What you call State Art in Britain indeed smacks of Socialist Realism in the Soviet Union of old, as you claim in your passionate editorial (No. 88, November-December 2009). At first glance, there is much more variety on offer, at least visually, but the monopoly of the art establishment ultimately makes everything look the same. Same old same old. Milking with abandon the economic boom leading up to the present global crisis, State Art ultimately reached its pinnacle in Damien Hirst’s bejeweled skull, which was purportedly snatched by some tycoon for fifty-million pounds sterling. And this piece, entitled blasphemously “For the Love of God,” is likely to be remembered for a long time as the emblem of, to coin a phrase, Capitalist Realism. This realism is not of the usual kind, at least not visually, but it is the realism of money and nothing but money. And frenetic love of money shows through everything the art establishment ever touches with its fleshless fingers.