= Marxist Humanism
Man is a species-being, not only because he practically and theoretically makes the species - both his own and those of other things - his object, but also - and this is simply another way of saying the same thing - because he looks upon himself as the present, living species, because he looks upon himself as a universal and therefore free being.
For in the first place labour, life activity, productive life itself appears to man only as a means for the satisfaction of a need, [But] the whole character of a species, its species-character, resides in the nature of its life activity, and free conscious activity constitutes the species-character of man. Life itself appears only as a means of life.
The object of labour is therefore the objectification of the specieslife of man: for man reproduces himself not only intellectually, in his consciousness, but actively and actually, and he can there fore contemplate himself in a world he himself has created.