The social contract was one of Jean Jacques Rousseau's most spread ideas and the title of one of the books he wrote. But many of the ideas of the enlightened philiosophers had originated in the 17th century. John Locke was one of the most influential thinkers in the development of the political ideas of several enlightened philosophers. Rousseau's idea of the social contract had been also explained by Locke. Here you have a scheme based on Locke's ideas which summarizes this concept.
And this is another scheme that includes what will happen if the government/ State doesn't carry out its part of the "contract": people will have the right to replace or overthrow the government:
The following resources can be useful to understand the concept of workers´alienation: Marx and Engels thought that industrial work killed workers´ creativity and initiative, because they were obliged to follow the rythm of machines and worked for such a long time that when they arrived home, they were so tired that they couldn´t develop their human features and fulfill their expectations.
- This is a poster designed imitating a Public Service Anouncement (as the ones you could find from the Ministry of Health), warning about alienation symptoms:
And these are some funny videos I´ve found on Youtube. They belong to a Mexican artist called Pedro Reyes. He recorded a series of videos with puppets called Baby Marx. The beginning of his idea was "resucitating" some important figures of the history of Economics and making them discuss about some concepts. The main characters of these videos are Karl Marx and Adam Smith, the main theorist of economic liberalism and defense of private property.
- The first video is the teaser of the series:
- In the second one Marx and Adam Smith have an argument about cookies and the alienation of the workers who have done them:
And finally, here you have a scheme which summarizes Marx´s critique to capitalism:
And this is video with the complete text and audio of the Communist Manifesto, the pamphlet where Marx and Engels started explaining their ideas. It´s starts with these words: "A spectre is haunting Europe-the spectre of Communism"
Here you have the translation in Spanish. It´s not a long text. If you´re interested, you can follow the reading in English and read the translation in Spanish:
