Volume 3, Issue 1, Spring 1981
Charles Tolman
Pages 63-74
Karl Marx, Alienation, and the Mastery of Nature
Donald Lee’s account in “The Marxian View” is inaccurate in asserting the centrality of an abstract conception of alienation based on a speculattve understanding of human nature. This was precisely the view rejected by Marx in 1845. The development of Marx’s materialist conception of human nature is traced in order to show the importance to his analysis of the forces and relations of production. Some
specific difficulties in Lee’s account are discussed, and the broad implications of Marxist theory regarding environmental problems and the mastery of nature are presented.