Communism of Love

An Inquiry into the Poverty of Exchange Value

Exploring the meanings and powers of love from Ancient Greece to the present day, Richard Gilman-Opalsky argues that what is called “love” by the best thinkers to have approached the subject is in fact the beating heart of communism—that is, communism understood as a human yearning and way of life, not as a form of government. Along the way, he reveals with clarity that the capitalist method of assigning value to things is incapable of appreciating what humans treasure most. Capitalism cannot value the experiences and relationships that make our lives worth living; it can only destroy love by turning it into a commodity.

The Communism of Love follows the struggles of love in different contexts of race, class, gender, and sexuality, and shows how the aspiration for love is as close as we may get to a universal communist aspiration.