I need to write a 5 page paper on Marx and Nietzsche - I need to compare and contrast their conceptions of human nature and discuss how these...

Both of
these men, to say the least, held views of human nature that were complex, but they can be said
to have one thing in common: they both argued that society, as currently arranged, tended to
inhibit, if not destroy, the fulfillment of man's nature. Marx viewed human nature as
essentially social. One clear statement of this concept can be found in his essay "On the
Jewish Question," in which he argued that political rights and human rights were not the
same thing. He described man as a "species-being" that was unnaturally alienated from
others by the very concept of political rights. Man's urge was fundamentally social. This
concept was underscored in his later writings, especially Das
Kapital, where he argued that the economic forces in society, i.e.
capitalism, tended to alienate men from each other by making them into mere economic agents in
competition with others. He expanded this thesis by pointing out that a capitalist system also
alienated people from the value of their labor, both socially and economically.

Nietzsche thought of human nature in terms of the need each person has for
actualization, for the fulfillment of natural urges. The word he often used to describe these
urges was "will," and the "will to power" was an especially powerful aspect
of human nature. The nature of this "will" has been debated by Neitzsche scholars, but
it was fundamental to life, the ultimate human drive. Where Marx saw man as ultimately social in
nature, Nietzsche viewed human nature as radically individual, and his writing, though
aphoristic and often contradictory, tended to emphasize struggle among people. But like Marx, he
thought that basic institutions and societal forces alienated people from their authentic
nature. Moral codes, particularly those imposed by Christianity, struck Nietzsche as especially
repressive, keeping men from fulfilling their deepest urges. A focus on the ways these thinkers
both believed modern man was restrained from living in a natural way, that is according to human
nature, would be a good starting point for an essay.

href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/#2.1">https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/#2.1
href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/#PoweLife">https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/#PoweLife
href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/">https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-q...