Marx and the Species-Being Doctrine

Marx and the Species-Being Doctrine

Marx' doctrine of species-being demonstrates that he neither understands nor respects human diversity. Marx contended that the natural relationship of man to labor is of the most direct kind; where man's labor creates a product that is immediately valuable, unique to itself, and is independent of regulation and commercial control, and is clearly produced by a single person. In essence, only when labor is directly tied to output can a man achieve the ideal state of work. Unfortunately, this view of work could only exist in a strictly agrarian society where industrialized production could not possibly intrude - for in Marx' view, once labor is managed, it becomes dehumanizing because man is no longer working for its own purpose, but for that of others. Therefore, no one should work for anyone else. The problem, however, is that Marx is both blindly idealistic and wildly out of touch with reality, which makes for very bad and very flawed philosophy. The truth is that without collaborative labor, without organization, farms would never produce enough food for the population, houses could never be built in adequate volume to accommodate the growing population, people could only live in climates where all major crops for food and clothing are able to be grown, and each person would live in such a primitive state, and be forced to work so incredibly hard for their survival, that the average life-span would shrink rather than grow. Physical realities aside, there is also the very real problem of the nature of humanity - Marx's assertion requires that all men be of equally independent spirit, possess identical characters, and all be capable of understanding markets and needs without prompting such that there would be a natural settling of all labor into equally weighted production - all of which is impossible to achieve. Marx, in short, built a house of straw with water as the foundation.

Martin Milligan's translation of the Economic and Philosophic Transcripts of 1844: Karl Marx, gives us the following from Marx, "man is a species being....because he treats himself as the actual living species; because he treats himself as a universal and therefore a free being," (75). This means that man has a very distinct human nature, and that the core of our humanity is that we own our destiny, thus we can simply re-translate the idea of species-being to be human nature. Thus, Marx argues, because our nature is to be self-sustaining and self-reliant beings, with the impetus to work for ourselves and define our existence as independent from others, we are naturally inclined toward maintaining that human nature. What Capitalism does, according to Marx, is alienate people from their very nature.

Capitalism then separates people from the direct relationship between their labor and the product because it is by its very nature a managing economic model. While this concept is supportable - that once you agree to work for someone else, you are giving up an essential freedom of choice and independence - it is also exceptionally limited in its vision. By asserting that human nature is to be a wholly unique and independent being that views itself as "universal" (or being of equal significance to others) Marx essentially claims that part of what makes us human is that we all want to produce and create and then exchange an independent product. However, by insisting upon the idea that all people are the same in their core nature completely ignores the truth of humanity - that regardless of economic system, there are people who will certainly seek out and thrive with the kind of independence and self-reliance that Marx ascribes to all people. but, there will also be a significant number of people who do not function within that model, that actively seek out society, a collaborative role within production, and a more involved in the idea that in order to make society function, all people must give up some of the aspects of their human nature (as per Hobbes).

So, if man is expected to be a universal being, he is then required to be simultaneously independent of others and completely naturally able to find a unique niche within society such that his independence is guaranteed. What Marx asserts, then, is that there is some mystic aspect of human nature that recognizes holes and opportunities in the needs of a society around it and takes up the slack, as it were, such that the person can be both a contributor to society and at the same time not overloading a particular aspect of the economy with over or under production. His objection to Capitalism is that it forces the market division upon the worker - it creates and monopolizes opportunities such that the independent producer is unable to survive and thus men are forced into relationships where others (managers, owners) dictate the course of their day, the purpose of their labor, and grants the credit and benefit of that labor go to the company and not to the worker. The capitalist, "profits...by the division of labor and...by the advance which human labor makes on the natural product. The greater the human share in a commodity, the greater the profit of dead capital," (39).

The diversity of humanity is critical to its survival. The truth is that Marxism never took off, would never have been successful, and was never successful in any variation that it took. Marx gives this away when he says, " the human essence of nature first exists only for social man," (104). The reason for this is that human nature is not to be monotonously universal - that every person is not of the same mind and temperament, rather, they are a broadly and wildly diverse species that functions best within a market system that allows people to be both producers and consumers, to be creators and contributors within the economy. Without that kind of diversity, there would be none of what we have today in terms of modern technological, agricultural, scientific, or any other advance in the world.

Marx' ideal world naturally excludes formal education, while requiring indoctrination to the mental frameworks of Marxism in order for it to be made available to everyone and to become self-sustaining. So, what is at the core of Marxism is a commitment from all participants to be communally independent - which are, ironically, the requirements in great part, for the entrepreneurialism that marks successful capitalism. One cannot help but agree that there are varying degrees of quality in art. Individual artists are asserting their own perspective upon physical objects and thus creating a unique paradigm wholly unto themselves. However, in the act of doing this, the artist is also attempting to engage others who will think and perceive the world in the same manner as they. If we all liked the same things, if we all had the same aesthetic sense, this would be the case.

Thus, Marx' idea that as a species-being we are attached to a universal code of behavior, that we are all naturally inclined to be independent and to view the world in the same manner is actually a complete disconnect from the reality of human nature - that what is beautiful to one is ugly to another, and that such aesthetic sense is not dictated by economics.