Although Marx does not have an ahistorical conception of human nature, he does hold that certain very general categories can be appropriately used when discussing human beings of any historical era and of any society. Among the most important of these categories are need and power. In the Manuscripts Marx writes:

In this passage Marx not only emphasizes the centrality of the categories of need and power, but also emphasizes that human beings are beings who are in the natural world and that human needs can only be satisfied through the transformation of the natural world by human powers. This activity of transformation is called appropriation and is another general category that can be used in describing human experiences in any historical era.

        It is important to understand that Marx's conception includes both a firm natural foundation for needs and powers and an understanding that all human needs and powers are historical creations subject to change. Marx emphasizes that human beings have bodies which determine a great deal about the general nature of their needs and manners of fulfilling needs. For example, our bodies determine our needs for specific kinds of nourishment, and our bodies determine that we fulfill these needs through our powers of tasting, chewing, etc. Marx also emphasizes that human beings always live in specific societies during specific historical eras and that the mode of production of a given society determines a good deal about the specific form that needs will take and will be satisfied in. For example, a need for bread can only occur within a society where bread is produced, and the power to make bread is dependent upon a certain level of development of agriculture. Finally, Marx emphasizes that in order to satisfy their needs, human beings act upon the world and that this activity and the subsequent satisfaction changes them (their needs and powers) and changes the world. This means that an activity such as agriculture concretely changes the natural world and the human beings who engage in it, because it removes old limitations and imposes new limitations.

        In discussing needs and powers, Marx distinguishes between natural needs and species needs, between natural powers and species powers. Natural needs and powers are those that form the natural foundation earlier referred to. In their natural needs and powers, human beings resemble other animals in that they have definite and relatively unchanging need for food, oxygen, etc. But human beings differ from other animals in that they create their lives through productive activity. Human beings do not live through an unchanged pattern from generation to generation as do insects, birds, and even other primates. Because of human productive activity, human life and human beings differ from society to society and from age to age. The needs and powers associated with this specifically human self-creation (that is, the self-transformation of the human species) are what Marx terms species needs and species powers. Marx seems to suggest that the most important of species needs and powers are the need for engaging in and appreciating the results of creative labor and the corresponding power to create and the need for expressing and receiving love and the corresponding power to love.

        It is important to understand the relationship between natural functions and species functions. Species needs and powers often grow directly out of natural needs and powers, and natural functions such as eating and procreating that are necessary for survival can take on specifically human forms such that human beings engage in them for purposes other than mere survival. For example, there is a great difference between eating as an animal and eating elaborately prepared food in a social context as a human being. Likewise, there is a marked difference between the simple act of procreating and the complex act of making love. Marx clearly assumes that to be a human being is fundamentally different than to be an animal, and he wants natural functions transformed into species functions. Marx expresses this sentiment when he writes:

Marx claims that the species life of human beings is characterized by sociability, consciousness, and freedom and that this species life best expresses itself through production in accordance with standards of beauty. Marx argues that sociability, consciousness, and freedom are related in such a way that one cannot occur in isolation from the other two.

        When Marx talks about freedom he is not talking about a metaphysical postulate. Although Marx's understanding of freedom is less sophisticated in the Manuscripts than in his later works, even in the Manuscripts freedom clearly refers to an observable power or complex of powers. Marx claims that human productive activity is characterized by freedom in three ways. First of all, the animal "produces only under the domination of immediate physical need, whilst man produces even when he is free from physical need and only truly produces in freedom therefrom.". Secondly, "an animal's product belongs immediately to its physical body, while man freely confronts his product." Thirdly, while "an animal forms things in accordance with the standard and the need of the species to which it belongs, man knows how to produce in accordance with the standard of every species." Because human beings are free in these ways and because aesthetic value is an important human creation, "man therefore also forms things in accordance with the laws of beauty." (Marx 113) In many ways this forming of things in accordance with the laws of beauty is the ultimate expression of human freedom. It is important to note that Marx regards freedom as a characteristic of productive activity. This would be somewhat limited except for the fact that Marx conceives of thinking, appreciating, and loving as activities, as types of production.

        Given Marx's notion of freedom, it is clear that most human activity is characterized by some degree of freedom. Even to work in a factory is to confront one's product freely, i.e., to produce in accordance with specifications not naturally given. Working in a factory even involves producing without the dominion of immediate physical need in a very weak sense in that workers are not directly producing their food, shelter, etc. Given Marx's notion of freedom, it is also clear that human activity can be characterized by greater or lesser degrees of freedom. As will soon become evident, Marx clearly values those activities characterized by a greater degree of freedom very highly. To value freedom is not unusual. However, for Marx genuine freedom involves creation without the compulsion of need, without any type of social coercion, and in accordance with standards of beauty which are themselves a complex creation. To value this type of freedom and to suggest that human fulfillment involves its realization is very unusual.

        Marx's notion of freedom may seem extreme and may not seem to allow for certain ethically significant distinctions such as the incorporation of concerns about possible conflicts among human beings exercising their freedom. But this is not the case. Marx's notion of freedom is connected with his notions of sociability and consciousness, and it is tempered by them. Marx believes that a human being needs other human beings not just as objects but as human beings. Marx also thinks that a human being becomes human only in the context of a society for several reasons.

        One reason that freedom can only be realized within a society is that freedom cannot be realized without the humanization of nature which involves the development of social organization and technology such that natural needs and conditions lose their oppressive character and numerous possibilities for creative activity become concretely available. For example, even working for oneself involves a very limited amount of freedom if natural conditions and needs determine that one must work in the fields twelve hours a day in order to survive. Likewise, freedom is limited insofar as access to experiences and materials is limited; the members of many societies are not free to build large buildings, take pictures, or write novels.

        Other reasons that freedom can be realized only within a society include the fact that a standard of beauty in accordance with which someone creates or appreciates is a social product and is necessary in order to give free activity meaning even when further creation or appreciation transforms the original standard. Finally, Marx emphasizes that consciousness is dependent on language which can develop only within a society and that an individual's development of consciousness is conditioned by the level of the means of production and the relations of production of the individual's society. Given these relationships between freedom, sociability, and consciousness, the value Marx places on freedom seems more reasonable. However, a detailed development of the specific ethical implications of these relationships can not be offered on the basis of the Manuscripts alone and thus must wait until a later chapter.

        Before concluding this discussion of the philosophical foundations of the theory of alienation, one more preliminary explanation concerning Marx's way of talking about human beings must be offered. Marx emphasizes that human needs and powers determine that human beings are human beings only insofar as they are part of a world--both a natural world and a social world. Although Marx emphasizes again and again that human beings have bodies, he does not think that human beings are bodies (or are merely the sum of their observable behavior). He thinks that human beings are human not because of mere biological structure, but because they have certain kinds of bodies related in definite ways to the natural world, because they engage in certain sorts of productive activity, because they maintain certain sorts of social relationships, and because they have a history--a past and a future without reference to which their present is incomprehensible. Sometimes Marx expresses this by making somewhat metaphorical statements such as:

Often Marx expresses this view in the language of the Hegelian philosophy of internal relations which allows him to express the idea that human beings are their social relationships. It is important to note that the theory of alienation makes no sense unless Marx's remarks are understood in this context, for the theory of alienation assumes that a product is part of the human being who made it, that nature is part of the human being who cannot live independently of it, and that social relationships are part of the human being who engages in them.

        Marx's view can best be summed up as characterizing human beings as self-mediating or self-creating beings. This is a way of saying that there are infinite possibilities for human beings and that human beings determine which of these possibilities will be realized through their activity (although not necessarily through their choice). By saying that human beings have such possibilities Marx is making a definite claim about human beings, but this claim is so different from the claims of traditional theories of human nature that it does violence to our understanding of Marxism to say that it includes a theory of human nature.

        The theory of alienation as presented in the Manuscripts deals with the experiences of workers under capitalism and not with the experiences of human beings in general. Marx indicates that the concept of alienation is theoretically powerful enough to describe the experiences of capitalists (as he begins to do just as the manuscript on estranged labor breaks off) and perhaps the experiences of members of various classes under other economic systems such as feudalism. However, these groups are alienated in different ways, and one description could not possibly accommodate their diverse experiences. Also, although Marx indicates that the concept of alienation is useful in describing the production of the state, the family, morality, religion, and culture, the theory of alienation as systematically presented in the Manuscripts relates mainly to industrial production.

        The word alienation refers to a separation--a taking away of human beings from themselves and from their potentialities. Therefore, the coherent use of the concept of alienation depends upon a prior conception of human possibilities. The concept of alienation is theoretically powerful, because it facilitates the description of the degradation of human life without allowing the assumption that this degradation is natural or inevitable. In other words, the language of the theory of alienation introduces a critical perspective into the description of the worker's experience; thus, critical perspective need not be artificially introduced from without.

        In describing the experience of workers under capitalism, Marx isolates six different aspects of alienation in their productive activity. These six aspects are closely related and can be said to imply one another. The most conceptually simple aspect of alienation and in some sense the conceptual starting point of the theory of alienation is the worker's alienation from his or her product. Under capitalism a worker's product does not belong to the worker; it belongs to the capitalist who employs the worker. This product, the objectification of the worker's creative activity (the worker's activity transformed into an object) and thus part of his or her being, is taken from his or her control or alienated. And beyond this, the alienated product actually serves to further dominate the worker in that the more the capitalist accumulates, the more powerful and able to dominate the worker the capitalist becomes. Marx writes:

        Why does this constitute an injury? This constitutes an injury, because, as emphasized before, the product is part of the worker. This makes sense when we think of an artist's painting. It seems reasonable to claim that a painting an artist has worked on for years is an extension of himself or herself and that to destroy or steal this painting is to injure the artist. This may seem less clear in the case of an assembly line worker helping to construct a car. But the very degradation of the labor process which will be described next accounts in part for our failure to be able to view the product of the assembly line worker as an extension of himself or herself. Of course, when Marx condemns the product being taken away from the worker, he is not suggesting that the desirable situation would involve the worker retaining his or her product. Rather, Marx is concerned with the question of control. Just as the artist will not want to store his or her paintings in the basement but will want their disposal to be part of how he or she relates to other people, Marx is concerned that workers in general control the disposal of their products. The worker's alienation from his or her productive activity is related to the worker's alienation from his or her product. Since the object created by the worker's activity is taken from him or her, the worker's productive activity is active alienation. Marx expresses it thusly:

Also, because the product is not for the worker, the activity which creates this product is under the supervision of and done to the specifications of the capitalist, and the control of his or her activity is thus alienated from the worker. The worker's alienation from his or her productive activity is perhaps most graphically demonstrated in the application of Taylorism to the labor process where even minute motions of the worker are controlled. The full significance of this aspect of alienation is apparent when the emphasis that Marx places on human beings creating themselves through their work is remembered.

        The third aspect of alienation is the worker's alienation from nature. Marx writes:

Here Marx is claiming that nature in the form of raw materials is not directly available to the worker. He is also claiming that nature in the form of humanized nature (the means of production which are not only nature but also the worker's product) is not directly available to the worker. Raw materials and the means of production are owned by someone else. In order to survive, the worker seeks employment. Ironically enough, the more the worker produces, the more he or she uses up raw materials and the more he or she strengthens the means of production which confront him or her as an alien force. Also, the worker uses up the resources that are necessary for his or her physical survival--the production of air pollution being an obvious example.

        The fourth aspect of alienation is the worker's alienation from other human beings. The origin of this alienation is found in the fact that it is, of course, another human being, the capitalist, who takes away the worker's product and supervises his or her productive activity by virtue of having taken control of most of nature and of the means of production. Marx elaborated on this by emphasizing that

In other words, the relationship between the worker and the capitalist is such that they cannot confront each other as human beings, and the worker is thus alienated from fellow human beings insofar as he or she is alienated from tile capitalist. The basic relationship leads to further types of alienation from other human beings. For example, since workers must compete with one another for jobs, they cannot always confront one another as human beings, and workers are thus alienated from one another and so from fellow human beings. More generally, it can be said that the capitalist system defines much of the content of human relationships; thus, the human beings involved in the relationships do not freely define their content. The nature of this forced and supervised productive activity and of the deformed human relationships it necessarily involves dictates that the worker is alienated from his or her species being. He or she is not freely productive in accordance with a standard of beauty in a human context. The worker's minimal animal needs must be fulfilled if he or she is to continue to work for the capitalist, but his or her species needs do not have to be. The worker's experience is such that his or her species needs and powers not only are not developed, they are manipulated and positively degraded.. Marx describes the degradation of needs with reference to the situation in Ireland.

Marx also describes the manipulation of needs in a way that calls to mind contemporary American advertising:

This degradation of species needs and the corresponding degradation of species powers as a consequence of the reduction of the worker's activity to the "most abstract mechanical movement" controlled by another, is an advantage for the capitalist because such degradation can make for docile workers.

        Taken together these five aspects of alienation add up to the final aspect of alienation--the alienation of the worker from himself or herself. As was pointed out earlier this only makes sense in the context of a framework in which the worker's immediate condition (immediately degraded needs and powers) is not identified with the self. In other words, workers are alienated from themselves insofar as they cannot freely realize their possibilities. It should now be clear that Marx's understanding of alienation is quite different from conversational uses of the term which generally involve some allusion to a feeling of detachment. Marx's notion does not involve a reference to the feelings or subjective reports of workers. Indeed, a worker's claim that he or she feels alienated is probably a sign that he or she has not been completely destroyed since this indicates there are needs which are unfulfilled. On Marx's understanding, alienation ends with the almost total degradation of species needs and powers, with the reduction of the worker to the animal state, and thus with the destruction of the worker as a human being. In describing what constitutes the alienation of labor, Marx sums up his view in this way:

        Given that alienation is produced as the worker engages in activity, it is not surprising that Marx regards alienation as a process---a process of increasing destruction. One dynamic which Marx begins to describe in the Manuscripts is how workers under capitalism have developed and continue to develop the means of production in ways that increasingly create the potential of freedom. But the social relations of capitalism mean that even as workers create this possibility of freedom, they also create actual enslavement for themselves.

Indeed, workers are so far from benefiting humanly from their labor that this labor makes their situation progressively worse.

        We would thus expect that in the case of the individual workers and the working class as a whole (except insofar as other factors such as workers' struggles play a role) with the passing of time, the development of capitalism increases alienation. Marx condemns capitalism because capitalism destroys human beings. It destroys human beings in a particularly horrible way---by turning their own labor against them. It is through labor that human beings create themselves and find specifically human fulfillment, but in labor under capitalism human beings make themselves into slaves and destroy their capacities for human fulfillment. Another way of expressing this is to say that under capitalism human beings are reduced to commodities. Marx writes: