This book argues that a renewed consideration of artistic value should both critique contemporary bureaucratic misunderstandings of what art is and address the complexities and questions of contemporary philosophers in new and provocative ways. Writer and poet Ali Alizadeh focusses on the artistic theories of the key Western philosopher of value, Karl Marx. He explores Marx’s thoughts on art and literature and provides a new account of his revolutionary view of why we make art and how we understand art’s value.

By returning to Marx’s writings, from his juvenile poetry and earliest journalism to his final publications, Alizadeh proposes a theory which not only challenges many tenets of contemporary Marxist literary or cultural theory, but one which also presents us with a profound, coherent and stimulating theory of art that defines, values and demonstrates artistic practice. By mapping Marx’s intellectual development from the ideals of a young Hegelian to the polemics of a seasoned internationalist communist he shows that Marx never lost sight of art as a key aspect of human activity.