Abstraction, Intuition, Poetry

In the first section of this essay, I argue that the most consequential abstraction in contemporary society is that of capitalist value. I distinguish a value-based critique of capital from those based on critiques of property. I also preview an argument about poetry, suggesting that poets have long had to think past the limits of critiques of property, since metaphor has often been viewed by skeptics as an improper use of language. In the second section, I turn to some recent anticapitalist poetry to highlight its resourcefulness in distinguishing between property and value, and the political promise the distinction holds.