Karl Marx Dictionary

Karl Marx was the father of communism. Marx''s philosophy hinges on his view of human nature. Along with the Hegelian dialectic, Marx inherited a disdain for the notion of an underlying invariant human nature. Sometimes Marxists express their views by contrasting ΓÇ£natureΓÇ¥ with ΓÇ£historyΓÇ¥. Sometimes they use the phrase ΓÇ£existence precedes consciousnessΓÇ¥. The point, in either case, is that who a person is, is determined by where and when he is ΓÇö social context takes precedence over innate behavior; or, in other words, one of the main features of human nature is adaptability. Nevertheless, Marxian thought rests on the fundamental assumption that it is human nature to transform nature, and he calls this process of transformation "labour " and the capacity to transform nature labour power.