The theory behind communism is said by the young Karl Marx in

his “Paris Notebooks” to be a “negation of negation”. This means that

it takes out of consideration all otherworldly thought modes such as

religion and capital. Marx was an atheist and therefore all communists

must be. In fact – though difficult for a universal theory of liberation -

all potential communists must fit a strict criterion of values. To begin,

in order to be a communist one must be a member of the proletariat

(or working class) - which is easy enough - but they also must realize

their true being, which is more difficult. This is because, for Marx, the

true being is one who recognizes himself as grounded in and defined

by society and his ‘species-being’. Only from this grounding in society

and the recognition of ones ‘species being’ can natural and human

existence coincide within man. This basis in society and ‘species-being’

proves to be very difficult for many thinkers. For example the widely

influential Soren Kierkegaard is vehemently opposed to social man and

the subsequent theories on it. But despite the narrow criteria for

communists, Marx presents his theory as an adequate and necessary

opposition to capitalism and other forms of negation.

Marx’s view of communism is that it is “negation of negation”.

The main forms of negation he opposes are religion, the state and

capital. He also opposes, family and law. “Therefore communism,

understood in its totality, alters not only the social and economic

situation of man, but also his political, legal, religious, ethical, and
scientific behaviour” (Löwith, 281). This alteration must come about

because Marx believes all of these negations – since they are not

grounded in the natural world - to be harmful distractions of man from

himself. This distraction is cataclysmically detrimental to mankind

because it deviates from his true nature. Marx says,

“The more the worker expends of himself, the more powerful

becomes the alien world of objects he creates over against himself, the

poorer he himself – his own inner world – becomes…it is exactly the

same as in religion. The more man puts into God, the less he keeps

himself” (Marx, 72).

What he is expressing here is that man is a being whose faculties

should be confined to what is natural to him. For Marx capitalism and

religion are unnatural because of their de-emphasis on man. The

capitalist is putting his faith into something otherworldly and therefore

unreal. The same is true of religion. But the capitalist would argue that

capital can be seen as a manifestation of worldly worth. But for Marx

the manifestation of capital is an indirect negation of human worth.

This is because, what the worker creates in capitalist society, his

product, is not a manifestation of himself, but is a demand of the

higher-ups (or bourgeoisie) in the social structure. Therefore the

product is not made for the sake of man but for the sake of someone

alien to him. The result is that “under capitalism the products of men

gain an independent existence and come into opposition to their

makers” [Elster, 100). This means that under capitalism man will lose

his true self and make an ongoing battle out of his life, between object

and self, which for Marx is anything but the true order of the world. To

this effect Marx says: “…the worker only feels himself outside his work,

and in his work feels outside himself” (Marx, 73). This suggests, that

through the production of objects man is setting up a world of alien

objects opposed to himself (ie. the workplace), and only feels himself

when he is not taking part in work, or is at home. Marx believes that

this opposition is not natural and is in opposition to man’s true nature.

Marx’ natural solution to this problem is communism. This is because

“[t]rue communism…as Marx…conceives it, is ‘the genuine resolution

of the conflict between…existence and essence, between

depersonalization and independent activity, between freedom and

necessity, between individual and species. [For him] it is the riddle of

history solved’” (Löwith, 281). This is why Marx believes that

communism is the natural course for humanity.

Marx’s view of true human nature is founded in the natural.

“[O]ne of Marx’s charges against capitalism is that it has upset the

delicate balance between man and nature” (Evans, 57). True human

nature is based on needs and is achieved through the meeting of these

needs. For example, man needs a means of subsistence and this is

given to him by nature. Marx proceeds rationally from this by justifying

communism as a means of maintaining nature so as to preserve

mankind’s sustenance. But, for Marx, under capitalism this means of

subsistence is exploited to the point of irrevocability, because “the

more the worker, by his labour, appropriates the external world of

sensuous nature, the more he deprives himself of the means of life”

(Marx, 72). This is to say that capitalism does not regard the

exhaustibility of nature, and does not appreciate the true needs of man

and is therefore unnatural. “There are two related characteristics of all

pre-capitalist societies: men’s social life is dominated by external

nature, and when men in society are subjected to traditional social

relations, which they regard as natural. Both these features have been

broken down by the rise of capitalism” (Evans, 59). Communism is the

catering-to of the needs of man and nature and holds the view that

capitalism is based upon false needs, and will destroy the means of

subsistence upon which it is based. The false needs of capitalism are

imposed upon the worker to create the illusion that the worker must

submit to capitalism in order to receive a means of subsistence: “…the

worker becomes enslaved to his object: first in getting an object of

labour, i.e. in getting work; and second, in receiving his means of

subsistence” (Marx, 72). Therefore the worker becomes enslaved in a

two-fold manner under capitalism. He must work in order to receive

subsistence, but at the same time he is destroying his means of

subsistence, i.e., Nature. For this reason communism is presented as

an alternative to the perceived quandary of capitalism.

 Marx believes capitalism is sorely lacking grounding in society.

This is exceedingly important because “[m]an is determined by his

society [and] a co-operative society will bring out the best in him; [but]

capitalist society brings out brutish, selfish, greed in him” (De Marco,

44). Furthermore he sees capitalism as only enforcing the class system

and consequently widening the gap between the rich and the poor and

perpetuating its continuance, thus “the rich will always try to get richer

by making the poor poorer” (Rorty, 205) This is why he bases

communism upon man as a social being and presents it as the natural

mode of existence for man. He states that “only in social man have

nature and existence come to coincide, only in him has nature become

man. Thus society is the fulfilled essential unity between man and

nature” (Marx, 80). What he believes to be true society is communism,

which is the effective unity between nature and humanity. Thus “[f]or

the restoration of man, Marx postulates a generic man whose

existence is absolutely social” (Lowith, 321). For communism to work

man must understand this unity of human nature and society, and

become subservient to the needs of nature and the needs of his other

fellow man. This is fundamentally crucial because “…there is no human

nature other than the interrelationships of men to each other. Man as a

social being means nothing more than this” (De Marco, 43). Therefore

man must remain necessarily social; he must not submit himself to any

negative abstraction from nature and humanity, i.e., capitalism,

religion, the state etc. Such anti-social activity will lead only to his self-

abasement and alienation.

For Marx man is a ‘species-being’ and this is what sets him apart

from the animals. This unification of species and being is also what

makes man superior and happy in his worldly life. Capitalism is seen as

a threat to the necessary unification of species and being because

“under [it], the work process invariably leads to alienation…man is

alienated from his species-being, his essential nature [and] [t]his itself

logically entails that each man is alienated from every other man”

(Evans, 93). This disrupts man as ‘species-being’ and also as a social

being. ‘Species-being’ is best catered-to under communism, because

communism is able to “make labour human”(De Marco, 43). To

continue, an explanation of Marx' definition of ‘species-being’ must be

put forward. Man as a species-being "means two things: first, that he

has his own species, or specific nature, and the species of all other

things as the object both of his practical action and of his theorising"

(Marx, 74) Since he acts upon the species of all other things as objects

of practical action and theory, he actualizes himself as a universal and

superior being. This is why man has for his object faculties such as

physics, mathematics and the earth sciences. But animals can only be

said to conform to the first part of Marx's description of ‘species-being’;

they are merely species and as such are confined to their specific

nature and physical subsistence. They can never actualize themselves

as being because they are without the mental capacity to see their "life

activity" as an object of their will. To this effect Marx states that, "the

animal does not distinguish itself from its activity. It is that activity and

nothing more. But man makes his life-activity an object of his will and

consciousness" (Marx, 75). This conscious act of imposing ones will on

life-activity, as an object, is the "being" part of species being. The

species part is, as displayed, "specific nature", which, animals cannot

view objectively, but are wholly submersed in. Man, as Marx's theory of

‘species-being’, is the conscious unification of life-activity and

objectivity. As for ‘species-being’ in relation to capitalism: the effect

that capitalism has on man is the estrangement of his being from his

life-activity and therefore his species from his being. This is displayed

when he states that "estranged labour estranges the species from

man; for him it turns his species life into a means to his individual life"

(Marx, 75). Man is estranged because he is no longer acting out of his

own personal, appropriated interest, but through the alienation of

production is reduced to sub-humanity. Therefore communism is better

suited to man because “[it] makes labour human [and through it] man

realizes his ‘species-being’ and spontaneously and co-operatively

creates” (De Marco, 43). Communism is able to ‘make labour human’

because in it is the unification of man with nature and society, and

therefore his ‘species-being’. This unified stance is, in Marx’s early

conception of communism, the true and natural position of humankind

in the world.

The young Marx’s theory of man as truly social and defined by

his ‘species-being’ has been met with much refutation since its

conception. An effective polemic to the theory of social man can be

seen in the work of Soren Kierkegaard who “is the contemporary

antithesis to Marx’s propoganda of a [communist] world revolution”

(Lowith, 114). Kierkegaard was a staunch individualist and saw the

perspective of man as a social being wholly incorrect and detrimental

to man’s true nature. He posits: “It is quite impossible for the

community or the idea of association to save our age…Nowadays the

principle of association…is not positive but negative; it is an escape, a

distraction and an illusion” (Kierkegaard, 79). Here Kierkegaard is

spurning the theory of man’s place in the world as being actualized

through the communal act. He is saying that man, attempting to act in

accordance with society as a whole, becomes a hopeless abstraction

because in this he is merely submitting himself to the ‘leveling

process’. Thus “Kierkegaard protested passionately against this idea of

social existence because he saw ‘in our time’ every kind of

association… as a leveling force” (Löwith, 158). This leveling process

involves the depersonalization of man through his equalization with

others; rather than being an individual, man becomes nothing more

than a member of the public. This will to be a member of the public is,
for Kierkegaard, the degradation of man’s individuality; the only reason

one wishes to do this is because they “aspire to be nothing at all”

(Kierkegaard, 64) in order to make life as simple as possible. So while

“Marx postulates a generic man whose existence is absolutely social”

(Lowith, 321) as the restoration of man, for Kierkegaard, it is this view

of man as ‘generic’ and social that is the effective degradation and

leveling of mankind.

Marx’s concept of communism as “negation of negation” is seen

by him as the natural course for humanity because it is negates the

means by which he is alienated, i.e. capitalism, religion and the state.

Once this negation has taken effect man will realize himself as

grounded reciprocally in nature. The negation must take place because

man cannot achieve this re-unification with nature if he views the

world abstractly through the lens of capitalism, religion and the state.

This is because, as displayed, capitalism does not understand and

cater to the unification of man and nature. Furthermore, this negation

gives way to the becoming of social man, which has been made

impossible under capitalism and can only be salvaged through

communism. This recognition of man as a social being is necessary

because in Marx’s view history has presented man as a being who is

defined by and interrelated with his fellow man. This association is

fundamental because it posits man as communal being, thus giving

way to the vital emergence of communism. The essential association

of man with nature and as a social being manifests itself in man as

‘species-being’. The concept of ‘species-being’ presents mankind as

holding specific and universal qualities, being grounded in a reciprocal

relationship with nature, but also being able to act upon other species

and nature as objects of practical action and theory, therefore gaining

supremacy over them. Marx’s theory of communism has never come to

fruition although he rationally puts it forth as an inevitable occurrence

in history. As seen in the views of Soren Kierkegaard Marxism has been

met with vehement refutation, giving weight to its opposition, thus

justifying its suppression. Though Marx’s communism has not yet come

about universally, and may never, it exists as an important take on

mankind in relation to the world, and acts as an insightful and

inspirational analysis on the deficiency of capitalism other forms of

negation.