Labour and Alienation

About the lecture

In this lecture, we think about Marx’s writings on labour and alienation, focusing in particular 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.

About the lecturer

Dr Ross Abbinnett is Senior Lecturer in Social and Political Theory at the University of Birmingham. His recent publications include The Neoliberal Imagination: Politics, Aesthetics, and Economics in the Evolution of Hyper-Industrial Capitalism (2021), The Thought of Bernard Stiegler: Capitalism, Technology and the Politics of Spirit (2018) and Marxism After Modernity: Politics, Technology and Social Transformation (2006).