Economists are wrong!: the Warsaw Manifesto 2011

Is art an economic activity? Should art be independent of economic pressures? Is the value of art to be determined separately from its value as a commodity? can we apply the Marxist labour theory of value to art? To consider the question of value in art from a Marxist perspective is, on the face of it, to invoke two kinds of philistinism. Marx tells us that value is twofold with use-value and exchange value forming a contradictory unity of value. There is no third kind of value. So, if art is supposed to be useless and priceless, how can a Marxist engage seriously with art and with only use-value and exchange value as tools?

This work was originally published in Polish as an outcome of the international conference The Labour of the Multitude? The Political Economy of Social Creativity held in Warsaw, 20-22 of October 2011. Organisers of the conference were: Free/Slow University of Warsaw, Bęc Zmiana Foundation, University of Warsaw, Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland.