It's interesting to finally get a writeup of your disagreements with SA on Marx.
Throughout I felt like you were somewhat talking past SA - I would have found it very useful if you wrote about what you think SA means when he says Marx thinks there is 'no such thing as human nature'.
For example I expect SA to agree that Marx thinks that imagination and planning are activities that are shared by almost all humans, but I don't think these were the kinds of things he was referring to in his claim.
The functional thurst of SA's opinion seems to be more about whether Marx thinks selfishness and competition and inherent human behaviors. If any quotes by Marx exist that address these directly I would find them much more compelling, although if none exist I agree this is evidence that SA made an error. (I do find calling this 'human nature' is a bit broad, although I think I think the rest of SA's piece does make his restricted interest more clear).
I do think you make good arguments that the Marx quotes SA used regarding human nature don't actually strongly back up his point when viewed in context (at least not to the degree of strength that he gave them). I do think they have a natural (if incorrect) interpretation towards blank-slateism. For example, I think my simplest interpretation of "But the essence of man is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In reality, it is the ensemble of the social relations." is "There isn't a template for humans that each person in based on, instead each person is determined by their circumstances." which seems exactly like a denial of the existence of human nature. Again I accept that this isn't actually the point Marx was making when viewed in context, just that it is an understandable misinterpretation.
I'm not "talking past" Scott Alexander. Scott Alexander made the claim that Marx thought there was "no such thing" as human nature and that "everything was completely malleable". This phrasing is as straightforward and simple as it gets, and it is *wrong*. I posted quote after quote of Marx talking at length about human nature.
SA did not make any sort of argument that Marx's view of human nature was incorrect. Scott Alexander said that Marx thought there was "no such thing".
"I expect SA to agree that Marx thinks that imagination and planning are activities that are shared by almost all humans"
Ok, but this is mind-reading. Nowhere in the text does SA say anything like "I agree with Marx that imagination and planning are part of human nature". Remember, SA thinks that Marx thinks there is "no such thing" as human nature. SA, in the only two Marx quotes he provided, misread both quotes entirely. He's barely read any Marx, and the little he has read he completely misunderstood. So why would we expect SA to be able to comprehend or intelligently comment on what Marx said about competition, or planning, or imagination, or greed, or anything else?
"For example, I think my simplest interpretation of "But the essence of man is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In reality, it is the ensemble of the social relations." is "There isn't a template for humans that each person in based on, instead each person is determined by their circumstances." which seems exactly like a denial of the existence of human nature."
I don't know where you're getting the second half of that rewrite from. How did you turn "it is the ensemble of the social relations" into "each person is determined by their circumstances"? So, no, I don't think that's the "simplest interpretation". I also don't see how that (even if that's what Marx was saying, which he isn't) would constitute a "denial of the existence of human nature". This is not an understandable misinterpretation, unless your beliefs have been shaped by nameless conservative pundits and you're kind of just skimming Marx, which is likely what happened with SA.
You talk about viewing this quote in context, but there's no reason why SA couldn't have read it in context too. This quote is not presented as a short excerpt in Singer, Singer does not use that quote at all. That means that SA was looking for evidence to bolster his argument, and this quote was the best he could do. Did SA not read the rest of the piece? Did he not understand what Marx was saying or what he was arguing against in Feuerbach?
There's really no reason that SA couldn't have read the whole thing, it's really short:
I think you have done a good job showing that SA is either not acting in good faith or is very, very sloppy. And insofar as one is less likely to be convinced by the argument of someone who is generally bad/sloppy, your essay might change some minds and counteract SA's mistakes. However, I think your essay doesn't address the actual argument that anyone reading this SA essay is likely to be convinced by (if they are convinced by anything).
As a non Marx reader coming in to SA's post from this one, what I would describe as the thrust of his argument is that he says Marx explicitly thought that no action or plan is necessary to guide and moderate communist organizations; that in the absence of capitalism things will self-organize in advantageous ways.
(Pausing here to say: I am at _best_ suspicious of this claim because SA is sloppy and unconsciously biased, and at worst think SA is making up what Marx believes as part of a bad-faith campaign to push his own beliefs. SA's piece merits greater critique than yours does. But it is to your credit and not his that I think your essay is worth critiquing because it seems to me you are more likely to listen in good faith!)
When I read the specific sub-claim about Marx thinking there is "no such thing" as human nature, I didn't see it as the main point SA is trying to make. I read it as a supporting point, the reasoning going something like this:
1) Under capitalism, people are greedy.
2) If you believe there is no such thing as human nature and people are blank slates, then you might say people aren't greedy; something about living under capitalism makes them greedy.
3) So if we got rid of capitalism, you'd have no greed, so there's no need to address greed in a post-capitalism society.
SA is claiming the above is what Marx believes, and that this is why Marx doesn't give details on how to reign in greedy people in a post-capitalist society. SA says the mistake is in step 2, that we should expect greed to come from human nature and not (just) capitalism, and that therefore anyone proposing an alternative to capitalism and not addressing the problem of greed ("free rider problem" barf, I hate even typing those words) is bad and should be rejected.
(Again: this is probably not a correct reading of Marx and definitely is not a good argument. But it is SA's argument, and therefore the thing you must work to refute if you want to convince someone against him.)
So if someone read SA, and was convinced by him, your argument about whether or not Marx thought there was such a thing as human nature would be besides the point to them. It is correct, and it serves to illustrate a general pattern of flaws in SA's writing, but doesn't address SA's actual argument. A pro-SA reader would think: "so what if Marx did think there was human nature; he still didn't explain how to avoid the free rider problem!" (barf again). They'd be wrong. But you're trying to convince them, so you gotta meet them on their level and explain why the thing that had previously convinced them is wrong.
Scott Alexander never mentioned a "free rider" problem.
I started my critique here because Scott Alexander makes the explicit claim that Marx believed there was "no such thing" as human nature. He provides two quotes which are supposed to support this. The problem is, if you read the quotes, neither say what SA claimed they said. SA is not carefully reading Marx, and has no clue what Marx is actually saying. This is as close to a smoking gun as a discussion can get.
SA's argument falls apart completely at your step 2. SA misread Marx and has not provided any evidence that he believed in a blank slate. All a person would have to do to demolish SA's argument is point out the quotes that his entire argument rests upon don't say what SA claims they say.
But because I'm the kind of person that goes above and beyond, I also provided a bunch of quotes where Marx is talking very clearly about human nature.
I think there was always a danger in people thinking I hadn't fully addressed SAs arguments since I'm releasing this essay in multiple parts. I've kind of weighed up my options and I felt that releasing my work in one gigantic part ran the risk of people blanching at the length and then not reading any of it. I don't think there's a perfect solution for this.
First off: yeah, I totally year you about breaking things into parts. This essay of yours was already long, and you can't cover every detail of everything. I'm not saying you did a bad job refuting SA's specific claim about Marx's beliefs in "human nature". And its useful and worthwhile to point out that SA is lazy/sloppy/a con-man, as like a general broad point.
I am saying that to a pro-SA reader, the human nature bit is not an important part of SA's essay. The structure of SA's argument isn't "Marx thought there's no human nature, therefore he's wrong about capitalism". The structure is "Marx was wrong about capitalism. One possible explanation for why he could be so wrong was because he didn't believe in human nature and that misplaced belief misled him".
I think the key paragraph in SA is:
> You or I, upon hearing that the plan is to get rid of all government and just have people share all property in common, might ask questions like “But what if someone wants more than their share?” Marx had no interest in that question, because he believed that there was no such thing as human nature, and things like “People sometimes want more than their shares of things” are contingent upon material relations and modes of production, most notably capitalism. If you get rid of capitalism, human beings change completely, such that “wanting more than your share” is no more likely than growing a third arm.
SA's issue with Marx is that, according to SA, Marx did not answer the question "what if someone wants more than their share?". The human nature bit only serves as a speculation attempting to explain why Marx might have not felt it necessary to provide an answer; but regardless of the reason why he didn't provide an answer, he still didn't provide one (according to SA), and that's the main point.
The key part of the SA paragraph you posted is "because he believed that there was no such thing as human nature". I've shown that Marx did not believe this, and therefore SA's entire argument falls apart.
SA is making the argument that Marx thought humans could transition away from capitalism because there is no such thing as human nature and therefore we can change our our society completely.
The problem is that Marx doesn't believe this.
"SA's issue with Marx is that, according to SA, Marx did not answer the question "what if someone wants more than their share?"."
I don't really consider that an argument since SA:
1. Never explains who "someone" is
2. Never explains what he's referring to when he says "their share"
3. Never provides a single shred of evidence one way or another about what Marx said on this vague 'issue'.
In terms of providing something actually concrete to argue against, the two times SA pointed to quotes in Marx are the only parts of any value.
I guess, put more succinctly, I wouldn't personally have chosen the human nature claim as the first part, or even a "part", deserving detail and recognition, of an essay series refuting SA's essay. (If the goal is to convince people who had previously been convinced by SA.) In the same way that I would not have written up an essay on the fact that in the same sentence he says "space-ship" and "spaceship" and that's silly and he should just pick one. Its totally right, he should just pick one, but I'm not gonna get points with anyone on team SA for pointing it out as if its meant to convince them to change teams.
(Please don't take this as my saying that SA's mistakes in interpreting Marx on human nature are equivalent to his mistake in writing the word spaceship. One is much much worse than the other. I'm just trying to illustrate a point about how convincing the argument is likely to be to its intended audience regardless of how correct it is.)
The reason I chose this as the first part is this is the only part of SA's essay that gives any sort of evidence at all. The rest of SA's essay is vague rambling by a guy who clearly hasn't read Marx and doesn't understand the basics of what Marx writes about.
I understand that this is hard to appreciate if you yourself haven't read Marx.
I want you to imagine that Blogger One has written an essay about Thinker X that you are very knowledgeable about. The essay is entirely vague rambling and totally incorrect, like so incorrect it's hard to know where to start. In over 3,000 words they only quote Thinker X two times, and both quotes don't say anything close to what the Blogger One thinks they say.
Marx didn't believe in "human nature". He believed in species-being. Human nature suggests that all people are bad or good, all people have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, etc. Marx thought that species-being suggested that people had to do certain things to survive - labor, cook, etc. Human being is a doing being for Marx. Man if defined by what he has to do.
It's interesting to finally get a writeup of your disagreements with SA on Marx.
Throughout I felt like you were somewhat talking past SA - I would have found it very useful if you wrote about what you think SA means when he says Marx thinks there is 'no such thing as human nature'.
For example I expect SA to agree that Marx thinks that imagination and planning are activities that are shared by almost all humans, but I don't think these were the kinds of things he was referring to in his claim.
The functional thurst of SA's opinion seems to be more about whether Marx thinks selfishness and competition and inherent human behaviors. If any quotes by Marx exist that address these directly I would find them much more compelling, although if none exist I agree this is evidence that SA made an error. (I do find calling this 'human nature' is a bit broad, although I think I think the rest of SA's piece does make his restricted interest more clear).
I do think you make good arguments that the Marx quotes SA used regarding human nature don't actually strongly back up his point when viewed in context (at least not to the degree of strength that he gave them). I do think they have a natural (if incorrect) interpretation towards blank-slateism. For example, I think my simplest interpretation of "But the essence of man is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In reality, it is the ensemble of the social relations." is "There isn't a template for humans that each person in based on, instead each person is determined by their circumstances." which seems exactly like a denial of the existence of human nature. Again I accept that this isn't actually the point Marx was making when viewed in context, just that it is an understandable misinterpretation.
I'm not "talking past" Scott Alexander. Scott Alexander made the claim that Marx thought there was "no such thing" as human nature and that "everything was completely malleable". This phrasing is as straightforward and simple as it gets, and it is *wrong*. I posted quote after quote of Marx talking at length about human nature.
SA did not make any sort of argument that Marx's view of human nature was incorrect. Scott Alexander said that Marx thought there was "no such thing".
"I expect SA to agree that Marx thinks that imagination and planning are activities that are shared by almost all humans"
Ok, but this is mind-reading. Nowhere in the text does SA say anything like "I agree with Marx that imagination and planning are part of human nature". Remember, SA thinks that Marx thinks there is "no such thing" as human nature. SA, in the only two Marx quotes he provided, misread both quotes entirely. He's barely read any Marx, and the little he has read he completely misunderstood. So why would we expect SA to be able to comprehend or intelligently comment on what Marx said about competition, or planning, or imagination, or greed, or anything else?
"For example, I think my simplest interpretation of "But the essence of man is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In reality, it is the ensemble of the social relations." is "There isn't a template for humans that each person in based on, instead each person is determined by their circumstances." which seems exactly like a denial of the existence of human nature."
I don't know where you're getting the second half of that rewrite from. How did you turn "it is the ensemble of the social relations" into "each person is determined by their circumstances"? So, no, I don't think that's the "simplest interpretation". I also don't see how that (even if that's what Marx was saying, which he isn't) would constitute a "denial of the existence of human nature". This is not an understandable misinterpretation, unless your beliefs have been shaped by nameless conservative pundits and you're kind of just skimming Marx, which is likely what happened with SA.
You talk about viewing this quote in context, but there's no reason why SA couldn't have read it in context too. This quote is not presented as a short excerpt in Singer, Singer does not use that quote at all. That means that SA was looking for evidence to bolster his argument, and this quote was the best he could do. Did SA not read the rest of the piece? Did he not understand what Marx was saying or what he was arguing against in Feuerbach?
There's really no reason that SA couldn't have read the whole thing, it's really short:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/
I think you have done a good job showing that SA is either not acting in good faith or is very, very sloppy. And insofar as one is less likely to be convinced by the argument of someone who is generally bad/sloppy, your essay might change some minds and counteract SA's mistakes. However, I think your essay doesn't address the actual argument that anyone reading this SA essay is likely to be convinced by (if they are convinced by anything).
As a non Marx reader coming in to SA's post from this one, what I would describe as the thrust of his argument is that he says Marx explicitly thought that no action or plan is necessary to guide and moderate communist organizations; that in the absence of capitalism things will self-organize in advantageous ways.
(Pausing here to say: I am at _best_ suspicious of this claim because SA is sloppy and unconsciously biased, and at worst think SA is making up what Marx believes as part of a bad-faith campaign to push his own beliefs. SA's piece merits greater critique than yours does. But it is to your credit and not his that I think your essay is worth critiquing because it seems to me you are more likely to listen in good faith!)
When I read the specific sub-claim about Marx thinking there is "no such thing" as human nature, I didn't see it as the main point SA is trying to make. I read it as a supporting point, the reasoning going something like this:
1) Under capitalism, people are greedy.
2) If you believe there is no such thing as human nature and people are blank slates, then you might say people aren't greedy; something about living under capitalism makes them greedy.
3) So if we got rid of capitalism, you'd have no greed, so there's no need to address greed in a post-capitalism society.
SA is claiming the above is what Marx believes, and that this is why Marx doesn't give details on how to reign in greedy people in a post-capitalist society. SA says the mistake is in step 2, that we should expect greed to come from human nature and not (just) capitalism, and that therefore anyone proposing an alternative to capitalism and not addressing the problem of greed ("free rider problem" barf, I hate even typing those words) is bad and should be rejected.
(Again: this is probably not a correct reading of Marx and definitely is not a good argument. But it is SA's argument, and therefore the thing you must work to refute if you want to convince someone against him.)
So if someone read SA, and was convinced by him, your argument about whether or not Marx thought there was such a thing as human nature would be besides the point to them. It is correct, and it serves to illustrate a general pattern of flaws in SA's writing, but doesn't address SA's actual argument. A pro-SA reader would think: "so what if Marx did think there was human nature; he still didn't explain how to avoid the free rider problem!" (barf again). They'd be wrong. But you're trying to convince them, so you gotta meet them on their level and explain why the thing that had previously convinced them is wrong.
Scott Alexander never mentioned a "free rider" problem.
I started my critique here because Scott Alexander makes the explicit claim that Marx believed there was "no such thing" as human nature. He provides two quotes which are supposed to support this. The problem is, if you read the quotes, neither say what SA claimed they said. SA is not carefully reading Marx, and has no clue what Marx is actually saying. This is as close to a smoking gun as a discussion can get.
SA's argument falls apart completely at your step 2. SA misread Marx and has not provided any evidence that he believed in a blank slate. All a person would have to do to demolish SA's argument is point out the quotes that his entire argument rests upon don't say what SA claims they say.
But because I'm the kind of person that goes above and beyond, I also provided a bunch of quotes where Marx is talking very clearly about human nature.
I think there was always a danger in people thinking I hadn't fully addressed SAs arguments since I'm releasing this essay in multiple parts. I've kind of weighed up my options and I felt that releasing my work in one gigantic part ran the risk of people blanching at the length and then not reading any of it. I don't think there's a perfect solution for this.
First off: yeah, I totally year you about breaking things into parts. This essay of yours was already long, and you can't cover every detail of everything. I'm not saying you did a bad job refuting SA's specific claim about Marx's beliefs in "human nature". And its useful and worthwhile to point out that SA is lazy/sloppy/a con-man, as like a general broad point.
I am saying that to a pro-SA reader, the human nature bit is not an important part of SA's essay. The structure of SA's argument isn't "Marx thought there's no human nature, therefore he's wrong about capitalism". The structure is "Marx was wrong about capitalism. One possible explanation for why he could be so wrong was because he didn't believe in human nature and that misplaced belief misled him".
I think the key paragraph in SA is:
> You or I, upon hearing that the plan is to get rid of all government and just have people share all property in common, might ask questions like “But what if someone wants more than their share?” Marx had no interest in that question, because he believed that there was no such thing as human nature, and things like “People sometimes want more than their shares of things” are contingent upon material relations and modes of production, most notably capitalism. If you get rid of capitalism, human beings change completely, such that “wanting more than your share” is no more likely than growing a third arm.
SA's issue with Marx is that, according to SA, Marx did not answer the question "what if someone wants more than their share?". The human nature bit only serves as a speculation attempting to explain why Marx might have not felt it necessary to provide an answer; but regardless of the reason why he didn't provide an answer, he still didn't provide one (according to SA), and that's the main point.
The key part of the SA paragraph you posted is "because he believed that there was no such thing as human nature". I've shown that Marx did not believe this, and therefore SA's entire argument falls apart.
SA is making the argument that Marx thought humans could transition away from capitalism because there is no such thing as human nature and therefore we can change our our society completely.
The problem is that Marx doesn't believe this.
"SA's issue with Marx is that, according to SA, Marx did not answer the question "what if someone wants more than their share?"."
I don't really consider that an argument since SA:
1. Never explains who "someone" is
2. Never explains what he's referring to when he says "their share"
3. Never provides a single shred of evidence one way or another about what Marx said on this vague 'issue'.
In terms of providing something actually concrete to argue against, the two times SA pointed to quotes in Marx are the only parts of any value.
I guess, put more succinctly, I wouldn't personally have chosen the human nature claim as the first part, or even a "part", deserving detail and recognition, of an essay series refuting SA's essay. (If the goal is to convince people who had previously been convinced by SA.) In the same way that I would not have written up an essay on the fact that in the same sentence he says "space-ship" and "spaceship" and that's silly and he should just pick one. Its totally right, he should just pick one, but I'm not gonna get points with anyone on team SA for pointing it out as if its meant to convince them to change teams.
(Please don't take this as my saying that SA's mistakes in interpreting Marx on human nature are equivalent to his mistake in writing the word spaceship. One is much much worse than the other. I'm just trying to illustrate a point about how convincing the argument is likely to be to its intended audience regardless of how correct it is.)
The reason I chose this as the first part is this is the only part of SA's essay that gives any sort of evidence at all. The rest of SA's essay is vague rambling by a guy who clearly hasn't read Marx and doesn't understand the basics of what Marx writes about.
I understand that this is hard to appreciate if you yourself haven't read Marx.
I want you to imagine that Blogger One has written an essay about Thinker X that you are very knowledgeable about. The essay is entirely vague rambling and totally incorrect, like so incorrect it's hard to know where to start. In over 3,000 words they only quote Thinker X two times, and both quotes don't say anything close to what the Blogger One thinks they say.
Where would you start?
Marx didn't believe in "human nature". He believed in species-being. Human nature suggests that all people are bad or good, all people have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, etc. Marx thought that species-being suggested that people had to do certain things to survive - labor, cook, etc. Human being is a doing being for Marx. Man if defined by what he has to do.