In Erich Fromm’s Marx’s Concept of Man and Lao Tsu’s Tao Te Ching we see the philosophy unfolded of the “virtuous” man. In the case of Marx, the virtuous man is the one who remains whole and connected to humanity despite the alienating environment in which modern humans find themselves. As Fromm (v) states at the outset of his work, “Marx’s philosophy represents a protest against man’s alienation, his loss of himself and his transformation into a thing; it is a movement against the dehumanization and automation of man inherent in the development of Western industrialism.” According to Marx, man is what he does and his nature is revealed in history, a history he creates. However, the nature of society is such that it rips man away from his nature by making him a product or a thing, detached from his true self. In Lao Tsu’s Tao Te Ching we encounter a book of aphorisms which suggest many similar ideals and virtues to Marx’s. In the fifty-seventh aphorism in Tao Te Ching we see Lao Tsu’s (Fifty-Seven) concept, similar to Marx’s, that less is more when it comes to humanism and regaining our nature in a “civilized” world, “Therefore the sage says: I take no action and people are reformed./I enjoy peace and people become honest./I do nothing and people become rich./I have no desires and people return to the good and simple life.”
Where Marx is concerned, materialism, specifically work to produce things, separates man from his own nature, but it also separates him from other men and nature at large. Labor alienates man because it ends up owning him, ends up making him a thing as opposed to putting him in touch with his own nature. It also separates him from other men and nature, leaving him with an existential egotism. Man’s basic essence becomes only a means for individual existence, “The alienated man is not only alienated from other men; he is alienated from other men; he is alienated from...