Conception Of Marx's Theory Of Human Nature

Marx's theory of human nature: alienation
Marx's conception of human nature is most dramatically put forward in the excerpts from the Economic Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 that I have assigned to you. But this work is very difficult and obscure. I have tried to select those passages that are most straightforward. But, as you will see, they are by no means very clear. Let me give you some guidelines for reading them.
These passages talk about four kinds of human alienation or estrangement: (1) from our product, (2) from our productive activity, (3) from our species being and (4) from other human beings. What I would like you to do in your first essay is to give a brief explication of three of these four types of alienation, all except
Human beings are, for Marx, quintessentially beings who must be productive, who, that is, must interact with nature and other human beings to make things and effect changes in the world around us. By "species being," Marx means our essence as a species. Thus to be alienated from our species being is to be distanced from our fundamental nature as productive beings. Now how is this possible? How can we, or our lives, be in opposition to or not in the proper relationship to our very nature? To understand this, we must look a little more closely at what our nature or species being
In part this is because productive activity allows us to develop and exercise our capacities, faculties, and abilities. Central to Marx's account of human nature is the notion that human beings are not slugs. We enjoy work that challenges and stimulates us to more effectively produce better products. And, when we can do work of this sort, we prefer work to rest. Indeed, the forms of recreation we most enjoy—when we are not entirely tired out— also challenge and stimulates us. The highest forms of consumption involves the development and exercise of our faculties and capacities and, for this reason, is a kind of productive activity. Think, for example, of how much more we enjoy music that we know and understand or how much more watching a basketball game means to someone who understands the game. In listening to music and watching a basketball game we are also developing and exercising our capacities, faculties, and abilities. Human productive activity is also intrinsically satisfying because it transforms our environment, making what is sometimes a difficult natural habitat into a partly human creation, one that is both fitted to us and our own. We work on nature, what Marx calls "man's inorganic body," transforming it to suit our purposes. In doing so we "objectify our powers" or realize our capacities, faculties and abilities in concrete phenomena around