Science & Society, Vol. 80, No.

1, January 2016, 78–104

Marx and Human Nature: The Historical, the

Trans-Historical, and Human Flourishing

KARSTEN J. STRUHL*
ABSTRACT: Marxists often dismiss the idea of human nature,
claiming either that, for Marx, there is no human nature or that
Marx had only a historical concept of human nature. A more care-
ful reading reveals that Marx, in fact, had a robust trans-historical
concept of human nature as well as a historical one. These two
concepts operate at different levels. The trans-historical concept
refers to the general form that human social activity takes, while
the historical concept refers to the specific forms of human social-
ity and individuality within a given historical epoch. What Marx’s
trans-historical concept explains is how it is possible to have human
nature in its historical form. Furthermore, it provides the ground
for Marx’s ideal of human flourishing implicit in his vision of a
communist society, components of which are supported by Kro-
potkin’s reconstruction of evolutionary theory and more recent
developments in evolutionary psychology.

A
FEW YEARS AGO, A GOOD FRIEND of mine, someone who
considers himself a politically committed Marxist and who also
writes about Marxist theory, was puzzled when I told him that
I often begin my discussion of Marxism in my classes with an analysis
of Marx’s theory of human nature. “Marx had no theory of human
nature,” he insisted. For him, the only intelligent thing to say about
human nature from a Marxist point of view is that there is no human
nature. I mention this encounter because claims of this sort are often
made by those who consider themselves Marxists. One of the motives
for this claim is that Marx’s analysis of history and of social relations

* I would like to thank Amy E. Wendling, John L. Hammond, and Donald Hanover for their
insightful criticisms of and constructive suggestions for an earlier version of this paper.

78

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 MARX AND HUMAN NATURE 79

is historical through and through and that, therefore, any appeal to

an innate or trans-historical human nature would lose what is crucial
in Marxist analysis.
There is a second motive for dismissing the idea of a trans-­historical
nature, which is more specifically political. It is not unusual to hear
people say that socialism may be a fine idea in theory but that human
nature is against it. Human nature, so the story goes, is greedy, selfish,
competitive, and aggressive. Human beings are innately motivated by
power and desire for dominance. Therefore, any attempt to estab-
lish a society based on collective cooperation and social equality will,
in reality, simply produce another form of hierarchical society and,
because it is so at odds with our human nature, is doomed to failure.
The temptation, then, is for those committed to the socialist project
simply to dismiss these claims and to counter them with the claim that
there is no human nature.
There is a third motive for Marxists to challenge the idea of a
trans-historical human nature, which is that it seems so obviously false
from the standpoint of historical analysis. One does not have to be
a Marxist to recognize that social institutions do change historically
and that human behavior has changed through various historical
epochs. As Harry Magdoff and Fred Magdoff have observed, “what
has usually been referred to as ‘human nature’ has changed a great
deal during the long history of humankind. As social systems changed,
many habits and behavior traits also changed as people adapted to
new social structures” (Magdoff and Magdoff, 2005, 19). Given this
observation, it might seem that the concept of human nature is, in fact,
meaningless. “It is, of course, doubtful whether the concept of ‘human
nature’ means anything at all. . . . Not only has so-called human nature
changed, but the ideology surrounding components of human nature
has also changed dramatically” (Magdoff and Magdoff, 2005, 21).
That Marx and Engels themselves believed that the concept of
human nature is meaningless is often based on an interpretation of
certain key passages from the corpus of their writing. Probably the
passage that is most cited in defense of this position is Marx’s sixth
thesis on Feuerbach: “Feuerbach resolves the religious essence into the
human essence. But the essence of man is not an abstraction inhering
in each single individual. In its actuality, it is the ensemble of social
relations” (Marx, 1994e, 100). István Mészáros draws from this the
conclusion that “Marx categorically rejected the idea of a ‘human

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essence’” (Mészáros, 1970, 13–14). Mészáros also insists that, for Marx,
“nothing . . . is ‘implanted in human nature.’ Human nature is not
something fixed by nature” (Mészáros, 1970, 170). Another commonly
cited passage is from The German Ideology: The

mode of production must not be considered simply as being the produc-

tion of physical existence. Rather it is a definite form of activity of those
individuals . . . a definite mode of life. As individuals express their life, so they
are. What they are, therefore, coincides with what they produce and with
how they produce. (Marx and Engels, 1970, 42.)

The implication for understanding human nature seems to be that

human characteristics, beyond the physical, are determined ultimately
by the way in which work is organized; and, we might add, by the class
relations and various other social, political, and ideological institutions
that develop through that organization of work. As these change, so
does what people incorrectly ascribe to “human nature” also change.
As more explicit evidence for this interpretation of Marx, another
passage is often cited: “All history is nothing but a continuous trans-
formation of human nature” (Marx, 1963, 147).
However, not all Marxists who reject the idea of a trans-historical
human nature argue that the concept of human nature is meaningless.
Specifically, they argue that Marx has a historical concept of human
nature. This line of argument offers a somewhat different interpreta-
tion of the passages cited above. For example, the sixth thesis on Feuer-
bach might suggest that while human nature (the human essence) is
not something “inhering in each single individual,” it is something
else. That something else is “the ensemble of social relations” which
exists in any given historical period. And as this ensemble of social
relations changes from one historical period to another, we can say that
human nature changes. Consider again the passage from the German
Ideology quoted above. If what human beings are “coincides with what
they produce and with how they produce,” then once again human
nature changes in the sense that as the organization of work and its
attendant social and political institutions change, so what human
beings are changes. Finally, Marx’s comment that “all history is nothing
but a continuous transformation of human nature” can be interpreted
as saying that the referent of the term “human nature” is continuously
transformed. Thus, on this interpretation of these passages, “human

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 MARX AND HUMAN NATURE 81

nature” is not a meaningless term, since it does refer to some real

phenomena, phenomena that change over history. While what we
call “human nature” is mistakenly taken to denote something trans-
historical, the term properly refers to the ensemble of social relations,
to the ways in which human beings produce, and to the set of needs,
capacities, character traits, and behavioral patterns that exist within
a given historical epoch, and specifically, within a given phase of a
mode of production. Since these social relations, ways of producing,
needs, capacities, character traits, and behavioral patterns change
historically, it is appropriate to say that human nature changes. This is
what is meant by the historical concept of human nature.
My purpose in this paper is not to deny that Marx had a historical
concept of human nature; I want, however, to argue that Marx’s histori-
cal concept of human nature is grounded in a robust trans-historical
concept of human nature. This claim, however, may seem paradoxi-
cal. Since human nature as trans-historical is generally understood to
be something innate within us and, therefore, immutable, how can
human nature also be historical, which entails that it can change?
I want to show first the way in which, for Marx, the historical con-
cept of human nature is derived from the trans-historical; second, how
Marx’s understanding of human nature resolves the above-mentioned
paradox; and, third, the way in which both the trans-historical and the
historical concepts of human nature provide the ground for an under-
standing of human flourishing that can only be realized in a socialist/
communist society.1 Finally, I shall conclude with some reflections on
the viability of Marx’s concept of human nature and its implications
for the possibility of a post-capitalist society.

The Historical and the Trans-Historical:

Their Relation to Each Other

Let me begin with some observations on the passages indicated

above on the basis of which Marx is often interpreted either as claiming

1 Marx never used the term “socialism” for the society that he envisioned, since he wanted to
distinguish his understanding of that society from the utopian socialists. However, he did
distinguish between two phases of this society and Lenin called the first phase “socialism.”
In this terminology, which many Marxists now use, socialism is the transition to communism.
For the purposes of this paper, I will refer to Marx’s understanding of a post-capitalist society
as “socialism/communism” unless I want to refer specifically to Marx’s understanding of
the later phase, in which case I will use the term “communism.”

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that the concept of human nature is meaningless or that it is a strictly

historical concept. Norman Geras, in his Marx and Human Nature,
has offered a different reading of these and other such passages.
For example, he suggests that a reasonable alternate reading of the
second sentence of Marx’s sixth thesis on Feuerbach — “the essence
of man is no abstraction inhering in each single individual” — is
that the human essence is not merely an abstraction inhering in the
individual. He offers an analogy with language to make the point.
“I could say, ‘Language is no individual possession; it is a social and
collective phenomenon’; without supposing, absurdly, that it is not
individuals who know and speak, to that extent ‘possess,’ a language”
(Geras, 1983, 33). Of the third sentence of the sixth thesis — the
human essence “is the ensemble of social relations” — Geras argues
that it might reasonably be interpreted as saying that “the nature of
man is conditioned by the ensemble of social relations” or that it “is
manifested in the ensemble of social relations” (Geras, 1983, 46). Here
again, he uses an analogy with language to make the point, noting
that while “it is a capacity whose very mode of expression is a social
one,” it would be wrong to conclude that “with regard to language,
nothing is inherent in the individual, in the type of brain, for example,
that is his biological endowment” (Geras, 1983, 48). Thus, on Geras’
interpretation, just as the capacity for language both inheres in the
individual organism and is conditioned by and manifested in a social
form, so is there a human nature which, while conditioned by and
manifested within one’s social relations, also inheres in the human
individual. Geras offers similar observations about the passage cited
above from The German Ideology — each mode of production entails a
definite form of life, and, therefore, “as individuals express their life,
so they are . . . [which] coincides with what they produce and with how
they produce.” Once again, the passage can be easily interpreted as
meaning that there is a human nature which is manifested through
a given mode of production and as implying that it would manifest
itself differently in another mode of production.2
While Geras does not explicitly discuss the passage quoted above
from the Poverty of Philosophy — “all history is nothing but a continuous
transformation of human nature” — I would suggest that it can also be

2 I cannot do justice in the space of this paper to Geras’ carefully reasoned analysis of plausible
alternative interpretations of the sixth thesis on Feuerbach, whose discussion occupies the
entirety of Part II of his book.

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interpreted to allude to something trans-historical. On this interpreta-

tion, the idea that human nature is continuously transformed means
that there is a core trans-historical human nature which undergoes
various transformations throughout history. There are a number of
other passages in Marx’s writing which lend support to this inter-
pretation. For example, in Capital, Volume I, Marx criticizes Jeremy
Bentham in a footnote:

To know what is useful for a dog, one must study dog-nature. This nature
itself is not deduced from the principle of utility. Applying this to man, he
that would criticize all human acts, movements, relations, etc. by the principle
of utility must first deal with human nature in general, and then with human
nature as modified in each historical epoch. (Marx, 1967, 609.)

The question, then, is: how are we to understand what, for Marx, is
“human nature in general” as separate from the way it is “modified
in each historical epoch”?
Neither Marx nor Engels ever wrote a treatise on human nature,
although Engels comes closest to it in a short essay which considers
how the human species might have evolved from its primate ancestry
(Engels, 1950). Nonetheless, it is possible to reconstruct Marx and
Engels’ understanding of “human nature in general” by consider-
ing what is entailed by their discussion of historical materialism and
their vision of communism. For Marx, the distinguishing feature of
the human species is our unique form of production. In fact, Marx
and Engels declare that human beings “distinguish themselves from
animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence”
(Marx and Engels, 1970, 42). In effect, the first primates who were
able to produce what they needed for their subsistence began human
history. It was “the first historical act” (Marx and Engels, 1970, 48).
The process by which humans beings did this, what distinguished them
from other animals, required the development of tools by which they
transformed nature and created specific objects that satisfied their
needs. But through this process something remarkable happens. They
not only satisfy their initial biological needs but create new needs.
“The second point is that the satisfaction of the first need . . . leads
to new needs; and this production of new needs is the first historical
act” (Marx and Engels, 1970, 49). But how could the creation of new
needs also be “the first historical act”? This makes sense only on the

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assumption that they are both aspects of the same process. Produc-
tive activity produces not only a product that can satisfy the original
need but simultaneously produces new needs within the producers.
Thus, the process by which we transform the material world is simul-
taneously a process by which we continually create within ourselves
new needs and, thus, can be said to change our nature, which, in
effect, creates a “second nature.”3 Furthermore, as we change the
material world, we also develop, in addition to these new needs, new
capacities and new ways of relating to nature and to each other. In
all, “by thus acting on the external world and changing it, [man]
at the same time changes his own nature” (Marx, 1967, 177). In
sum, our historical “second nature” is rooted in our trans-historical
nature as producers.
There are several other things that make human production
unique. While certain species of animals also produce (beavers, bees,
etc.), they, for the most part, do so instinctively in a set pattern, whereas
human production is flexible and can be based on specific judgments
about how to treat the materials that are to be transformed. “The ani-
mal builds only according to the standard and need of the species to
which it belongs, while man knows how to produce according to the
standard of any species” (Marx, 1994d, 64). Furthermore, human pro-
duction involves imagination, planning and conscious goal-directed
activity, which are capacities that Marx takes as unique to the human
species. Here is the famous passage from Capital:

A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts
to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what dis-
tinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect
raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. . . . He not
only effects a change of form in the material on which he works, but also
realizes a purpose of his own. . . (Marx, 1967, 178.)

3 It is this “second nature” which, although acquired, manifests itself for a long enough period
of time to give the appearance of being innate. The idea of a “second nature” goes back at
least as far as Aristotle for whom virtues, which are acquired dispositions to act in certain
ways, become so stable that they become a part of one’s nature. Herbert Marcuse uses the
term “second nature” to denote the way in which certain socially acquired needs become
so vital to the human being that they become “biological” in that, if they are not satisfied,
they would cause significant dysfunction. “. . . certain cultural needs can ‘sink down’ into the
biology of man. We could then speak, for example, of the biological need of freedom, or of
some aesthetic needs as having taken root in the organic structure of man, in his ‘nature,’
or rather ‘second nature’” (Marcuse, 1969, 10, italics added).

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There is another important thing to say about human produc-

tion, which is that it is fundamentally social. The producer is not first
an individual producer who only secondarily associates with others.
Production itself is an inherently social process. “A certain mode of
production . . . is always combined with a mode of cooperation” (Marx
and Engels, 1970, 50). This can be understood in several ways. First, the
organization of production is a historical process involving learning
and tools that have been transmitted from one generation to another.
Second, every previous historical form of production has involved
some division of labor — division between mental and material labor,
a gender division of labor, class divisions, racial and ethnic divisions,
and a division that assigns different individuals to different tasks in the
specific production process and in society as a whole. Third, human
consciousness, intrinsic to production, is itself social, as human con-
sciousness is only possible through language, and language is inher-
ently social. “Consciousness is, therefore, from the very beginning a
social product, and remains so as long as men exist at all” (Marx and
Engels, 1970, 51). Finally, human production is fundamentally social
because human beings are fundamentally social animals. As Sean
Sayers puts it: “We are inherently and essentially social beings. We
develop our natures . . . only by participating in society. . . . Sociality
is inscribed in our very biology” (Sayers, 1998, 7). What this means
is not simply that we like to hang out with one another but that our
very sense of individuality and the kind of individuality that we have
depends on the form of society in which we live. “The human being,”
Marx writes in the Grundrisse, “is in the most literal sense a zoon poli-
tikon [political animal], not merely a gregarious animal, but an animal
which can only individuate itself in the midst of society” (Marx, 1973,
84).4 Thus, the forms of sociality and the forms of individuality are
intimately connected.5 As the mode of production and our forms of
sociality and individuality change, it follows that human nature, in
the historical sense of that term, will also change. Furthermore, these

4 In the context in which Marx is writing, “political animal” means more broadly “social
animal.”
5 By the “forms of sociality” I mean those forms of social behavior that are inscribed within
the social institutions, social norms, and social roles of a society. By “forms of individuality”
I mean the ways in which human beings develop a sense of individual identity as well as
their psychological dispositions, attitudes, needs, capacities, character traits, and behavior
patterns. The point is that the forms of individuality grow out of and develop within the
forms of sociality and, in turn, help to reinforce and reproduce the forms of sociality.

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forms of sociality and individuality involve much more than material

production and a division of labor. We produce our social, political,
and ideological institutions. We produce art, philosophy, morality,
and religion. These are all social products, and they are all part of the
process by which the forms of sociality and of individuality specific to
a given society develop. They require a set of social roles within which
are generated certain role-specific social needs. In effect, each form
of sociality produces a specific form of individuality, and the forms
of sociality and individuality together function to help reproduce the
mode of production and its attendant social and political institutions.
The struggle to transform these institutions is a struggle to create
institutions within which there are new social roles, new social needs,
with new psychological dispositions and attitudes, new capacities,
new character traits, and new behavior patterns, in all, new forms of
sociality and individuality. As these change, so does human nature.
Thus, our historical nature is rooted in our trans-historical nature as
social producers.6
We are now in a position to resolve the paradox mentioned above.
If human nature is something trans-historical, how can it also change?
The answer is that the fundamental characteristic of human nature as
socially productive activity is also the activity by which we change our
nature. Still, what is this nature that is changed if our fundamental
nature is trans-historical? The answer here is that the two concepts —
the trans-historical and the historical — operate at different levels. The
trans-historical concept refers to the general form that human social
activity takes — social production in the widest sense of the term. The
historical concept refers to the specific forms of human sociality and
individuality organized around the mode of production within a given

6 One other reason that Marxists tend to discount the idea of a trans-historical human nature
is that they fear it as a spectre of biological determinism. However, it is equally possible to
understand our trans-historical nature as a culture universal. David Laibman (2015) argues
that what defines this cultural universal is our universal capacity for symbolic reference,
which makes possible a superorganic existence relatively free from biological determination,
thus replacing biological evolution with cultural evolution. Laibman connects this symbolic
capacity with Marxism in several ways — that it is itself formed in the social labor process;
that it provides the basis for the immanent tendency to develop the productive forces; and
that it also provides the basis for progress in the direction of equality, solidarity, and human
fulfillment. None of this is to deny that we remain biological creatures, and I would sug-
gest that our ability to use symbolic reference must in some way be encoded in our genetic
makeup. I would also add that our human symbolic capacity is a necessary component of our
capacity for social production as Marx understands it. How else could the “worst architect”
be able to raise “his structure in the imagination before he erects it in reality”?

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historical epoch. Thus, the fundamental general and trans-historical

feature of human nature, social production, makes it possible to trans-
form our human nature understood as historically specific forms of
human sociality and individuality. Furthermore, although we can speak
about certain general forms of sociality and individuality manifested in
a particular historical time period, each class and indeed each social
group has, to a large extent, its own forms of sociality and individual-
ity, which are bound up with the more general forms of sociality and
individuality that most individuals in a given society share.7
However, this still leaves us with a fundamental question. At what
level of abstraction does the trans-historical concept of human nature
reside? What explanatory work do we want it do?

Does the Trans-Historical Concept Have a Significant

Explanatory Function?

In the previous section, I quoted Sean Sayers’ claim that “we

are inherently and essentially social beings” and that our “sociality is
inscribed in our very biology.” It may come as a surprise, then, to learn
that Sayers does not think that the general concept of human nature
has much explanatory power. Specifically, Sayers claims that the gen-
eral concept of human nature can “constitute only the abstract philo-
sophical starting point for Marx’s social theory” since “in concrete
conditions there is no human nature in general. The bare abstract
concept of human nature in general is not a sufficient basis on which
to understand concrete social conditions in their specificity” (Sayers,
1998, 155). His support for this claim rests on his observation that

our biology and our sociality interpenetrate, and it is impossible to separate

them out and oppose them to each other. . . . For example, hunger always
takes a social form. It is not possible to isolate a universal and general need
for food. (Sayers, 1998, 155.)

Sayers’ position, then, poses a fundamental challenge to what I am

claiming in this paper. If he is correct, then while Marx does have a
7 Erich Fromm has called these general forms of sociality and individuality the “social char-
acter” of a given society. He defines “social character” as “the nucleus of character structure
which is shared by members of the same culture” and whose function it is “to mold and
channel human energy within a given society for the purpose of the continued functioning
of the society” (Fromm, 1962, 78–79).

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trans-historical concept of human nature, it is one that does not have

very much explanatory work to perform. This would mean that the
historical concept of human nature was primary and that the trans-
historical concept was simply the backdrop within which it operated.
It would be like saying that a Shakespeare play needs to be performed
on a stage, which would not add very much to its interpretation.
Certainly, in one sense, Sayers is correct. It would be a mistake to
use the general, trans-historical concept of human nature to explain
concrete social conditions or determine why a specific need took a
specific form, and certainly our social nature always manifests itself in
a particular historical form. It is also certainly correct that the general
trans-historical concept of human nature is an abstraction from con-
crete social reality. However, that does not make it only an “abstract
philosophical starting point” any more than the abstraction of “value”
as socially necessary labor time is, for Marx, merely a philosophical start-
ing point of his critique of political economy. What Marx’s general,
trans-historical concept of human nature can explain is how and why
it is possible to have human nature in its historical form; that is, how
we can assume that our forms of sociality and individuality continually
change and also why we can assume that those changes are brought
about by changes in the mode of production. It explains how and
why we as active, socially productive creatures continually transform
ourselves, how and why we are continuously developing new needs
and capacities and new forms of sociality and individuality; and why
we can expect that socialism and then communism will bring about a
further transformation of our needs, capacities, and forms of sociality
and individuality. Furthermore, given that we are biological as well
as social beings, we can assume that our active, socially productive
nature and our ability to continuously transform ourselves must be
rooted in our biology in some way. As Terry Eagleton, in his criticism
of Sayers’ book, writes:

If human beings really are such social, dynamic, transformative animals,

then this already tells us a great deal about the kinds of abiding capacities
they must possess. Any creature which can continually create new needs for
itself is unlikely, for example, to have the kind of body which does not allow
it to engage in intricate semiotic processes, deploy tools in particular ways,
enter into complex social relations with others of its kind, and the like. We
now have a whole set of procedures for distinguishing between such animals

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and, say, slugs or squirrels, which is just what is traditionally meant by the
talk of “nature.” (Eagleton, 1999, 154.)8

Consider again Sayers’ example of hunger, which always takes a social

form. Does it follow from this that “it is not possible to isolate a uni-
versal and general need for food”? There are, at least two ways, in
which we can. First, while the specific kinds of food that we might
like are conditioned by the society in which we live, there are certain
kinds of food which other species of animals can eat but which we
cannot or would not. Second, while there is a variety of food which
human beings can eat and while which foods appeal to their palate
will be conditioned by their social relations, no human beings could
survive without eating some kind of food that is within the range of
the human organism.9
There is yet another significant explanatory function which Marx’s
trans-historical concept of human nature performs: it provides a way
for us to understand the ideal of human flourishing that is implicit
(and sometimes explicit) in Marx’s ideal of a communist society.

Human Nature and Human Flourishing

There is a huge controversy over Marx and Engels’ understand-

ing of morality and ethics. In some passages, they seem to reject the
possibility of a universal morality. One of the most significant discus-
sions of morality occurs in Engels’ Anti-Dühring, where he observes
that morality has historically represented class interests and that moral
concepts like “equality” and “freedom” take on a different meaning
depending on which class uses them. He further insists that neither
bourgeois nor proletarian morality have an “absolute finality” (Engels,
1978, 726). Still, Engels is ambivalent, as he also claims that pro-
letarian morality represents the communist future, in which there

8 For another criticism of Sayers’ rejection of the significance of Marx’s trans-historical concept
of human nature, see Byron, 2014. Byron argues that Sayers ignores certain passages from
Marx that challenge his interpretation, passages that acknowledge the labor process as the
condition of human existence independent of its specific social form and which also draw a
clear distinction between the human labor process and the labor process of other animals.
9 Marx does say that “for the starving man food does not exist in its human form but only in
its abstract character as food. It could be available in its crudest form and one could not say
wherein the starving man’s eating differs from that of animals” (Marx, 1994, 75). However,
what the human being can eat even in its “crudest form” is not what every other species of
animal could eat.

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will ultimately be a “really human morality, which stands above class

antagonisms” (Engels, 1978, 726–270). And Marx, in his Contribution
to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: An Introduction, asserts that
revolutionary criticism rests on “the categorical imperative to overthrow
all those conditions in which man is a degraded, enslaved, neglected,
contemptible being” (Marx, 1994b, 34). Thus, both the early Marx
and the later Engels can simultaneously insist on the relativity of
morality to class interests and the possibility of a morality which tran-
scends class interest — a “really human morality.” This presents a
kind of paradox, for how can morality be simultaneously relative to
class interests and universal? There have been a number of attempts
to answer this question. However, for the sake of space, I shall not
survey or comment on these attempts.10 Instead, I wish to offer my
own solution. This is to draw a distinction between morality as a set of
rules and ethics as an analysis of human flourishing. I want to suggest
that implicit in Marx’s understanding of communism is a universal
ethics, which is a normative ideal of human flourishing, and that this
ideal is based in large part on his understanding of human nature.
This normative ideal of human flourishing is intimately related to an
ideal of self-realization in that human flourishing requires the fullest
realization of our faculties and capacities. For Marx, the full realiza-
tion of these faculties and capacities is denied by capitalism, at least
for most people, since capitalist society pits individuals against one
another so that one person’s gain often requires another’s loss, and,
given its immense inequality, most people lose.
In contrast, socialism/communism is “an association, in which
the free development of each is the condition for the free develop-
ment of all” (Marx and Engels, 1994, 176). It is also a society in which
ultimately there is no longer a division of labor, which means not only
the abolition of class division, but also the end of the division between
mental and manual labor, of the allocation of work by gender, race,
and ethnicity, and even of the way work is distributed into specific
tasks in “which each person has a particular, exclusive area of activity”
(Marx and Engels, 1970, 53). The point, then, of socialism/commu-
nism in contrast to capitalism and previous class societies is that each

10 I cannot resist, however, mentioning one attempt to resolve the paradox by Steven Lukes. “My
suggestion, then, is this: that the paradox in Marxism’s attitude toward morality is resolved
once we see that it is the morality of Recht that it condemns as ideological and anachronistic,
and the morality of emancipation that it adopts as its own” (Lukes, 1985, 29).

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individual is able to develop their many-sided talents and potentials,

both physical and mental. Human beings could, then, for the first
time in history, realize “the full development of human mastery over
the forces of nature . . . the absolute working out of [their] creative
potentialities . . . the development of all human powers as an end in
itself ” (Marx, 1973, 488).
There is also, in Marx’s commitment to the ideal of human flour-
ishing, a dialectical relation between the historical development of
human needs and of human capacities, since as human beings develop
their capacities they also develop a need to exercise these capacities,
which in turn leads to new capacities and again the need to exercise
these new capacities. Thus, Marx says that in the more developed sec-
ond stage of communism, human beings will be able to work according
to their ability freely insofar as “labor has become not only a means
of life but life’s prime want” (Marx, 1994c, 321). In sum, socialism/
communism is ethically superior to capitalism since it makes possible
a higher degree of human flourishing and self-realization. The ques-
tion now is whether or not this normative ideal is grounded in Marx’s
trans-historical concept of human nature or in his historical concept.
Sayers, while discounting the explanatory power of the trans-
historical concept of human nature, nonetheless also sees in Marx
an ideal of human flourishing and self-realization. “Marxism involves
a humanist critique of capitalism, based on the moral ideal of self-
realization” (Sayers, 1998, 9). However, it should not be surprising that
Sayers would ground this normative ideal in the historical concept of
human nature. Sayers argues that the needs and capacities that capital-
ism denies and that would be realized within socialism are themselves
historical developments; specifically, they are developments within
the capitalist mode of production.

Human nature cannot provide an absolute and trans-historical moral yard-

stick. When conditions are criticized for being “inhuman” or “degrading,” it
is an inescapably historical and relative judgment that is made. . . . There is
no question, therefore, of holding capitalism up against an absolute and ideal
conception of what is “human” and finding it wanting. (Sayers, 1998, 126.)

For example, Sayers argues that the needs for and attitudes to work are
not trans-historical. “Attitudes to work, all attitudes toward work . . . are
social historical products. They are created by and reflect the mode of

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production in which they occur” (Sayers, 1998, 35). The specifically

modern need to work and to have fulfillment in work grows out of the
way human activity is organized within the capitalist mode of produc-
tion. Citing Rousseau and the contemporary anthropologist Marshall
Sahlins to support his position, Sayers claims that hunter–gatherers
probably did not have a need to work beyond what was necessary for
subsistence. “Thus the modern need to work is a historically devel-
oped need” which is, nonetheless, “a real and ineliminable feature
of contemporary psychology” (Sayers, 1998, 53). Of course, work in
capitalist society is alienated, but the idea of alienation holds out the
possibility of work without alienation. Alienated labor, then, is, on Say-
ers’ account of Marx, “a stage in the process of human development
and self-realization” (Sayers, 1998, 89). Alienated labor produces the
need for unalienated work, which is work as a fulfilling activity in its
own right, not for the abolition of work itself. However, the point is
that this need could not have emerged before there was alienated
labor, which, on Sayers’ account, is the historical product of capitalism.
There is also, for Sayers, a parallel need for leisure. The need
for leisure is a need for rest but also for creative activities outside
of work. Here again, Sayers argues that the need for leisure in the
modern sense is, like the need for work, a historically developed need
that derives from the capitalist mode of production. “Leisure in its
modern sense — a sphere of positive non-work activity enjoyed by the
mass of working people — is a modern phenomenon and a product
of modern industry” (Sayers, 1998, 73).
It seems to me that Sayers’ specific analysis of the need for work
and leisure as historically developed is at least partly correct. It is cor-
rect in the sense that capitalist society has developed specific kinds
of needs for work as creative activity in the specific arena we call “the
workplace” precisely insofar as these needs are denied by alienated
labor and assert themselves whenever possible in the niches that capi-
talist workplaces occasionally allow.11 It is also correct in that, given
the alienated forms of work within the workplace, there is a need for
leisure as rest and creative activity outside the workplace as well as a
need for mindless entertainment. That is, Sayers is correct in claim-
ing that these needs as they manifest themselves in capitalist society have

11 For a discussion of how workers whose work is degrading and alienating to the extreme can
find ways to make their work more self-directing and creative see Garson, 1994.

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emerged in capitalist society. It is unlikely that hunter–gatherers sepa-

rated their “work” and “leisure” in this way, and it is likely that these
needs in the way they are constructed by capitalism will carry over at
least to the initial phase of socialism/communism.
However, this does not entail that the trans-historical concept of
human nature plays no role. The need for some kind of creative and
socially useful activity which can develop our powers and capacities is
built into Marx’s general idea of human beings as socially productive.
If Marx is correct, we can assume that these needs asserted themselves
in some form in hunter–gatherer societies and throughout recorded
history. If Marx is correct, it is precisely because humans are trans-
historically social producers that these more specific needs for creative
work and creative activity in leisure in their modern form can emerge
in capitalist society.
Furthermore, it is not clear how Marx (or Sayers) could derive an
ethical ideal for human flourishing purely from the needs and capaci-
ties that develop historically within capitalist society. The problem is
that capitalism produces a number of needs and capacities, some of
which are not needs or capacities that we would wish to develop in
a socialist/communist society, e.g., the need for aggressive violence
and destruction. The problem is also that the purely historical under-
standing of human flourishing and of self-realization cannot tell us
which of the needs and capacities we want more fully to realize. Terry
Eagleton poses the problem this way:
By what criteria do we determine which historical capacities are beneficent
and which are not? Which of the potentials which capitalism is currently
obstructing should be fostered and which should not. . . . To reply that we
should actualize only those capacities that make for socialism is simply to
beg the question, since, if socialism is valuable because it is a positive form
of self-realization, what is to count as such positive self-realization still needs
to be determined. (Eagleton, 1999, 156.)

Marx’s vision of communism adds still other characteristics to

the trans-historical concept of human nature, since it assumes that
people can develop the qualities necessary to sustain communism. If
human beings are to work freely according to their ability, it is assumed
that human beings can develop a motivation to work that no longer
requires material incentives. These would include not only the motiva-
tion to work so as to exercise and develop our creative capacities but

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also the capacity to derive significant pleasure from the way in which
our work makes a social contribution, without any hidden egoistic
intentions. If human beings are to be able to take from the com-
mon stock whatever they need, we can assume that they will develop
qualities that lead them to take no more than they really need, with
attention to and concern for what other people need as well. If human
beings are to sustain a society in which “the free development of each
is the condition for the free development of all,” they must be able
to so identify with and care about others that they are motivated to
want others to equally develop their capacities and are motivated to
aid them in doing so. If the state is at least to begin to wither away, we
can assume that people are able to internalize certain fundamental
social and moral norms to such an extent that they require very little
external compulsion to obey these norms. It is hard to see how these
capacities would simply emerge from the conditions of capitalism or
why, if they are simply historically constructed, they ought to be fos-
tered and encouraged. In fact, these needs and capacities often seem
to emerge spontaneously within capitalism and against capital, which,
in turn, wages a continuous campaign against them. This provides
additional evidence for the hypothesis that they are a component of
our trans-historical human nature whose fulfillment would lead to
a heightened human flourishing and self-realization of our species.
Bertell Ollman has suggested a number of other qualities which
an individual of a future communist society would require, among
them that the individual no longer thinks in terms of what is “mine” or
“yours”; that human beings have not only overcome class antagonisms
but that they have also overcome religious, national, and racial divi-
sions, which means that they no longer have such identifications; and
that when someone has harmed another, they will feel such anguish
that the society will need to console them, not to punish them (Oll-
man, 1979). After enumerating these and many other qualities of
the communist individual, Ollman makes the following observation:

The extraordinary qualities Marx ascribes to the people of communism could

never exist outside the unique conditions which give rise to them. . . . One
can only state the unproven assumptions on which this flowering of human
nature rests. These are that the individual’s potential is so varied and great;
that people possess an inner drive to realize all this potential; that the whole
range of powers in each person can be realized together; and that the overall

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fulfillment of each individual is compatible with that of all others. Given how
often and drastically the development and discovery of new social forms has
extended accepted views of what is human, I think it would be unwise at
this time to foreclose on the possibility that Marx’s assumptions are correct.
(Ollman, 1979, 91.)

I think that Ollman is correct. I think it would be unwise to foreclose

on the possibility that our trans-historical nature has these capacities,
and, I would add, that they can serve as part of the basis for a norma-
tive ideal of human flourishing even if they can never be completely
realized. However, we cannot rest our analysis here, as it might be
equally unwise to foreclose on the possibility that Marx here is being
overly optimistic about the potentialities of human nature. Does the
possibility of a socialist/communist society require that we make such
optimistic assumptions about human nature? Is there any way to sub-
stantiate these assumptions? I will consider these questions in the last
section of this paper. Before I do so, however, I want to consider a
way to add ammunition to Marx’s trans-historical concept of human
nature and the ideal of human flourishing that it entails.

Marx and Kropotkin

Let us return to Marx’s understanding of the inherently social

nature of our species. I have pointed out that this does not merely
mean that we wish to hang out with one another but that production
is an inherently social process, which means that the distinguishing
trans-historical feature of our species is that we are social producers.
However, this claim does not in itself give us any reason to assume
that certain forms of sociality and individuality are better than oth-
ers, e.g., that communist/socialist forms of sociality and individuality
are ethically superior to capitalist social relations and its attendant
forms of individualism and competitiveness. I, therefore, suggest that
we need to supplement Marx’s analysis of our social nature with two
additional and related claims. The first is the claim that there is an
innate tendency within our species to mutually aid one another. The
second is that there are innate tendencies for empathy and altruism.
The first claim is explicitly supported by the analysis and arguments
of Petr Kropotkin in his classic work Mutual Aid (Kropotkin, 1976).
The second claim, it seems to me, is implicit in Kropotkin’s analysis.

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Furthermore, both these claims have been given support by recent

developments in the field of evolutionary psychology.
Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid was published originally as a series of
articles from 1890 to 1896.12 The initial impetus for these articles was
provided by an article published by Thomas H. Huxley, entitled “The
Struggle for Existence in Human Society” and which, since Huxley
was a major interpreter and proponent of Darwin’s theory, provided
a scientific respectability for the Social Darwinist interpretation of
“survival of the fittest.” In that article, Huxley characterizes prehis-
toric people as “savages” in which “beyond the limited and temporary
relations of the family, the Hobbesian war of each against all was the
normal state of existence” (Huxley, 1976, 332).
What Kropotkin does in his series of articles is to offer a different
interpretation of the concept of “survival of the fittest” based both
on his field work in Siberia and on his analysis of the implications of
evolutionary theory. He offers the following thought experiment. What
is more likely to enable a species to survive — mutual aid or ruthless
competition among its members? A moment’s reflection should make
it clear that the former has a greater survival advantage than the latter,
as animals who can support each other, work together, and protect
each other are more likely to survive and reproduce then those who
are constantly at each other’s throats. He then proceeds to provide
a number of examples from the animal kingdom in which, among
members of the species, cooperation and mutual aid are the norm.
While admitting that competition sometimes exists, he insists that it
is limited to exceptional situations, as “natural selection, continually
seeks out ways for avoiding competition as much as possible” (Kropot-
kin, 1976, 74). What makes a species fit to survive, then, is precisely
the opposite of Huxley’s view:

“Don’t compete! — competition is always injurious to the species, and you

have plenty of resources to avoid it!” That is the tendency of nature, not al-
ways realized in full, but always present. That is the watchword that comes
to us from the bush, the forest, the river, the ocean. “Therefore combine —
practice mutual aid!” That is the surest means for giving to each the greatest
safety, the best guarantee of existence and progress, bodily, intellectual, and
moral. (Kropotkin, 1976, 75.)

12 The articles were first published in book form in 1902.

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Kropotkin’s reasoning, however, goes beyond a general analysis of

“survival of the fittest” within the animal kingdom. He recognizes that
it is important to make a separate argument concerning the human
species. This argument takes three forms. The first is that since the
general tendency of nature is toward mutual aid, it would be odd “if
men were an exception to so general a rule: if a creature so defenseless
as man was at his beginning should have found his protection and his
way of progress, not in mutual support, like other animals, but in a
reckless competition for personal advantages” (Kropotkin, 1976, 77).
The second part of his argument draws on the observations of anthro-
pology which, on the basis of studying groups of human beings that
might resemble our prehistoric ancestors, directly challenges Huxley’s
assumption that human existence was a continuous Hobbesian war of
each against all. “As far as we can go back in the paleo-ethnology of
mankind, we find men living in societies — in tribes similar to those
of the highest mammals. . . . Societies, bands, or tribes — not families
— were thus the primitive form of organization of mankind and its
earliest ancestors” (Kropotkin, 1976, 79). Thus, instead of families or
individuals constantly at war with each other, the beginnings of human
organization required highly communal and cooperative forms; in
effect, mutual aid. Finally, as Darwin himself had suggested, human
beings are most closely related to “some comparatively weak but social
species, like the chimpanzee” (Kropotkin, 1976, 79).13
While there is much more to say about Kropotkin’s argument, I
think that I have said enough to indicate why it provides reasonable
support for the claim that natural selection has built into our nature a
tendency to cooperate and practice mutual aid. Furthermore, as added
support for this claim, I offer the following observation by the eminent
paleontologist, evolutionary theorist, and Marxist thinker, Stephen
Jay Gould: “I would hold that Kropotkin’s basic argument is correct.
Struggle does occur in many modes, and some lead to cooperation
among members of a species as the best pathway to advantage for individu-
als” (Gould, 1997, italics added). Finally, as I mentioned earlier, there is
some interesting contemporary work in evolutionary psychology which
provides added credence to Kropotkin’s position. For example, Martin

13 Molecular genetic studies have corroborated Darwin’s suggestion. We now know that humans
share 98.4% of their DNA with both common and pygmy chimpanzees. In fact, our genomes
are so close that Jared Diamond has proposed that we think of Homo sapiens as one of three
species “of the genus Homo on earth today,” as the “third chimpanzee” (Diamond, 1993, 25).

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Nowick, who is director of the program for evolutionary dynamics at

Harvard, has applied mathematical analysis to studies that observe the
strategies and reactions of subjects who play various versions of the
Prisoner’s Dilemma. On the basis of this analysis, he argues not only
that natural selection favors cooperation but that cooperation is one of
the three basic forces of evolution, the other two being mutation and
natural selection (see Nowick, 2008, 579; 2006, 1560–63).
It is unlikely that an innate tendency for mutual aid and coopera-
tion could exist if the participants did not also have an innate tendency
for empathy and altruism. The developmental psychologist Martin L.
Hoffman has demonstrated that even very young children manifest
empathetic distress when confronted with the suffering of others
and that children at a later stage empathize with others even when
they have no direct experience of them, even with entire groups of
people who are suffering (see Hoffman, 2000, ch. 3). Hoffman also
argues that there are innate altruistic dispositions, mediated through
empathy, which cannot be reduced to egoistic motivation and which
are the result of what was necessary for our species to survive through
our evolutionary history. “It follows that if survival requires altruism as
well as egoism . . . then the physical structures and genetic formations
for altruism must have been selected and eventually become part of
the evolving human organism” (Hoffman, 1981, 124).
However, we should notice that what is innate is a tendency to be
cooperative, altruistic and empathetic. That there are such tendencies
does not preclude that there are opposing tendencies. Recall that Kropot-
kin writes that the tendency to avoid competition is “not always realized
in full,” and Hoffman, in making the case for “innate altruistic dispo-
sitions, mediated through empathy,” also says that “survival requires
altruism as well as egoism,” which would imply that there was a selective
evolutionary pressure for both. In short, even if the innate tendency for
cooperation is predominant, it might coexist with an innate tendency
for competition; an innate tendency for altruism might coexist with an
innate tendency for egoism, and an innate tendency for empathy might
coexist with an innate tendency for agonistic behavior.

What Are Innate Tendencies?

Before proceeding, I need to clarify what I mean by a “tendency”

in this context. To say that there is an innate tendency is not to affirm

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biological determinism. Biological determinism of psychological dis-

positions and behaviors would imply that genes would uniquely deter-
mine these dispositions and behavior. While there are certain kinds of
structures in the brain, such as sensory cells, which are determined by
specific genes, most brain structures are the result of an interaction
between genes and the environment. One way to understand this
interaction is to think of genes as determining certain potentialities
for various forms of cognitive processing, psychological dispositions,
and behaviors. As Gould puts it, “The issue is not universal biology vs.
human uniqueness, but biological potentiality vs. biological determin-
ism” (Gould, 1977, 252).14 From this point of view, the various positive
and negative features of human nature are encoded not as biologi-
cally determined necessities but as biological potentialities. “Violence,
sexism, and general nastiness are biological since they represent one
subset of a possible range of behaviors. But peacefulness, equality,
and kindness are just as biological — and we may see their influence
increase if we can create social structures that permit them to flourish”
(ibid., 257). The implication of this is that psychological dispositions
and behaviors are socially and historically constructed out of a range
of genetic potentialities. The proof that there are such potentialities
is that human beings do manifest these traits, at least sometimes.
However, there is a third way of understanding the relation of
our evolutionary genetic inheritance to our psychological disposi-
tions and behavior in a given historical epoch, which is to say, to
the forms of sociality and individuality which exist in that epoch.
Perhaps while genes cannot uniquely determine our psychological
dispositions and forms of social behavior, they do more than simply
provide bare possibilities which are then inscribed by historical and
social relations. It may be possible that genes provide the “seeds”
for certain impulses and tendencies which exist in all human societ-
ies. What this would mean is that in any set of social relations, there
is a certain probability of these tendencies being realized in some
socially organized form. Within a network of certain social relations,
the probability of their realization may be low relative to another set of
social conditions. But the probability will nonetheless be significantly
more than zero. Both Kropotkin’s analysis and some recent work in
evolutionary psychology support the idea of a tendency in this sense,

14 This article was first published in Natural History, 85:5 (May), 1976.

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and Kropotkin’s arguments provide reasons to think that the tenden-

cies for mutual aid and cooperation, for empathy, and for altruism
are the predominant ones. However, I do not think we can discount
other opposing tendencies built into the human genome, tendencies
perhaps for competition, for agonistic behavior, and for selfishness.15
Would admitting the possibility of such tendencies undermine the
socialist/communist project?

Concluding Reflections: The Case for a Cautious Optimism

Are there any reasons to assume that there are certain tenden-
cies in human nature which, if allowed free reign, could threaten the
construction of socialism/communism? Here I must be very tentative
in my remarks. Consider why a tendency to cooperate might have a
selective advantage, why it might enable the species to survive in its
earlier stages of development. The most obvious reason is that coop-
eration would help the members of the species work together to secure
the necessities of life and that it would more enable them to protect
one another. But there is at least one other possible reason, which
is that cooperation within a tribal unit might make the members of
the tribe more efficient in combatting and even aggressing against
another tribal unit. I used to discount this possibility, persuaded by
anthropologists such as Ashley Montagu that among hunter–gatherer
societies fighting to defend or invade territory is quite rare (Montagu,
1976, 249–50).16 However, a number of other studies have challenged
this image of the peaceful hunter–gatherer. The anthropologist Carol
Ember has reviewed these studies and calculates that 90% of hunter–
gatherer societies engage in warfare, and 64% of them do so at least
once every two years (Ember, 1978, 239–248). Of course, since these
studies rely on indigenous groups existing today, we do not know
to what extent we can extrapolate from these studies to understand
what human social life might have been like for our prehistoric ances-
tors. Still, while these studies do not in themselves prove that there is

15 Consider the way the term “tendency” is used in Marxist economic discourse. Marx argues
that there is a tendency for the rate of profit to fall within capitalism. However, this tendency
can be countered by other opposing tendencies.
16 Montagu cites such groups as the Eskimo, the Hadja of Tanzania, the Comanche and Sho-
shoni Indians who seem not at all to be territorial. He cites other groups which are territorial
but not very aggressive or defensive about their territory: e.g., the Kwakiutl, the Ituri Pygmies,
and the Kung Bushman.

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within the human genome an innate tendency for aggressive violence,

they at least raise questions about whether aggressive violence can be
expected to disappear entirely with the abolition of class and other
divisions.
A second reason to be concerned comes from Marx’s historical
concept of human nature. This might at first glance seem odd, since
the main thrust of Marx’s historical concept is the recognition that
human nature changes over historical time and, therefore, that the
forms of sociality and individuality which reinforce and reproduce
capitalism — e.g., competition, selfish individualism, lack of concern
for the well-being of others, desire for power and dominance, an
instrumental attitude toward work — will be replaced by socialist forms
of sociality and individuality. However, Marx himself recognized that
there is a danger that the needs, psychological dispositions, and habits
that reinforce capitalism will carry over to the attempt to construct
socialism/communism, and it is not likely that they will be quickly
extinguished. They may all too easily be transmitted to the next gen-
eration. As Marx wrote in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte:
“The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on
the brain of the living. And just when they seem engaged in revolu-
tionizing themselves . . . they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the
past to their service” (Marx, 1994f, 188). We can then anticipate that
some of the competitive and antagonistic needs, dispositions, and
habits developed by capitalism will attempt to reassert themselves and,
if care is not taken to counter them, might succeed in undermining
the socialist/communist project.
There is a third reason for taking seriously the possibility that there
are such opposing negative tendencies, which is called “the precau-
tionary principle” and which was often invoked by those involved in
the anti-nuclear and ecology movements long before 2007 when the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its report
on the role of human activity in global warming and climate change.
The precautionary principle states that if there are some reasons to
think that something might cause significant harm, then, even if there
is no definitive scientific proof, it is warranted to take certain precau-
tions to prevent that harm.17 Thus, if there are some reasons to think

17 The more recent 2014 report of the IPCC expresses an overwhelming scientific consensus that
human activity plays a major role in causing global warming and climate change. The urgency
of the need to address this problem now goes way beyond the precautionary principle.

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that there might be certain tendencies in human nature which could

threaten the construction of socialism/communism, the possibility
of these tendencies should be taken seriously, even in the absence of
compelling evidence.
Nonetheless, I think there are, at least, two reasons for optimism,
but it must be a cautious optimism. First, following Marx’s analysis
of human nature, there is good reason to assume that human beings
are indeed social producers who continually develop new needs and
capacities, and there is also good reason to assume that the need for
creative activity as an end in itself is at least latent within human nature.
Second, following the analysis of Kropotkin and of some recent work
in evolutionary psychology, there is good reason to assume that human
beings have innate tendencies to develop dispositions for mutual aid,
cooperation, empathy, and altruism, and that these tendencies are
more than likely the predominant ones.
The task of constructing socialism/communism will be to pro-
vide social institutions and conditions that can develop, nurture, and
organize our positive tendencies, both those that are innate and those
which have been historically constructed, into socialist/communist
forms of sociality and individuality. It would further be its task to
remove obstacles that would prevent these positive tendencies from
being realized and of finding ways to channel or sublimate our nega-
tive tendencies into acceptable and perhaps even positive forms.18
But it would be a mistake to think that these negative tendencies will
easily disappear. Even if they are not built into the human genome,
they are unlikely to disappear in the early stages of socialism and could
thereby corrupt the goal of creating a society in which our creative
and social capacities would flourish. Norman Geras offers the follow-
ing words of caution:

If socialism, at any rate, will be still a society of human beings, much about
them will be recognizably the same. We have nothing at present but the
emptiness of speculations to tell us that the common faults and vices might

18 This suggests the need for a research project that would take two forms. The first is more
clearly to identify the various components of these negative tendencies and to determine
what kinds of economic, social, and political conditions and interventions could reduce,
ameliorate, and transform them so that they would not threaten the construction of social-
ism/communism. The second is to identify the ways in which these negative tendencies can
impede the struggles against capitalism and to consider the kinds of social movements and
political organizations that could help to reduce, ameliorate, and transform them.

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 MARX AND HUMAN NATURE 103

disappear or all but disappear; that everything that is productive of grave

mischief belongs with the discontinuities of history, with the societally gener-
ated, and nothing of it with our underlying human nature. (Geras, 1998, 105.)

Department of Philosophy
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
524 West 59th Street
New York, NY 10019
kstruhl@jjay.cuny.edu

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