The Second Wave of Modern Liberalism

Early modern liberalism held the view that human nature was unchangeable. Human beings were by nature self-interested creatures, whose base impulses could be harnessed but not fundamentally altered. The second wave of this revolution begins as an explicit criticism of this view of humanity. Thinkers ranging from Rousseau to Marx reject the idea that human nature is fixed. They adopt the first wave theorist's idea that nature is subject to human conquest, and apply it to human nature itself.