Marx's theory of human nature has an important place in his critique of
capitalism, his conception of
communism, and his '
materialist conception of history'.
Karl Marx, however, does not refer to "
human nature" as such, but to
Gattungswesen, which is generally translated as 'species-being' or 'species-essence'. What Marx meant by this is that humans are capable of making or shaping their own nature to some extent. According to a note from the
young Marx in the
Manuscripts of 1844, the term is derived from
Ludwig Feuerbach’s philosophy, in which it refers both to the nature of each human and of humanity as a whole.[https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/footnote.htm#fn20] However, in the sixth
Thesis on Feuerbach (1845), Marx criticizes the traditional conception of "human nature" as "species" which incarnates itself in each individual, on behalf of a conception of human nature as formed by the totality of "social relations". 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.