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I think I've seen discussions about this before, and obviously the USSR produced art because we still see statues of Lenin today. But how does this translate in modern times with the instance of obscure art or other modern art? Often the purpose of that art is to explicitly go against societal norms for aesthetics.
By the way, you may want to look at our Capital reading threads from last year and this year as you go along! They should give you some food for thought!
I will! Thank you!
No problem!
Something I do want to add is that usually art pieces by famous artists and whomever aren't reproducible commodities, so their prices will not be correlated to their labor-value and doesn't involve the law of value. A Picasso painting can't be reproduced, he only made one of each particular painting (ignoring his own little copies), and it's the fact that it's the original Picasso is what makes it such a hot item.
The above is not the type of product that Marx analyzes. The analysis is of capitalism as a system of producing (mass-producing) commodities. The law of value describes a social mechanism where labor is reallocated and re-divided in order for society to re-produce commodities. These reproducible commodities will have long-term prices which correlate with how much value, think labor, goes into them.
A one-off, super special, unique, and non-reproducible commodity by a respected artist is not really the type of reproducible commodity that Marx is interested in analyzing. You may as well treat special artworks lile that as financial assets that rich people use park their money into. Their obnoxiously high price is the point.
You can analyze them still, but they have their own laws.
Things like coca-cola, microwaves, food in your grocery store, cars, etc. are reproducible commodities. Throw enough labor at it and you can make as many as you want within physical limits. Nobody cares if John Q. made your coca-cola or Suzie Sue; or if it was made or sold in Detroit or Mumbai. Each can of coca-cola is treated as if it is just another identical manifestation of coca-cola made with generalized labor.
But that last can of coke that Donald Trump chokes on is no longer a reproducible commodity, it is now a collectors item. Its uniqueness is what is valued by society. That fact that it can't be reproduced with human labor is what makes that particular can of coke so valuable. No amount of labor can re-create Trumps final meal.
So the laws of value, the laws of commodity production, don't really apply to that particular item. But these items are not the majority of products under capitalism, and are not the focus of Capital
Now this isn't to say that all paintings, artworks, etc. are non-reproducible commodities.
The artwork I have at my home is not by any famous artist, it's some mass-produced artwork (probably just printed by some machine with a little bit of labor going in to its production) that is a rip-off of Matisse. This is a re-producible commodity. Build more printing machines and hire more printshop workers and we can make even more Matisse rip-offs! At this point the art I buy is like Ikea furniture. Mass produced and mass consumed.
This type of "artwork" (if it is art, idk I guess? Sure I'm not picky) does have a price that is correlated to its value (the labor inputs from the workers and embodied labor of the machines and supplies, etc.). Even if the artwork wasn't factory made but done by handicraft (think handwoven baskets or trinkets or etc.) and is sold on a market then it can still be an artwork and a reproducible commodity, and the law of value can kick into gear in regulating how much social labor goes into its production.
Also another thing to take note of, is that all art - reproducible or not - still relies on the labor of the artist. And also the labor that went into the art brushes, the paint, the canvas, etc.. Even the labor that goes into feeding and clothing the artist, because this artist most likely didn't feed themselves. And who gets to do the labor of art vs the labor of feeding the artists? So even if an artwork is not a reproducible commodity we can still talk about the labor, and perhaps the value, that goes into producing it - even if the market never "discovers" this value.
Also, also - a few other things to note in case there is confusion regarding them.
Products are things created by human labor. That may not be the standard Marxist term, but let's just use it for now.
Not all wealth is created by labor, though. So not all wealth are products. Nature can provide wealth for humanity that doesn't involve labor. Grapes are just growing out there and clean (sometimes) water exists and no person may have created it, but we can still consume it. So not all wealth are human products.
Commodities are products (wealth produced by human labor) that are created for the purpose of exchange. Not all products are commodities, but all commodities (in the Marxist definition) are products and hence wealth.
Use-Value is a qualitative aspect of a thing that makes it desirable for humans. It can't be quantified. As long as somebody wants it and finds a use for it, then that thing has a use-value
All wealth has a use-value
All products have a use-value ('m thinking, because why else would humans expend labor on it).
All commodities must have use-value for someone or else they nobody would want them and they couldn't be sold for exchange, and if they can't be sold for exchange they can't be commodities.
If you try to make a commodity that nobody on this planet wants then your labor is not recognized by society as useful. The labor you exerted was your own individual exertion of time and energy, but it doesn't become part of our collective social labor because society doesn't recognize your exertion. Hence, your labor in that case doesn't produce value. Value is social, relational, and objective.
If you are the only one that wants the thing you produce, then your labor produced use-value for you, but didn't produce value for society, your labor not social labor with a social recognition if you are the only one on the entire planet who likes what you produce.
Exchange-Value is a property of commodities, items made by labor and for the purpose of exchange. The exchange-value allows for different commodities to brought into a quantitative relation with other, with their long-term prices correlate to their labor value when sold on a market.
So if a handicraft worker is making paintings to feed themselves and their family, and hence are making many products for the purpose of exchange then these are commodities with exchange-value and use-value.
If you are painting a landscape for your own enjoyment and not for sale, then your art product does have use-value, but does not have exchange-value and is not a commodity.
Not all things that are sold have a price that corresponds to their value. Again, if something is one-of-a-kind then it tends not to sell at its value.
And Marx's analysis is on the 99.whaterver% of things that surround us - not these one-of-a-kind offshoots and unique Picasso paintings - but the reproducible commodities that now fill our world and our shelves.
This was dope, holy shit.
Maybe i should have used a half eaten McDonald's burger for the last meal example, that may be more realistic... but anyway I hope that was clear enough and relevant, in some way, to what you were wondering!
Art has use-value, even if it's obscure or esoteric, as long as it satisfies someone's desires. It doesn't need to hold to a societal standard of aesthetics to function as a commodity or as a use-value.
Art causes people pleasure, that itself is a use. It also transmits cultural information.
But when people think about art and value, they think about ridiculously priced paintings that can't possibly reflect those use values in most cases. This will sound like a joke, but being a tool for money-laundering (as many art auctions notoriously are) is also a genuine use-value (albeit not one we should promote).
Yeah, I agree with you there, but that kind of art isn't what I'm talking about. A fucking banana duct taped to the wall? I get artistic expression, and especially art that goes against the norm. And to be honest I get the expression of anti-art that the banana implies. But it selling for $6M? Fucking asinine.
At the time, the banana was a pretty solid statement. It's if anything an indicator of its influence that it seems to banal. I don't know if its price being so inflated was due to just having the value of notoriety (social utilities are use values) or more money-laundering.
But my point was that I was talking about art that you'd respect, because those paintings might be cool and worthwhile, but that doesn't mean they're "really" worth $20M, which is a crude way of saying that their use value is extremely socially-grounded, whether by laundering, getting some immediate use out of having something famous (impressing clients, running a museum), or because its fame will be good for speculation (speculation itself is not reflective of use value, but the fame that is the basis for the speculation is, like how houses have a use value that is, along with certain other material and social factors, the basis for its value in speculation).
Price is not the same as value
In cases like "banana duct taped to wall", I think we're missing the forest for the trees. Art pieces like that are used as a tool for avoiding taxes for the bourgeoisie. So it isn't the sale of art, it's the sale of a capital-protecting-device, which has value so high because of how much capital one of said device is capable of protecting. Probably these art pieces' values would crash the moment that laws passed which closed the loopholes used for prior mentioned tax avoidance scheme.
Use value is whatever the purchaser gets out of the commodity when they use it. Including looking at a painting they bought. Use value is therefore not restricted to purely utilitarian commodities. It even includes services, non-tangible commodities, etc.
Capitalism is about social relations to production. Art as a commodity is produced for sale. If you're employed by someone to make the art, they provide the supplies and keep the profits from sale, then you are a worker whose job is making art. Proletarian. If you buy your own supplies and do your own selling, you are petite bourgeois like any other owner proprietor. If you employ others to mske the art, e.g. a bunch of prints, you are moving towards a higher rung of bourgeois, moving from petite to just plain bourgeois. In all of these scenarios it does not matter whether the art is "subversive" or challenging, only your relation to its production as a commodity for sale.
Anyone who satisfies one of his own wants or needs with something he produced has made a use-value, not a commodity...
I made a thing that because I enjoyed making in a thing? Use value.
I made a thing specifically in an aesthetic way opposite of what is typically expected? Use value.
I made a thing, not in the most labor efficient way but in a very labor inefficient way, just to see if I could do it? Use value.
Ok, that makes sense. Just being happy with your doodad that you made is good enough.
Simple as...
But how does this translate in modern times with the instance of obscure art or other modern art?
Marx is talking about commodities, which are supposed to be distributed in a marketplace. My personal erotic Sonic fanfic that I wrote for my personal consumption isn't a commodity in the same exact way my personal wooden chair that I carved to personally sit on isn't a commodity either. Goya's Black Paintings aren't commodities because there are just shit Goya painted on the walls of his house after becoming a recluse. Art doesn't necessarily have to be politically and socially responsible if the art is for personal consumption only. The flip side is that art that is meant to be distributed ought to be judged by its political content and edifying potential or lack thereof.
I mean the intent of Goya wasn't to sell them as a commodity but they would be considered one nonetheless because as a sought after artist his work is of a financial value
Reminds me of people cutting walls out of buildings to sell Banksy pieces.
It's funny because I think being on a cut-out wall makes it a more interesting art piece in a vacuum, but it also totally negates the point of graffiti as a public display on existing infrastructure.
The art is the contradictions sharpening.
Yes, when they transferred his wall paintings onto canvasses, that was a form of commodification because now the paintings can be sold on the marketplace as paintings. The house he lived in can also be placed on the marketplace (unless Spain turned the house into a Goya national museum), so the wall paintings could also be commodified in this way.
In Capital, Marx is addressing generalized commodity production under capitalism, not a way to evaluate “value” in every object humans produce. A piece of art you make to sell is not a “commodity”. Mass-produced art made by workers in a factory, yes. But a single piece of art is outside the bounds of the laws of capitalism as Marx is describing. So it’s not really that your art does or does not contain value, it’s that it’s not a part of his analysis.
I’ve seen the idea you are citing to address the “mud pies” argument. Essentially, a commodity that no one wants (a mud pie) contains no value, even if it involves human labor.
I am admittedly getting into interpretation here and open to criticism.
I don't get that argument because the mudpie has no commodity value either. Why are people laboring to make things they or nobody else can use? Just because all value comes from labor doesn't mean all labor produces equal value
Right, today it’s a bad-faith argument by liberals who have never read Marx and don’t care to learn, they just want to think “haha Marx thinks any sort of labor adds value”.
In Marx’s time… political economists before him understood that labor was the source of value, but couldn’t actually work it out. Marx did that with his concept of socially necessary labor time. He solved the riddle of value. From that point, economists were left with two choices. They could accept Marx’s ideas, or they could try and pretend they didn’t exist. Since all science reflects the ideas of the ruling classes, they went with the later. Thus, the emergence of marginalism and neoclassical economics. They basically said “why are we even talking about ‘value’, supply and demand and price is all that matters”.
It's not labor that Marx cares about but socially necessary labor. So the mudpies argument falls apart by simply noting that making mudpies isn't socially necessary labor because nobody fucking needs or wants mudpies lol
I'm going to type up a huge reply, but I have to punch back in for my government-mandated 8 hours of mudpie baking
Art produced for the purpose of sale is still a commodity. The artists that draw, paint, create assets, etc for the purpose of sale are producting commodities. Commodity production predates capitalism, capitalism's distinguishing aspect is that it is dominated by commodity production and industrialization accelerates that, but that doesn't mean a good needs to be mass-produced to be a commodity.
Sure, anything made for exchange is a commodity. I was incorrect in saying this art is not a commodity if it’s made for exchange. But Marx is observing and analyzing generalized commodity production under capitalism (The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as “an immense accumulation of commodities”). How commodities are produced under capitalism is unique. He is looking at commodity production while the means of production are privately owned, where wage labor predominates, and commodities are produced for sale in a market. Under these conditions, any given commodity is produced at a sufficient scale that there is a socially necessary amount of labor that must be used to produce it, and in the production of this commodity, since labor as a commodity is used to produce it, surplus value also is generated. When talking about someone making their own art with their own tools for exchange, while it is a commodity, the rules of value and surplus value don’t apply in my opinion, so I would still argue what OP is asking about is outside the bounds of Marx’s analysis.
The Law of Value is for commodities, not just commodities produced through the standard capitalist formula of M-C...P...C'-M'. Artisinal production of commodities, be they art or otherwise, still confront the sphere of circulation as commodities the same way commodities produced through traditional industrial production do, even if their production circuit is distince.
Artisinal production still follows in the general value calculation, it's still produced for exchange. No surplus value is extracted from an artist that produces commodities to exchange for their necessities, but the value is still regulated around the socially necessary labor time. The Law of Value is concerned with commodity production, capital, etc, not just capitalism.
What's unique about capitalist production is the dominance of capital, ie the ability for a capitalist to buy commodities with a sum of money, have these work together in production, then sell the produced commodities of higher value for a greater sum of money, ie M-C...P...C'-M'.
An artist that buys their own materials and tools isn't also buying their wage labor. There's no surplus value extracted from them, the form a part of the small handicraftsman. The law of value still applies to how their produced commodities confront the market. They practice M-C, do their own P, then convert the new C' into M', but usually cannot move on to reproduction on an expanded scale except perhaps in the guild format. They get their labor-power "for free." The C that they purchase just takes the form of mp, they supply their own L. As compared with other commodities produced artisinally, they will still be regulated around the socially necessary labor time. Rates of profit tend to be high for the petite bourgeoisie, but gross profits tend to be low due to the artisinal scale.
"Value" in the strictly theoretical sense Marx is using here does not necessarily correspond to personal or political notions of what is "valuable." A use-value has "value" insofar as, and only insofar as, its production is "socially necessary" (meaning, a requisite part of the reproduction of the class relation - this will be a key idea if you get to volume II) and requires in the abstract an aliquot portion of the society's total available labour time to reproduce. So if you want to understand how art is valued, you have to understand the labor going into it and the consumption habits of those who purchase it. If the rich have little interest for the arts and the poor are desperate to express themselves but have little disposable income to consume art, then most art production will be in excess of social necessity and hence fetch little value in exchange. If a strong labor movement raises living standards in that same society, the value of art will rise with the needs of the society, which here are in proportion to the standing of the working class. If a cultural shift brings the wealthy to see art as a status symbol, or as an especially enjoyable route of luxury consumption, this too will raise the value of art, though in this case we might expect the gains to be highly concentrated among an elite tier of artists favored by the wealthy but not numerous class of patrons. In none of these cases is art necessarily better or worse, or more or less worthwhile a pursuit - more or less "valuable" in the common sense of the word. All that is relevant to value in the economic sense is who produces and how, and who consumes and to what extent. And while consumption habits do impart some sense of what the society considers "valuable" into the value of goods, they do so only through the distorted lenses of the lopsided class structure in one eye, and of abstract necessary labor time in the other.
The thing is is that exchange value doesnt really exist. Thats the whole part about commodity fetishism and linen. And use value is highly subjective where for instance postmodern art designed to have no purpose still gets placed in museums where it is transformed into an object w exchange value.
Humans have use for art where even if there was no commodity production at all people will still be making use of art.
The Ways of Seeing (old docuseries available on youtube) is also a interesting look into how art as a creative practice becomes commodified via the reproduction of images. There is a lot more covered beyond that related to cultural hegemony too. Art mystification is also a large part of these processes.