in Esperanto
Chapter 7: SKETCH OF COMMUNIST SOCIETY -- CULTURE
2. Anyone could be a writer/artist.
2.1. Censorship by the market
The cultural system of product value can also have the effect of suppressing freedom. The sacrificial influence is greatest in the world of creative activity. It is one-sided to judge the value of creation based solely on whether it sells or not, but the cultural system of product value does not allow rebellion against it.
In this way, literary and artistic production is also entwined with the logic of commercial value, and while imitations are rampant here, even if there is literary and artistic value, if the work does not sell, it cannot be released to the world, and it will not be recognized as a so-called professional writer/artist.
On the other hand, from the side of the cultural industrial capital that governs the cultural system of commercial value, it is possible that the evaluation criteria for whether or not it will sell, in other words, whether or not it will receive the support of the public, is more objective than the evaluation criteria for purely literary and artistic value.
However, that is an argument that puts the cart before the horse. If the cultural industrial capital itself creates public support by means of marketing techniques and sets it up so that it can be sold, it would be like the person who set the fire himself pointing at the fire and commenting that the brightly burning fire is objective.
It is true that pure literary and artistic value is subjective, so for example, it is possible that there are only a few people in the world who appreciate a certain creator's work P. However, if there are even a few people who appreciate it, it can be said that work P has "value". However, from the point of view of a product, the work P, which is likely to have only a few buyers in the world, will not be recognized for its commercial value, so this work will not be released to the world.
This is the function that should be called "market censorship" in which the value of literary and artistic works is judged by the market. In this case, it is the publisher, the art dealer, or the music office that controls the censorship, depending on the field. In short, it is cultural industrial capital as a whole.
Here, some may argue that state censorship is far more frightening than market censorship. Indeed, state censorship is coercive, often arbitrary, and harmful.
In this regard, since communism does not have a state as a subject, state censorship is logically impossible. Moreover, since the production of literature and art as commodities will be abolished, the censorship of the market will also disappear. What does this do? Everyone could a writer and an artist.
2.2. Premonition of the Internet Commons
Boasting that anyone could become a writer or artist may be laughed at, but this phenomenon is already becoming a reality.
The spread of the Internet has given "unsold" writers and artists a way to send their works out into the world without commercializing them. Even if there are only a few people who appreciate the work, the opportunity to present it is not lost. The work is treated as a gratuitous common property. This is the reason why the Internet space is also called commons.
In this Internet commons world, the commons (= ordinary people) are beginning to develop their own expressive activities. Of course, since we are still living in a capitalist era, the majority of such free works in the commons are not recognized as having commercial value, and therefore the chances of creation being recognized as a "vocation" are rare. Yet the world of the Internet seems to partly foreshadow a communist future of creative activity.
2.3. Blooming freedom of expression
Of course, even in a communist society, it is inevitable that the creator's reputation and name recognition will differ depending on whether or not the work receives wide support from the public. This means that, at a fundamental level, freedom of expression will be established both in name and reality.
In today's "liberal" capitalist society, the national censorship system has been abolished, and freedom of expression is generally legally guaranteed. Freedom of expression would truly blossom in a communist society, although this may go against present common sense.
