This opening chapter examines the consequences of the aestheticization of everyday life, by historicizing the role taste plays in the social mediation of value. It engages the literature on the social impact of the aesthetic dimension by placing counterpositions from Kantian aesthetics, the sociology of culture, critical theory, postmodern theory, and cultural studies in relation to changes in the political economy. Across this discourse, it focuses on a central line of concern emanating from a dialectic between beauty and alienation, one that raises the importance of aesthetic judgment in the determination of social forms, just as taste is enlisted to resolve an economy in crisis.