In Marx’s writing revolutionary subjectivity is depicted as a form of individuality which emerges amid the activities and relations of the productive process in capitalist society. A successful revolution which marks the transition to truly “human” life is the result of a broader historical process of “human” development out of our bestial origin in nature, from which we emerge with only the potential to become free. 254 According to Marx this process is driven from the outset by fundamental features of our socio-productive activity.255 In his view the labour process is the locus of the dialectic between human activity as natural activity and the natural activity of humanity in which nature is turning into humanity as humanity is transforming nature and becoming consciously free.256
254 “Freedom,” Hegel claimed, “as the ideal of that which is original and natural, does not exist as original and natural. Rather it must be first sought out and won; and that by an incalculable medial discipline of the intellectual and moral powers. The state of Nature is, therefore, predominantly that of injustice and violence, of untamed natural impulses, of inhuman deeds and feelings” (Hegel 1956, 40-41).
255 Marx’s view of this process will be explored further in Chapter Four.
256 Cf. Engels’ claim that humanity is “that mammal in which nature attains consciousness of itself” (Engels 1940, 17).
We participate in this fundamentally social life-activity initially only to satisfy immediate
“natural necessity” and according to Marx the growth of our “species-powers” is an unintended result of it.257 Through labour we alter the natural world—as we find it altered by socio-historical activity—and ourselves as well. As Marx claimed in Capital,
“Labour is...a process by which [humanity], through [its] own actions, mediates, regulates and controls the metabolism between [itself] and nature. [We set] in motion the natural forces which belong to [our] own body…in order to appropriate the materials of nature in a form adapted to [our] own needs. Through this movement [we act] upon external nature and [change] it, and in this way [we] simultaneously [change our] own nature. [We develop] the potentialities slumbering within nature, and [subject] the play of its forces to [our] own sovereign power.”258
A fundamental aspect of Marx’s notion of humanity is that we are self-created.259 From his perspective, real self-determination essentially involves self-creation.260 Humanity is able to have a free relationship with nature—in which we are self-determined but not independent of nature
257 He thought that the initial impetus for the growth of our consciousness (and language) was the necessity of working collectively to satisfy the ‘material’ needs associated with our natural-physical life (Marx and Engels 1998, 37). Cf. his claim in the Grundrisse that “Not only do the objective conditions change in the act of production, but the producers change, too, in that they bring out new qualities in themselves, develop themselves in production, transform themselves, develop new powers and ideas, new modes of intercourse, new needs and new language”
(Marx 1973, 494).
258 Marx 1976, 283.
259 He claimed that “the entire so-called history of the world is nothing but the creation of man through human labour” (Marx 1964, 145).
260 “A being only considers himself independent when he stands on his own feet; and he only stands on his own feet when he owes his existence to himself”(Ibid., 144). Cf. Engels’ claim that “Man is the sole animal capable of working his way out of the merely animal state—his normal state is one appropriate to his consciousness, one to be created by himself” (Engels 1940, 187). McCarney attempted to elaborate this aspect of Marx’s work in relation to Hegel’s philosophy: “Freedom, [Hegel] tells us, is ‘self-sufficient being’, and so ‘If I am self-sufficient, I am also free.’ Thus, the basic idea of freedom is of a life which is at the subject’s own disposal, determined by self and not by whatever is external to and other than self. Such a conception of freedom as self-determination is not only in keeping with everyday thinking but also captures the basis for the mainstream treatment of the topic by philosophers since the Greeks” (McCarney 1991, 23).
per se—insofar as we develop our “species-powers” because nature is governed by ‘natural laws’ which are “reason.”261 In this way the human being—as “self-conscious reason”—is fully developed nature. Marx articulated this dialectic of nature and humanity in the following passage:
“The human essence of nature primarily exists only for social man, because only here is nature a link with man, as his existence for others and their existence for him, as the life-element of human actuality—only here is nature the foundation of man’s own human existence. Only here has the natural existence of man become his human existence and nature become human. Thus society is the comprehended, essential unity of man with nature, the true resurrection of nature, the fulfilled naturalism of man and humanism of nature.”262
With the growth of our inherent capacity for “universally” conscious labour, the development of productive technology and organization, etc., we are able to overcome the alien and dominating character of nature overtime.263 As Marx put it, “the human being comes to relate more as watchman and regulator to the production process”; e.g., we insert “the process of nature, transformed into an industrial process, as a means between [ourselves] and inorganic nature, mastering it.”264 Marx does not suggest that we will be entirely independent from the necessity
261 Cf. Hegel’s claim that “Nature is an embodiment of Reason,” and it is therefore “unchangeably subordinate to universal laws” (Hegel 1956, 12).
262 Marx 1967, 305-6.
263 Cf. his claim that “nature becomes one of the organs of [humanity's] activity, which [we annex] to [our] own bodily organs, adding stature to [ourselves] in spite of the Bible” (Marx 1976, 285).
264 Marx 1973, 704-706. Cf. McCarney’s claim that the “rationality which is a defining feature of human labour must have a central place in [the] process of [human] self-creation. At least part of its significance lies in the internal connection with the development of the human capacity to cope with the external world. This development is, for both Marx and Hegel, an integral part of humanity’s self-creation, and, in another aspect, simply is the growth of the productive forces” (McCarney 1990, 134-135).
for instrumental activity associated with our organic body, although this does not necessarily entail activity determined by something other than the human ‘self’. Instead, freedom—in an
“advanced phase of communist society”—can be characterized as being in tune with nature and adapting it as much as possible to our “universal” life-activity rather than being subjected to its unconquered might,265 but the “natural necessity” associated with the maintenance of our life at a desirable standard (or at all) will remain because we are always internally related to nature.
This transformation and control over forces of the natural world through labour involves the modification of features of our own natural-physical being throughout the historical process.
Marx imagined “the full development of human mastery over the forces of nature, those of so-called nature as well as of humanity’s own nature.”266 Hegel’s philosophy was an important influence on Marx in this regard,267 although this Hegelian view of the “self-creation” of humanity comes with a terrible catch. “At the same pace that mankind masters nature,” Marx claimed, “man seems to become enslaved to other men or to his own infamy.”268 Appropriating Hegel, Marx made “estrangement” a key feature of the social labour process (throughout the
“prehistory of human society”) which provides the dynamism whereby “reason” becomes increasingly conscious and we create the objective and subjective conditions for a life in which the full development of humanity is consciously pursued as an end-in-itself.269
265 Hence Marx’s claim that “communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man” (Marx 1964, 135).
266 Marx 1973, 488. Cf. Fromm’s claim that humanity, “while like all other creatures is subject to forces which determine [it], is the only creature endowed with reason, the only being who is capable of understanding the very forces which [it] is subjected to and who by [its] understanding can take an active part in [its] own fate and strengthen those elements which strive for the good” (Fromm 1947, 234).
267 In the Phenomenology, for instance, Hegel claims that in the labour process we rid ourselves of our “attachment to natural existence in every single detail” by “working on it” (Marx 1977, 117).
268 Marx 2010b, 299.
269 Marx 1977, 22. Marx’s idea of “estrangement” will be explored further in Chapter Four.