Marx on the Need for Art: Art Between Political Economy and Self-determination

Sa？etak If we take political economy to be concerned with the way a society satisfies its needs, we would expect that an account of Marx’s critique of political economy of art should begin with a critique of the way a need for art is perceived within capitalistic production relations. We will try to provide a sketch of such a critique in this paper, taking various accounts of the place and role of art within a system of human needs as a context in which art works and artistic creation are connected with categories of commodity, production, labour, market etc. Then we will turn to an account of human needs, provided by Agnes Heller, that are not limited to political economy and aim to show that the need for art is properly located within that system of “non-alienated” needs and human self-determination