Work

Karl Marx on Alienation

In the BBC Radio 4 series, "A History of Ideas", Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss their work of key philosophers and their ideas. This video clip, developed in collaboration with the Open University, introduces students to the idea of alienation in the workplace and links to wider Marxist theory:

Students could then consider modern occupations, brainstorming examples of these on the board. They could then be tasked with ranking these along a continuum to consider the how ‘potentially alienating’ each occupation is. This ties in with teaching some exam skills as they consider this as evaluation and analysis – does the concept still apply in contemporary society? A wider discussion could then take place out alienation more broadly and the extent to which you are becoming more or less interconnected with each other.

The following blog article is a useful way to draw together the classical ideas of Marx with developments in modern society

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and from this, students could then write their own blog post outlining the concept of alienation and considering the relevance of it in modern Britain.