METİN CABADAĞ
TÜRKİYE

In her article entitled „Revolution Without Evolution: Why Was Marx Wrong?“ Doc. Dr. Şafak Nakajima presents the classic critique of “human nature” in Marxist theory, updating it through the lens of evolutionary psychology and biology. I believe it is possible to critically evaluate the systematic and provocative arguments of the article from a Marxist perspective.

Therefore, it is possible to group the present critique of Nakajima’s article under a few main pillars:

dialectical materialism
The most fundamental problem with Nakajima’s article is that it does not sufficiently take into account the method of dialectical and historical materialism that Marxism places at its center.

Human nature is not fixed, as Nakajima sees it, but historical. According to Marx, human nature is not a fixed, eternal, and timeless “essence,” but is defined by historical and social relations. “Human nature” itself is a product of evolution throughout history.

In her article, Nakajima presents the patterns of behavior identified by evolutionary psychology (competition, status seeking, etc.) as if they were timeless and immutable constants, thus ignoring Marx’s fundamental argument.

1. The distinction between
biological potential and social reality
Marx did not deny that human beings are biological beings. However, his analysis focuses on how these biological potentials are transformed into specific social forms (exploitation, alienation, excessive competition) at a given historical moment (e.g., under capitalism). For example, although the “search for status” is a biological tendency, this search manifests itself differently in diverse societies: in capital
ist society, through the accumulation of personal wealth and the exploitation of others; in feudal society, through the acquisition of nobility titles; and in a tribal society, through hunting skills or wisdom. What Marx criticizes is not these tendencies, but the destructive and alienating form they take within capitalist property relations.

2. The misinterpretation of the
ideal of the “New Human Being”
In his article, Nakajima describes the socialist project of creating a “new human being” as a utopian project that completely erases the biological nature of human beings. However, Marx does not refer to recreating human beings, but rather to freeing them from alienation.

The idea of the “new human being” does not come from Marx, but is a slogan developed in post-Lenin ideological socialism (for example, in the Soviet model).

According to Marx, the goal is not to “repress natural instincts,” but to transform the relations of production that modify the way those instincts develop.

In other words, when individuals can freely express their labor in the production process, human potential will develop naturally.

The transformation of conditions
In Marx’s view, what transforms human beings is not mere moral appeals or impositions of will, but the radical change in material living conditions and relations of production. The “new human being” will emerge as a product of new social conditions (without classes, without exploitation, without alienation). This does not mean ignoring biological tendencies, but radically transforming the terrain in which they are expressed. The goal is not to destroy “human nature,” but to unleash its best potential (cooperation, solidarity, creativity) and eliminate the social causes of its worst manifestations (excessive exploitation, greed).

3. The one-sided interpretation
of historical experiences
In his article, Nakajima interprets bureaucracy, corruption, and the cult of the leader in socialist experiences as the inevitable triumph of the biological reality of “human nature” marked from the outset by selfishness.

The role of material conditions
A Marxist analysis explains these facts mainly by concrete historical conditions:

Setback and external threat: Socialist experiments were forced to begin in poor, underindustrialized countries, under constant threat of external intervention and siege. This psychology of “being under siege” fueled centralized, authoritarian structures and the concentration of power.

The continuity of class struggle
Marx points out that the transition to a classless society is a long and painful historical period. During this period, vestiges of the old society (value judgments, habits, power relations) continue to exist. The problems that arise are understood more as a manifestation of the contradictions of this long and complex transition process than as an immutability of “human nature.”

4. Labor Theory of Value and Technology
„The machine is an extension of the human arm, brain, and nerves. The development of productive forces will eventually eliminate work at some point.“

These sentences show that Marx predicted the process of automation and the “socialization of labor” 150 years ago.

Therefore, Marx understood the nature of technological evolution, but remained cautious in predicting that it would take a capitalist form.

Today, artificial intelligence and forms of algorithmic labor confirm Marx’s analysis of the “commodification of labor” and “alienation,” rather than refuting it.

The Validity of the Labor Theory of Value
The rise of artificial intelligence does not invalidate the labor theory of value, but rather confirms it. Marx asserts that the origin of value is abstract hu man labor. Artificial intelligence and robots are the crystallization of an enormous prior effort (the effort of programmers, engineers, and designers). These machines transfer value in the production process (they reflect their own creation costs in the product), but they do not create new value. The ability to create new value continues to be based on the human labor that designs, develops, supervises, and interacts with these systems, but the nature of that labor is
changing (from manual skills to mental and creative skills).

New forms of alienation
As the author admits in the last paragraph, Marx’s theory of alienation is more valid today than ever in the age of algorithms and the data economy. This concept, which refers to the disconnection of human beings from their own creativity, their products, and their social ties, remains one of the most powerful tools for analyzing workers in the digital age (whether they work in a factory or on a gig economy platform).

At the end of his article, Nakajima gives a positive assessment of Marx’s theory of alienation; this is the most accurate part of the text.

However, even here, “alienation” is addressed as an individual psychological problem.

According to Marx, alienation is the objective result of social relations of production.

What leads human beings to consider their work, their products, and themselves as an “alien force” is not biology, but private property.

Therefore, the solution to alienation does not lie in recognizing biological tendencies, but in transforming the form of property.

What Doc. Dr. Şafak Nakajima does in his article, with his popular criticism that Marxism has a weak conception of “human nature,” is essentially to ignore the historical and dialectical method of Marxism.

Replacing a static and biologically deterministic view of human nature with the Marxist conception of human beings as a product of social relations, reducing the failures of historical socialist experiences to simple “biological nature” rather than complex historical-social causes, can be described as a failure to recognize the analytical power that Marx’s theories of labor value and alienation retain in the face of technological advances.

* First published in the online magazine SENDIKA.ORG: https://sendika.org/2025/11/diyalektigin-ve-tarihin-savunusu-nakajimanin-insan-dogasi-elestirisine-yanit-736529