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 of the Theses on Feuerbach, written in 1845, provided an early discussion by Marx of the concept of human nature.
Feuerbach, who does not enter upon a criticism of this real essence is hence obliged: Thus, Marx appears to say that human nature is no more than what is made by the "social relations".
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.
[4] Marx is arguing against an abstract conception of human nature, offering instead an account rooted in sensuous life.
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".
[11] (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.)
On the other hand, as a natural, corporeal, sensuous objective being he is a suffering, conditioned and limited creature, like animals and plants.
[14] We can see then, that from Marx's early writing to his later work, he conceives of human nature as composed of "tendencies", "drives", "essential powers", and "instincts" to act in order to satisfy "needs" for external objectives.
"[17][18] In several passages throughout his work, Marx shows how he believes humans to be essentially different from other animals.
"[5] In this passage from The German Ideology, Marx alludes to one difference: that humans produce their physical environments.
Humans, then, make plans for their future activity, and attempt to exercise their production (even lives) according to them.
To be able to live a life of this character is to achieve "self-activity" (actualisation), which Marx believes will only become possible after communism has replaced capitalism.
In others, it seems to emphasise that we attempt to make our lives expressions of our species-essence; further that we have goals concerning what becomes of the species in general.
Marx's use of the words work and labour in the section above may be unequivocally negative; but this was not always the case, and is most strongly found in his early writing.
"labour is external to the worker – i.e., does not belong to his essential being; that he, therefore, does not confirm himself in his work, but denies himself, feels miserable and not happy, does not develop free mental and physical energy, but mortifies his flesh and ruins his mind".
[27] In Marx’s writings, there are examples of racism towards people of colour, including those of Black African heritage, Indians, Slavs, and Jews.
Thus the first fact to be established is the physical organisation of these individuals and their consequent relation to the rest of nature.
"[39] Allen Wood wrote: "Historical progress consists fundamentally in the growth of people's abilities to shape and control the world about them.
"[40] In his article "Reconsidering Historical Materialism", however, Cohen gives an argument to the effect that human nature cannot be the premise on which the plausibility of the expansion of the productive forces is grounded: The implication of this is that hence "one might ... imagine two kinds of creature, one whose essence it was to create and the other not, undergoing similarly toilsome histories because of similarly adverse circumstances.
However, it is worth bearing in mind that Cohen had previously been committed to the strict view that human nature (and other "asocial premises") were sufficient for the development of the productive forces – it could be that they are only one necessary constituent.
In The German Ideology Marx writes that "life involves before everything else eating and drinking, a habitation, clothing and many other things".
One important criticism of Marx's "philosophical anthropology" (i.e. his conception of humans) is offered by Gerald Cohen, the leader of Analytical Marxism, in "Reconsidering Historical Materialism" (in Callinicos, ed., 1989).
The consequence of this is held to be that "Marx and his followers have underestimated the importance of phenomena, such as religion and nationalism, which satisfy the need for self-identity.
"[48] Cohen believes that people are driven, typically, not to create identity, but to preserve that which they have in virtue, for example, of "nationality, or race, or religion, or some slice or amalgam thereof".
The two texts in which Marx most directly discusses human nature are the Comments on James Mill and the piece on Estranged Labour in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 (published in 1932).