Yoshie writes:
># On "nature": Keep in mind that in Marx's later works, the word "natural"
>is best understood to mean "spontaneously grown, not consciously
>determined, etc," in contradiction to the usual valorization of nature as
>eternal, unchanging "essence" beneath the artificial "appearance."
>According to Marx of _The Grundrisse_, etc., human beings have historically
>evolved, creating (pace the young-Hegelian Marx) _unanticipated_ new needs
>and desires, and there is no room for nostalgic yearning for the Eden of
>natural rights & natural relations between the sexes -- the fantastic
>origin that can only exist in the Robinsonades.
>
>***** Capital's ceaseless striving towards the general form of wealth
>drives labour beyond the limits of its natural paltriness, and thus creates
>the material elements for the development of the rich individuality which
>is as all-sided in its production as in its consumption, and whose labour
>also therefore appears no longer as labour, but as the full development of
>activity itself, in which natural necessity in its direct form has
>disappeared; because of a historically created need has taken the place of
>the natural one. (Marx, _The Grundrisse_) *****
But this does still presume, doesn't it, that were fixed natural necessities (and relations) at some point, into which relations/necessities history has intervened, but which still form an unquestionable foundation for human society and human needs?
Catherine