Is communism better or worse for an artist?

[Crusade]

Than capitalism I mean.

[scarletghoul]

Better, of course.

Think about it, under capitalism its very difficult and unlikely for an artist to make a living off his art, unless it is profitable. Under a socialist system, artists would have more social security and free time to produce the art that they want to. Furthermore, because we will appreciate things for their true beauty rather than for some financial value, people will produce and appreciate art much more. And without things being determined by capitalist profit, we will not have to suffer the bullshit pseudo-art that infests much of our society today (eg much 'pop music', tv commercials, etc).

So yeah 2 things that make art (and the life of artists) better under socialism/communism-
1. More free time to produce and appreciate art
2. More quality art produced
Both of these are because the profit motive disappears and society becomes organised based on the interests of the people instead.

Though if you'll let me get a little utopian, I have to say that under complete stateless communism I don't think 'artist' will exist as a seperate occupation. Because everyone will be an artist of sorts. What I mean is that with advances in technology and resolution of various social contradictions, 'work' will become minimal and people will not have to work very much in order to live and help society prosper. It probably wont even be thought of as work. Everyone will be completely free to appreciate the world and express themselves, and what better way to do that than through art?

[revolution inaction]

It depends on the artist.
The minority of artists who are really successful under capitalism may be worse off, but the majority would probably be better of.

[Dermezel]

It is better for several reasons, some material, and some cultural.

Art, if it is to have a social use, is a means by which an idealization can be presented that works as a motivational or guiding force for social action.

I think art can work like a lighthouse in a stormy sea. It can caution us against potential harms, or show us better ways. Utopia and 1984 for example.

It can show us how we want to be.

Under capitalism art is dying. It is becoming parasitic. It is stagnating. How many remakes are coming out this year? How many books for young people are based around the same Harry Potter type mythos?

You rarely get anything like Avatar or V. You usually get the same market determined device over and over. The same Teen Movie, or Horror Movie, or Action Movie, etc. All formulated before hand, pre-packaged, sterilized, and sent out for a target audience.

That is in part because the bourgeoisie will not allow other kinds of art, and in part because under a bourgeoisie ideology art cannot progress any further. Without a Dialectical Materialist world view, without Marxist or Socialist ideology, all art comes down to something reflective of bourgeoisie culture.

It expresses absurdities- bourgeoisie neurosis. Or trivialities- a story about the family or a romantic comedy. Or some prior bourgeoisie epic, where the story typically goes: the social order is threatened (by which it is implied the bourgeoisie order), someone saves the day (Batman, Captain Kirk, whoever), everything goes back to normal: normal being the bourgeoisie order, and this of course being good.

Only by questioning bourgeoisie presumptions will art break these shackles.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Better, of course. You said it!

Also just to add to the points you made, more people will be able to access art education and training because education would most likely be a higher priority and open to everyone on an ongoing basis if they want to learn more or develop new skills.

In addition to this, since the means of art production will be shared rather than the property of big Hollywood studios, music companies, private galleries and studio spaces, art production could be open to more people. Art equipment and supplies are very expensive and specialized. Most people only have access to a wide range of production materials if they are in a college art program - I'd imagine that people in general would be able to reserve expensive equipment just as today a grad-student in an art department can reserve time with a film camera or theater or gallery space.

[Dermezel]

A good example of freer art is the internet. Sites like Deviant Art for example.

[Uppercut]

And without things being determined by capitalist profit, we will not have to suffer the bullshit pseudo-art that infests much of our society today (eg much 'pop music', tv commercials, etc).

Abso-fucking-lutely! I think I lose a couple IQ points every time I see a McDonald's commercial or an advertisement for some Rap CD. And it agrevates the hell out of me, seeing all these teenagers buy into it, as if they don't have the brain power to think of anything better to do than to listen to Lil Wayne or Lady Gaga.

[Axle]

I'll listen to Top 40 stations occasionally and I'm always horrifyed to realize that the majority of pop singers are AutoTuned to fucking oblivion.

"Fuck talent! You're a pretty face, here is your new attitude and image. You will play the songs we choose for you...now sell, damn you!"

[Crusade]

Good answers, everyone. I showed a friend of mine this thread. :thumbup1:

[al8]

It would generally benefit artists a great deal. There would be enormous teaching opportunities and a change to increase the liveliness of the ones particular art scene stemming from the fact that many more people are going to have more time on their hands for higher pursuits after the general hours of human labor gets shortened by the increasing use of automation, the elimination of redundant capitalist jobs and elimination of unemployment.

[Dean]

The only kind of art that would suffer under a communist state-of-things is that art which requires immense resources in the furtherance of the artistic vision and interests of a minority.

[mlgb]

probably worse initially. communist states (or stateless societies, if you prefer) come into existence through revolutions, and societies just coming out of civil wars are generally not all that friendly to free expression no matter how tolerant the 'official' line is.

in the long term though, it would be better for the reasons listed in above posts.

[CartCollector]

After the seizure of power in the Soviet Union, there was a lot of necessity but there was also a great flourishing of creativity, literally like an uncorking. And a lot of artists were both taking responsibility to be part of meeting that necessity, including bringing the masses into political and cultural life, and there was a great deal of experimentation in that regard. In October 1918, Lunacharsky (who was the commissar for public education) said, "let us make the squares our palettes, the streets our brushes!" This book explains, "The cities were turned into huge open air exhibitions with hundreds of large decorative panels and monuments. Street shows and plays—some with thousands of performers, and tens of thousands of spectators—light effects, music and songs, created an entirely new synthesis of art forms." The pictures in this book show great festivities, huge red banners hanging all over the streets, big murals, sculptures and tens of thousands of people filling the streets. It's breathtaking. They also wanted to unleash the artists to put themselves to architecture, and every other part of life, Lenin had a vision of the walls being covered in frescoes.

[I found a really interesting and significant quote from Lenin in this book that I hadn't heard before: "In relation to all forms of popular education, Lenin emphasized that 'it would be the greatest and most terrible mistake which a Marxist could make to think that the millions of craftsmen and peasants could emerge from the darkness along the straight line of pure Marxist education.' These simple people, he said, 'must be approached in such a way that their interest is awakened—they must be roused from all directions and by all manner of means.'" (the book says "simple people," and the citation for this was in Russian so I don't know where it's from). I thought this was very interesting in terms of the dynamism and vibrancy Lenin was fighting for, and learning from that, you can see the role for the enrichment in terms of taking up all spheres.]
There was a lot of discussion about this art serving the people, and from what I can tell this was a lot of the impetus of different artists themselves and there was a great deal of experimentation with abstract art. A lot of it was geared to the building of the new society (and Rodchenko talks about art of construction). But there was also a great deal of experimentation here and a lot of use and playing with abstraction. Rodchenko, for example, wanted to make a new kind of painting that reflected the new world and new people. He wrote in one place, "Down with ART, the means to ESCAPE FROM LIFE which is not worth living. Conscious and organized LIFE, the ability to SEE and CONSTRUCT, that is the modern art." (This is most definitely not the only kind of art that is required, and I think even this doesn't have quite enough space, but there is a lot to learn here including again, in the experimentation and how different artists saw filling the needs of this new society broadly understood.)

Toward the late '20s the festivals became very geared towards celebrations of industry (this was in there before, but it became really constricted around that) and there was in the arts the single focused emphasis on socialist realism. The book I have on Rodchenko describes it this way, "The climate had changed, and at a time when the Soviet Union was struggling with a series of Five Year Plans to modernize industry and agriculture to establish economic viability it was felt that the simple rhetoric of Socialist Realism provided a more easily intelligible framework for communicating the changes that were taking place. Like many of his colleagues Rodchenko was not able to comply with this prevailing aesthetic and as a result he was thrown more and more in upon himself with few outlets for his work."

The lights more or less went out. And yes, there was a profound amount of necessity they were facing—the numbers lost in the war, and what it took to fight that war are staggering. The newness of all this was a big deal. And you do need economic plans, but not everything that goes on in your society has to immediately serve that or it's no good. This was an unprecedented flourishing, and it's not like everything should continue at the same height or intensity (or that it was all fantastic), but the constriction around all this, along with many other contradictions, did lead to "turn out the lights, the party's over."Taken from one of the responses to Bob Avakian's "An Historic Contradiction: Fundamentally Changing the World Without 'Turning Out the Lights.'"

[Glenn Beck]

Gallery art; modern art in general has historically suffered under socialist regimes and it is not difficult to see why: the exponents of these genres have generally been of a petit-bourgeois class character and mentality. The subject matter of much of the art has reflected this, as you can see in the preoccupation with individual expression free from any accountability to society (i.e. the common sentiment that the artist owes nothing to his audience and his expression is beyond reproach or subjection to socially defined meaning "I don't have to explain anything; Art doesn't need to have a point").

On the other hand, classical and folk forms of art have often thrived, and popular art needn't be backwards looking and non-innovative as classical and folk forms (arguably) tend to be. Popular art forms, such as the constantly developing genre of street art and the now highly advanced fields of what is called "art and design" (generally harnessed for the interests of corporate marketing often in effect making the producers of this art wage-laborers) are currently the natural modes of artistic expression of the proletariat, modes of expression that were not very highly developed in the eras of past socialist revolutions. A future revolution would likely see a flowering of such modes of expression, to the expense of "serious art" which is by its very nature a bourgeois and individual endeavor.

The question of will artists be better of worse off is impossible to answer objectively because the way in which art is practiced is socially determined and is likely to change dramatically under a new type of society. Generally speaking those artists which are happy with the current system will be worse off while those whose creative energies are de-emphasized or suppressed under the current system will benefit. You can think of it historically through analogy with the transition from feudalism to capitalism and what that meant to the art world. There were major changes in not only the form and content of art (say, the transition from religious to secular themes and experimentation with form and style) but also the changes in the social position of artists: who artists were in a society and where they came from. These changes scandalized and eventually destroyed the established art world to the benefit of a rising tide of new artists from dramatically different social backgrounds. In the long-term, the transition from capitalism to socialism would lead to as drastic a change in how art is done and what it is even perceived to be as the transition from pre-modern to modern and postmodern art.

[Dr Mindbender]

why is capitalism bad for artists?

Look at x fucking factor.

[The Vegan Marxist]

why is capitalism bad for artists?

Look at x fucking factor.

Yes, look at x fucking factor, the ones that got beat during the christmas #1 by Rage Against the fucking Machine through a grassroots campaign on Facebook with all its sales coming from online only!

btw, I'm pretty sure I realize you were being sarcastic :thumbup1:

[Klaatu]

And without things being determined by capitalist profit, we will not have to suffer the bullshit pseudo-art that infests much of our society today (eg much 'pop music', tv commercials, etc).


AMEN brother. We could all use fewer (and quieter!) TV ads...

[scarletghoul]

I know, theyre so freakin loud it does my nut in !


A good example of freer art is the internet. Sites like Deviant Art for example. Thats a really really good point. The internet has shown that art of all kinds can really flourish when set free, in an environment where everyone can produce, distribute and appreciate it without any regard for money. In many respects the internet is communising art already and liberating it from the grip of the capitalist art/music/movie industry (however much they try and claw it back with their crazy laws and their branding of sharing as 'stealing') :tt1:

[Kléber]

I know this is "Theory" forum but in practice, the "socialist" states were and are very bad places to be an artist. There was relative artistic freedom in the USSR until the defeat of the Left, Right, and United oppositions by the bureaucratic centralists, after which the Zhdanov doctrine was enforced and any art the authorities did not like such as futurist painting, constructivist theater, jazz, etc. was banned and the artists imprisoned, tortured & executed if they were below a certain level of global fame. On the other hand, international renown was also the downfall of many Soviet artists whose torture and executions were justified by their "Western imperialist" links. Formalistic restrictions were loosened after 1956 but overbearing political censorship continued.

The People's Republic of China had a brief flowering of artistic freedom in 1956, but then the "Anti-Rightist" Campaign of 1957 put a stop to that. It has only been in the last few years that movies about modern history started to appear in large quantities in China, since for so long, directors were afraid to do anything political about the 20th Century for fear of being repressed due to a change in the official historical line.

The governments of Cuba and Yugoslavia experimented with greater artistic freedom, but you could still get sent to prison and your work destroyed if you were seen as critical of the gangsters-in-chief, or if you were gay.

[Wolf Larson]

Communism = no profit. Create. Create to create. Define "success" under communism. Fame? What do you mean by better off? Everyone would be better off.

[Klaatu]

Communism = no profit. Create. Create to create. Define "success" under communism. Fame? What do you mean by better off? Everyone would be better off.

I would submit that the profit motive, in and of itself, is the antithesis of "everyone being better off." Only the profit-maker himself is better off.

[Kléber]

I'm sure a Trotskyist workers state will grant full freedom to everyone.
Trotsky defended the freedom of artists even at the worst points in the Civil War.


When they were under attack from imperialism every day, its too bad the workers of the past socialist states were dumb enough to no have enough "artistic freedom" for themselves.
The sharpest curtailments to artistic freedom by the bureaucracy were in the early 1930's and again with the Zhdanov doctrine in 1946 - times when there was no war going on.


your post is, as usual, totally off topic as the OP was talking about communism
There are multiple meanings to the words "communism" and "socialism," they refer to political movements as well as production relations.

[Kléber]

Theory and practice don't exist in separate universes.

[ckaihatsu]

---





An individual who has to make things for the use of others, and with reference to their wants and their wishes, does not work with interest, and consequently cannot put into his work what is best in him. Upon the other hand, whenever a community or a powerful section of a community, or a government of any kind, attempts to dictate to the artist what he is to do, Art either entirely vanishes, or becomes stereotyped, or degenerates into a low and ignoble form of craft.

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/slman10.txt

[Pjotr]

I think this is a very difficult issue.

Personally I think that a contradiction between 'capitalist' and 'communist' kinds of cultural artefacts is mostly ridiculous.

Not because of the fact that marxist analyses are stupid, but because of the fact that capitalism is more diverse then marxists expected it to be.

[vyborg]

Abso-fucking-lutely! I think I lose a couple IQ points every time I see a McDonald's commercial or an advertisement for some Rap CD. And it agrevates the hell out of me, seeing all these teenagers buy into it, as if they don't have the brain power to think of anything better to do than to listen to Lil Wayne or Lady Gaga.

In a socialist society even Lady Gaga could produce proper music as any talented people provided with the right environment.

Zdanov and the theoreticians of "socialist realism" were a bunch of bureaucrats repressing artists as well as workers. Even a genius like Lukacs was forced by stalinism to retreat and starting to write non-senses.

[Thirsty Crow]

Gallery art; modern art in general has historically suffered under socialist regimes and it is not difficult to see why: the exponents of these genres have generally been of a petit-bourgeois class character and mentality. The subject matter of much of the art has reflected this, as you can see in the preoccupation with individual expression free from any accountability to society (i.e. the common sentiment that the artist owes nothing to his audience and his expression is beyond reproach or subjection to socially defined meaning "I don't have to explain anything; Art doesn't need to have a point").


That's utter bullshit along the lines of Soc-Realism as an official doctrine expounded at the Socialist Writers Congress of 1934.
Morover, the subject matter of art does not reflect "class character" and mentality. Art is more complex than that simplification. Art indeed should not have a predetermined point (in case of Soc-Realism, "celebration of the grand Revolution") since it is by its definition an individual act which will be perveived collectively. In other words, people will not read what they do not like and there is absolutely no justification for an ideologically determined set of subject matters and formal devices and techniques. Moreover, the same form of ideological restrictions were imposed on modern art in nazi Germany, which suggests something. Expressionists didn't fare too well with nazis since they were perceived as subversive of their nationalist ideology, but surprisingly enough any "avan-garde" art didn't fare well with "revolutionary"
regimes as well since it was not really immediately comprehensible or "socially responsible".

[turquino]

Morover, the subject matter of art does not reflect "class character" and mentality. Art is more complex than that simplification.
Does that complexity extend to the metaphysical? What you call a simplification is how communists attempt to explain the world, with reference to the forces of production and how people have organized to produce. This is what forms the basis of human social existence. If you think cultural activities can be isolated from material life, specifically social class, then you are likely in disagreement with the fundamentals of marxist theory. As Marx posed in the Grundrisse, “is Achilles possible with powder and lead? Or the Iliad with the printing press, not to mention the printing machine? Do not the song and the saga and the muse necessarily come to an end with the printer’s bar, hence do not the necessary conditions of epic poetry vanish?”

surprisingly enough any "avan-garde" art didn't fare well with "revolutionary"
regimes as well since it was not really immediately comprehensible or "socially responsible".
The CIA seemed to have understood this better than many calling themselves socialists, as they deliberately promoted abstract expressionism in Eastern Europe during the Cold War for counterrevolutionary ends.
What the CIA saw in AE was an "anti-Communist ideology, the ideology of freedom, of free enterprise. Non-figurative and politically silent it was the very antithesis of socialist realism" (254).
http://www.monthlyreview.org/1199petr.htm
Trotsky defended the freedom of artists even at the worst points in the Civil War.
No surprise there, Trotsky maintained a bourgeois liberal outlook. I recommend to comrades who haven't already to read some of his writings on art and literature. Take notice of how he claims the total liberty of art as revolutionary, and how he denies the dictatorship of the proletariat should take a position on culture. It's liberalism dressed up as marxism, but it's still liberalism.

[SandiNeesta]

Communism = no profit. Create. Create to create. Define "success" under communism. Fame? What do you mean by better off? Everyone would be better off.
I can kinda speak from experience....I went to college for art and had crazy dreams of making a living at it. I was never really interested in being famous or rich or anything. I just wanted to be able to do something I love as a job...crazy idea in this world. Unfortunately, it's not as easy as I thought and for the last ten years I've been stuck working jobs I absolutely hate and getting work as an artist when I can and when I have time. If I had unlimited free time and free supplies...I'd be a much happier person and a better artist. I can't even get a job as a teacher now because most school systems have cut out art classes from the curriculum. I did have a job for awhile restoring the old civil rights murals in the city I lived in...but they ran out of money for that program as well. So I've come to the realization I'll probably be working some mindless job I hate forever...depressing.

[Philzer]

Hi!


probably worse initially. communist states (or stateless societies, if you prefer) come into existence through revolutions, and societies just coming out of civil wars are generally not all that friendly to free expression no matter how tolerant the 'official' line is.

This is a really important argument. And you also know how is it to explain? In all societities you can find an ideology as determined truth. In slavery, in feudalism in socialism. Why not in a democracy?

To understand this, you must understand what democracy is.
My opinion is, democracy is material corruption of a mass, and so they must not have a state-ideology.

So there are no limits, shot a film like"The silence of the lambs" horror and what you want to make the crowd stupid.
Nobody will to admonish you thinking in a humanistic sense, or truthfullness in the sense of Kant.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/democracy-pantheism-bourgeoisie-t131250/index.html


in the long term though, it would be better for the reasons listed in above posts.

I hope with you.

Kind regards.

[Kléber]

No surprise there, Trotsky maintained a bourgeois liberal outlook. I recommend to comrades who haven't already to read some of his writings on art and literature. Take notice of how he claims the total liberty of art as revolutionary, and how he denies the dictatorship of the proletariat should take a position on culture. It's liberalism dressed up as marxism, but it's still liberalism.
The only alien device dressed up as Marxism is religious obscurantism masquerading as "proletarian culture" or "socialist realism." I recommend comrades read Zhdanov's musings on Soviet culture and keep a bowl nearby just in case.

[Kléber]

Oh hey Lex, nice to see you too! :lol:

[RED DAVE]

probably worse initially. communist states (or stateless societies, if you prefer) come into existence through revolutions, and societies just coming out of civil wars are generally not all that friendly to free expression no matter how tolerant the 'official' line is.Don't confuse stalinism/maoism, with their disgraceful attitude toward art, with a genuinely revolutonary stance. Check out what was going on in Russia from the time of the revolution until Stalin clamped the lid on.

RED DAVE

[RED DAVE]

From:

Manifesto: Towards a Free Revolutionary Art: Andre Breton and Leon Trotsky (1938)


The communist revolution is not afraid of art. It realizes that the role of the artist in a decadent capitalist society is determined by the conflict between the individual and various social forms which are hostile to him. This fact alone, insofar as he is conscious of it, makes the artist the natural ally of revolution. The process of sublimation, which here comes into play, and which psychoanalysis has analyzed, tries to restore the broken equilibrium between the integral “ego” and the outside elements it rejects. This restoration works to the advantage of the “ideal of self,” which marshals against the unbearable present reality all those powers of the interior world, of the “self,” which are common to all men and which are constantly flowering and developing. The need for emancipation felt by the individual spirit has only to follow its natural course to be led to mingle its stream with this primeval necessity: the need for the emancipation of man.http://www.generation-online.org/c/fcsurrealism1.htm

RED DAVE

[CartCollector]

As Marx posed in the Grundrisse, “is Achilles possible with powder and lead? Or the Iliad with the printing press, not to mention the printing machine? Do not the song and the saga and the muse necessarily come to an end with the printer’s bar, hence do not the necessary conditions of epic poetry vanish?”Note how he said it ended with the invention of the printing bar. Not that those with printing bars, to support the Literary Revolution, had to silence counter-revolutionary epic poets by imprisoning, exiling, or killing them.

[HeyJustLooking]

Do you think artists would be allowed to work full time on their art, without doing any other work, under socialism/communism? Is making art just a worthless hobby or is it a valuable contribution to society?

I doubt many artists would be capable of making a whole high budget movie/book/videogame/sculpture/architecture/music etc. after being tired from working 8 hours in a factory/whatever-workplace-under-socialism.
Even under capitalism, I have heard some artists works 10+ hours a day on their project at periods, because it takes so much time and doesn't pay well. I doubt they want to work extra in a factory on top of that.
Art is hard work and takes years of practice and education to master.

Also, now that we can share movies, books, pictures, software etc. over the internet. Do you think we should be charging money from it, or should everything be free?
If everything is free, then where should the payment come from? Taxes? Or should artists just work in their sparetime without getting paid?

[Communist]

Do you think artists would be allowed to work full time on their art, without doing any other work, under socialism/communism? Is making art just a worthless hobby or is it a valuable contribution to society?

I doubt many artists would be capable of making a whole high budget movie/book/videogame/sculpture/architecture/music etc. after being tired from working 8 hours in a factory/whatever-workplace-under-socialism.
Even under capitalism, I have heard some artists works 10+ hours a day on their project at periods, because it takes so much time and doesn't pay well. I doubt they want to work extra in a factory on top of that.
Art is hard work and takes years of practice and education to master.

Also, now that we can share movies, books, pictures, software etc. over the internet. Do you think we should be charging money from it, or should everything be free?
If everything is free, then where should the payment come from? Taxes? Or should artists just work in their sparetime without getting paid?

We do not discuss copyright infringement filesharing because of laws etc., and you're asking about artists being paid under capitalism. Just ask Lar$ Ulrich what he thinks and we'll stay on topic here.

.

[HeyJustLooking]

Sence when is talking about whether a law benefits the people or not a crime?

I never said anything about copyright infringement or illegal filesharing.
If the license for the work says that it can be distributed freely, then how is anything illegal being done?
I believe it is a pretty common knowledge that socialists wants to abolish patents and copyright after capitalism is gone, since they only help big corporations gaining monopolies and they slow down progress.
Of course I'm talking about future works created for the people, paid for and distributed by the socialist state. Not the current works owned by capitalists.

I don't really know anything about Lars Ulrich or the music bussiness in general, but I don't think artists should be millionaires like a lot of american musicians and actors appear to be.
In my opinion artists shouldn't earn anymore than a normal worker, we shouldn't waste money on advertising and when the budget for an artwork is reached we shouldn't profit from it anymore. This would decrease production costs by insane amounts allowing everyone to afford enjoying art.

[Communist]

.
Crime?? And I misunderstood what your post meant, it sure sounded like you're talking about now.

Also, now that we can share movies, books, pictures, software etc. over the internet. Do you think we should be charging money from it, or should everything be free?

That's filesharing. So how should artists be paid in a socialist state is what you're getting at?

.