It is often said that Marx conceived of humans as homo faber, referring to Benjamin Franklin's definition of 'man as the tool-making animal' - that is, as 'man, the maker' , though he never used the term himself. Above, we indicated that one of Marx's central contentions about humans was that they were differentiated by the manner in which they produce and that thus, somehow, production was one of humans' essential activities. In this context, it is worth noting that Marx does not always address 'labour' or 'work' in such glowing terms.