00:47, 19 December 2025 (UTC)