If one adopts popular conceptions of human nature, one would come to believe that we are all an evil, backstabbing, greedy, and cruel lot. Of course such characteristics must be true if society is as it is. Of course such characteristics must be immutable if so many people in history have exhibited them. People are terrible, we are told and say, it’s just our nature. Because of the evil nature of people, because, left to their own devices, people will supposedly devolve into violent chaos. According to the ideology of these people, humans are “evil”, defined as cruel, greedy, and self-centered, and could never function in a cooperative situation because of it.
But human beings have no inherent nature but to be social, to exist within a society in relation to each other. Human beings are not creatures which live completely independent, rarely interacting with others of their kind. We are not like spiders, or other individualistic animals. We are like wolves. We function in cooperation with each other, we don’t function totally divorced of each other. “Human nature” has historically been to cooperate. As humans, we have survived by forming a society, by compiling our efforts. As one, we are weak. As many, we hold the power to accomplish great feats, to function as a massive force.
Cooperation among people benefits all involved. If one person doesn’t understand a mathematical equation, or needs help understanding a book or historical topic, another will help them with no material benefit to themselves. Why do they do this? Because a society where such behavior is encouraged will support them in the same way. It is a mutually beneficial practice to help others, as it fosters an environment where others will help you. Further, to combine the knowledge and skills of many does much more to reach fantastic achievements than the knowledge and skill of one. Could a skyscraper be built by just one? Could a quality movie be created by just the director? Could a great meal be created without the societal effort of those who made the ingredients available to the chef? No. As a society, and as a social species, we function best, and our instincts in organizing ourselves on societal models, either better or worse, are far preferable to trying to live completely separate from other people. Taken as a historic whole, humans tend to be cooperative, altruistic, and sympathetic because of the characteristics which make us human, our “species-being”, to use a term from Marx. Humans don’t have powerful limbs, sharp talons, a capacity for rapid speeds, or large and powerful maws. Humans’ physical characteristics favor not only intelligence in acquiring the means of subsistence, but cooperation in acquiring the means of subsistence. Humans have never truly been able to survive in isolation. If a human survives “alone”, it is because cooperative efforts have created conditions enabling them to do so, such as by the generational cultivation of the land.
Human nature is not absolutely predestined to greed, to selfishness, to cruelty. Such characteristics can be perpetuated, but they aren’t inherent to human behavior. They are a potential nature. Such behavior, as well as all human behavior, is determined by what is materially necessary, or beneficial, to survival. In a societal structure which rewards such behavior, and punishes or gives no preference to cooperative behavior, of course such cruelty will appear to be inherent to people. For example, in feudal societies, selfishness and conniving behavior is encouraged among the ruling classes. Why shouldn’t aristocrats or nobles maneuver against the rest of society to reach a position wherein they can benefit in the ultimate from power? In a society where such absolute exploitation is available, of course backstabbing or power-hungry behavior will become common. Helping others would not be beneficial in such a society unless it built upon one’s power. That’s why feudal societies saw such maneuvering on the part of aristocrats. In capitalist society, workers are transformed into commodity-salespeople, their commodity being their labor-power. Having been cast into a market selling a commodity in competition with one another, they are forced to reject cooperation and adopt greed and cruelty to survive. A society which encourages people to combine their efforts and take care of each other in exchange for care given back rather than encouraging them to strive for the comfort of a position of absolute domination wouldn’t see the same behavior. As I mentioned, people behave according to which behavior is beneficial to them in the society they exist in. The only common nature throughout human history has been to behave in relation to each other, which can be for better or for worse.
Human beings are not naturally “evil”. Humans aren’t concrete in our nature. We can transform our societies while combatting old behavior. If people were inherently cruel, we would all be hurting each other at every chance. We aren’t. Human behavior is merely a reflection of and response to the dominant mode of production and people’s place in it.
