> What does it mean to be a "real" human being rather than a fake human being? As soon as the concept is subjected to any analysis whatever it simply dissolves.
"Fake" isn't the best adjective, but if, as does Marx, you identify human being with the potential to develop the powers constitutive of a truly free being, there is logical space for a distinction between human beings in whom this potential is realized and those in whom it's not.
This distinction is implicitly invoked in Marx's claim about despotism.
"The monarchical principle in general is the despised, the despicable, the dehumanised man; and Montesquieu was quite wrong to allege that it is honour [Montesquieu, De l'esprit des lois]. He gets out of the difficulty by distinguishing between monarchy, despotism and tyranny. But those are names for one and the same concept, and at most they denote differences in customs though the principle remains the same. Where the monarchical principle has a majority behind it, human beings constitute the minority; where the monarchical principle arouses no doubts, there human beings do not exist at all." http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/letters/43_05.htm
Ted