Karl Marx: Labour and Alienation

In this lecture, Dr Ross Abbinnett (University of Birmingham) thinks about Marx’s writings on labour and alienation, focusing particularly on: (i) the romantic, philosophical conception in Marx’s early writing of labour as the thing which distinguishes humans from animals, creates societies and cultures, and places humans in a dialectical relationship with nature; (ii) his ideas around labour as the means by which people realise their creative potential, and his vision of communism as a society that enables this; (iii) Marx’s concept of alienation from labour under capitalism.

This lecture is part of a larger course on Marxist Social Theory. The full course can be found here: https://massolit.io/courses/marxist-s...

MASSOLIT works with university academics to produce short video lectures in the arts, humanities and social sciences. It is available to schools and colleges on an institutional license as well as via private subscription: https://www.massolit.io/?source=yt