Man becomes what he is through work, which is his creative activity. His essence therefore arises out of the constellation of variables such as the relationship to his species-being, to his product, to the activity of production, to other species-beings, etc. He is motivated by needs, both spiritual and physical, and it is in satisfying these needs that his "nature" is formed. Culture, which reflects the state and level of his nature, influences his needs and his creative activity, and is in turn influenced and shaped by them. In each succeeding
generation, new needs arise and old ones disappear: these needs are reflective of the nature and level of the productive process.
succeedingly higher levels. I-lany questions still remain unanswered: what is universal ’’essence” , and what is particular ’’essence”? What is the relationship between the two? What are the specific criteria for delineating what is human ’’nature”? These are crucial questions. This is noticed especially when they are seen in the context of Ma r x 1s projection of man's revolutionary transformation of both himself and the material conditions of existence.
The question of criteria raises a further significant question: From where does the criteria come? In Marx’s thought, it is clear
that he believes that they are immanently present in the socio-economic base. This answer is far from satisfactory or helpful, and it does not demonstrate that Mar:?: was the thorough "empirical” materialist he
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assumed he was. However, it is also obvious, that religion and other forms of ’’false consciousness” cannot provide the criteria. They are themselves alienated and alienating forms of consciousness.
This vagueness is illustrated in Ma r x ’s discussion of morality and law. In anticipation of the unalienated society, Marx gives the impression that there will be harmony in the "essence” of alienated beings, For example, Marx suggests that the laws of the "future" society will reflect the inner core of m an’s essence - freedom. A "true” lav/ therefore indicates the existence of freedom, and not the absence or suppression of it. Marx asserts that it is
only when his (man's] behaviour has actually shown that he has ceased to obey the natural lav/ of freedom,.,, ■(jfchat]
the state law compels him to be free. Similarly physical lav/s only appear alien to me when my life has ceased to be the life/these lav/s, when it is sick. Thus a preventive lav/ is a meaningless contradiction, 185
It seems appropriate to ask: Would a "true" lav/ become a preventive law when it is transferred from one age to another? Man?: leaves us without an answer.
It is a vain search to find Marx's definitive answer to the critical question of what constitutes man's "nature". We may find answers which show what it is not: for example, it is not a metaphysical abstraction related to God, But v/hat it is remains an enigma to us, Marx is as dogmatic as he is vague in his description of man's "nature",
Axelos catches sight of this dilemma when he sums u p Mane's anthropology thus:
It is man v/ho produces man, according to Marx. By producing his life, man produces himself, Man owes his (human) being, his essence and his existence to his productive labour alone. Man is created neither by God nor by Nature. As man, he has created himself, Marx's humanism is altogether radical. He recognizes no court of determination higher than that of human productivity. Productivity is an absolutely thetic pov/er; in it resides first positing action. Production is as v/ell the motor force of negativity, and it develops anti thetic pov/ers. Finally it is in production,and by production, that the supreme synthesis is worked. 186
The student of Marx is left to wonder at the precise meaning of the concept of man as the "realizer" of his "essence", and also as the creator of that "essence". Does man realize v/hat he essentially is? Does he become what he is? Or does man become v/hat he creates? ’We return once more to the question of "essence" and "existence", and are without a definitive resolution of the issue. We are left to
tentatively summarize the foregoing discussion thus: The creative power of man is his "essence". This "essence" is freedom — creative freedom to transform nature and to satisfy physical and spiritual
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needs. In the process of satisfying needs, man's "nature" v/hich is comprised of "spiritual" needs, becomes a new matrix of human needs, and so on. Thus it is through his work that man expresses his "essence".i
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Communism, the Future Society and the End of Alienation: Marx’s Utopian Vision.
In our discussion so far, we have attempted to show that Marx's concept of man is inextricably bound up with his concept of alienation. Man, we are told, is alienated from himself, from his fellow human
beings, from the productive process and from his own product. The picture of alienated man reflects the state of the worker in nineteenth century bourgeois-capitalist society in Western Europe. Inevitably, Ma r x ’s description reflects the visionary in him even though he claims
objectivity for his analysis. But perhaps it is in his speculations about unalienated society, communism, that we see Marx's utopianism at its best. Convinced beyond any doubt that alienation was histori cally produced, Marx dared to predict that it would likewise be
historically eradicated.
It will be recalled that Marx argued that man's rightful place is at the centre of creation, i.e., at the centre of the universe. While nature provides the raw materials for man's creative activity and acts upon and shapes man, it is man who gives the world its shape as he transforms nature. History then is the history of the mutual interaction between man and nature which leads to the humanization of
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nature. This presupposition about the humanization of nature undergirds Marx' s postulation of the de-alienation of man and the
complete transcendence of alienation. It is here we glimpse an optimism that befits the Jewish prophet rather than the cold, calculating
empiricist who refuses to project a future beyond that which can be 191
neither described, in full the future society he envisaged, nor did he articulate in clearly defined terms the path to be trod and the means to be used in the achievement of the transcendence of aliena
tion and the realization of free, uninhibited, humanized, creative 192
man. Nevertheless, the glimpse that we are able to catch sight of provid® an indispensable insight into his understanding of history which will eventually tell a history of (even as it will be) m a n ’s
transcendence of alienation and his creation of his truly human ’’essence'’.
However, before we embark on our discussion of history and the transcendence of alienation, we must first piece together some of the fragmentary descriptions of the unalienated society that Marx gives
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us. It should be noted that Marx is here describing a reality that has never been known in the history of the universe. According to Marx, it is not a ’’picture" of a lost paradise which is about to be
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.
regained, Marx does not speak in such static terms; for him, the future is ever open and yields the dynamically new,
Marx argues that in the future, free society, there will be no longer any state which acts as an "intermediary between man and his
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freedom," The emergence of the future society will mean that the state has disappeared. So long as the state exists, even when it facilitates the experience of an increasing measure of freedom for
its citizens, man is still alienated for he is thereby made to recognize himself by detour - i,e, through the state. According to Marx, even in
a state in which its citizens have gained political emancipation, the communist society is still a far cry. Remembering that Marx saw religion as a phenomenon - part of the superstructure - whose presence in any so-called "free" state is a blatant reminder that alienation still
plagues such a society and its people, his criticism of the situation in the North American states is to he noted. He says,
The question is: what is the relationship of complete political emancipation to religion? The fact that even in the land of completed political emancipation we find not only the existence of religion but a living existence full of freshness and strength, furnishes us with the proof that the existence of religion does not contradict or impede the perfection of the state itself, 196
Marx, therefore, concludes that the future, unalienated society is nowhere in existence not even where there has been political emancipa
tion, Political emancipation is not human emancipation, and hence religious emancipation is still to be effected even when political
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