Thread by @BostonDelendEst

Here's the concrete reason - the labor theory of value is bullshit. How hard you work is wholly irrelevant if the product is worthless.

https://twitter.com/EBONYMag/status/1015037629480480768

Coming soon: A Frank Discussion™ on why the bullshit labor theory of value is responsible for...

*shuffles deck, draws card*

Modern and post-modern art?! (Yes, I'm dead serious).

First, terminology.

I'm using "Labor Theory of Value" to describe value based not on a product's objective criteria, but derived in some general sense from the labor inputs. This is not just the gross amount of TIME spent, or EFFORT per se, but includes the value of the creator.

A "Widget" is any product that is indistinguishable, based on its objective criteria from any other such Widget.

So if John makes Widget W, and Pierre also makes a Widget W, they cannot be distinguished absent some way of marking them or identifying them as such.

So under the bullshit LTV, John's Widget W should have more value than Pierre's Widget W if there more "labor" put into it.

What that means is (deliberately!) vague from the LTV supporters. (and the details don't really matter all that much for this discussion.)

But it can include one or more of more value from:
* more QUANTITY labor (i.e., less efficiency, which glorifies inefficiency)
* more QUALITY labor
* some characteristic/quality of the LABORER
(though, per above, the last 2 do not show up in Widgets as defined)
* something else?

Now, for the meat.

As you all know, photography did not exist at all before about 1815, and for its earliest decades was basically useless in all but the most controlled conditions. .

It was basically used solely for portraits, and required long periods of stillness, massive amounts of flash powder, and rigid poses.

It was far more difficult for the subject than a painted portrait, which the artist could stop and return to.

Oh, and there was no color either.

And between motion and lighting, it was functionally worthless for nature scenes, landscapes.

The best thing it could be used for was a realistic "still life" but given the cost of photography, what was the point of a black and white fruit bowl?

At the time, starting before and continuing through the early years of photography, art had generally focused on realism -- accurate portrayal of faces, proportions, perspectives, and depictions, even in nature.

This wasn't just true in painting, but in sculpture as well.

While this trend (which included things like one-point and two-point perspective), developed and increased, its teachings were notably incorporated even into the "romantic" schools that did not focus on strict realism, and exaggerated features/depictions for effect.

In other words, in both "accurate" and "exaggerated/enhanced" depictions, the obvious trend was towards reality -- or at least towards something recognizable as reality or derived from reality in form, proportion, scale, etc.

The obvious point -- which I'm saying because it's important to make it -- is that the SUBJECTS of Art were PEOPLE & SCENES FROM REALITY -- or at least something based in what was believed to be, e.g., the depictions of Dante's circles of Hell.

Abstract art had not yet appeared.

But, after a few decades of photography, things started to improve.

Daguerre got real photos in 1839-40.

There were some developments in negatives over the next decade.

But things really took off in the 1850s-1900 period (Hence the "civil war" and "old west" photos).

But this was mostly non-scalable. These were hard to copy, processing was involved and finicky, and taking pictures basically required photographers to carry round boxes of metal plates and toxic chemicals.

Eastman developed film in 1884, with cameras for it released in 1888.

Color followed suit, a few decades behind B&W.

Maxwell (who else?) suggested how to do color photographs in 1855; theory became reality in 1861,

The Lumiere process reached market in 1907, and was the first commercially viable color system.

Kodachrome was introduced in 1935.

In sum, you had black-and-white photography available to non-artists by 1890 and color before WWII.

All of a sudden, the brushstrokes, color-mixing, palates, and techniques were largely worthless.

Anybody with enough money could capture reality more accurately than an artist.

What were the artists to do? How were they to respond?

There were several things that all occurred. I'll discuss some (this is not exhaustive)

The first & most obvious is that portrait painting became a luxury good, a way for the elite to distinguish themselves from masses

In terms of landscapes and scenes, Impressionism began in the 1860s, and took off in the 1870s.

Other schools in which brushstrokes * the fact of it being a painting were emphasized followed suit.

(I'm being general, but the broader point is distinguishing output FROM reality).

And then later, you had the rise of Non-Objective through Abstract Art -- subjects no longer being scenes of reality (people/places), even hallucinatory/exaggerated (Starry Night) or mythical/religious/supernatural scenes but --

well, this is what Kandinsky called a Cow by 1911

So what was going on is that the TRADITIONAL skillset of artists -- accurately depicting reality in proportion, perspective, scale, and color -- was increasingly being made available to everybody.

The commoditization of photography Widgetized the traditional artist's output.

You could get the same or better (or at least "good enough") of a portrait for far less expense.

There is no longer comparative advantage in accuracy -- you're just a slower camera that can stylize.

How, then, is the Artist's product value? What makes it so?

The response wasn't to fight technology, or even to smear it as "inauthentic" and "modern" and "soulless" and industrial."

It was to redefine art and its goals.

Art was no longer an accurate (even if stylized or exaggerated) scene from reality, whether people, landscape, or still life.

No, art was now something that was produced by a Designated Artist.

If you can't compete on the product, say that the product doesn't matter.

Instead, it's the "labor" of an "Artist" that makes it "Art".

And no "Artist" wants to be a glorified camera. Just like no patron wants on his wall what any body else could get without too much trouble from such a camera.

If capturing reality is now a Widget, and you need to distinguish what you're doing from such Widgets, you go as far the other way as you can.

So far, in fact, that what you're doing is completely indistinguishable not from photographs, but from garbage.

That's why you have stuff like Pollack and bad Abstract Expressionism that you could not distinguish from randomness or fingerpainting but for its pedigree as Art By An Artist.

That's why you have ACTUAL TOILETS as "Art."

Or bizarre shit like Chris Burden shooting his own arm.

None of these things are remotely close to any "Product" that would have been recognized as Art for most of human history.

Only by the bullshit LTV do they have any value -- & the value is who made them.

It isn't paint splatter, it's POLLACK.

It's not a toilet, it's Duchamp!

The "labor" of a designated Artist is what makes it Art now. That's solely the labor theory of value.

There's no other way it has value, in many cases, because the output is objectively ugly or garbage or worse.

But by the hands and intent of an Artist, it becomes Art.

I'll finish with one story.

As you might infer from my handle, I'm a big fan of Frank Lloyd Wright, who was a fucking genius. Fallingwater is perhaps the most iconic and stunning private citizen's residence ever built (and it was designed in 1934):

and in academia and in the "Art History" set, Wright often gets shat upon as not a true artist, not fully recognized as the visionary that he is. He built lots of houses for (relatively) rich folks! Civic centers! Places of worship! FUNCTIONAL BUILDINGS WITH USES.

I vividly remember my Art History lecturer in college telling the (apocryphal?) story about how Wright drew up the original sketches for Fallingwater for his clients on just 2 hours of notice, after struggling with the idea and concept for weeks, if not months.

This was not used admiringly, in the sense of "Wright was such a rare talent that he could do this in two hours."

No, it was disparaging, as in "Wright was not an artist because he only spent two hours drawing up the sketches for his most famous work."

As if, somehow, his sheer talent disqualified him from being an Artist, because it didn't have sufficient Intention to make a Statement and instead was just a visual marvel that moved me to tears when I first saw it, because I couldn't believe anything so stunning could exist.

To them, Wright's stunning Product didn't have sufficient value because he didn't invest sufficient Labor in it.

He wasn't enough of an "Artist", so let's shit on his talent.

Fuck that.

The product speaks for itself.

The labor theory of value is pure bullshit. And it leads to ugly, wasteful, perverse results.

It has crippled, if not ruined, aesthetics.

You get slices of it every time you buy a product that's "union made" or "artisanal" or "local" regardless of its objective qualities.