Abstract: The aesthetics of the Western Marxism is not a "pure" aesthetics, but a "political aesthetics", or an aesthetic discourse of emancipatory politics, whose objective, to use Althusser's words, is to achieve the transformation from a man of class shaped by ideological state apparatuses to a free subject. Since the 1960s-1970s, contemporary Western Marxists have learned from the Western Marxist tradition of political aesthetics, confronted the political, economic and cultural changes of the Western society in the context of globalization, and explored the way to reconstruct the emancipatory aesthetic discourse. They have reconstructed the perception of reality and history by criticizing the cultural logic of late Capitalism, aroused the long-term forgotten utopian impulse, and laid the historical foundation for political aesthetics. They have also prioritized the body and work as two struggle fields of political aesthetics through demonstrating the influences of the aesthetic ideology on body and the immaterial labor on workers. By considering the inter-connections and differences between politics and aesthetics, they have explored the possible ways of struggling for political aesthetics. The political aesthetics of contemporary Western Marxism are expanded within these three domains of discourse, which ultimately aims to transcend the global Capitalism and to achieve the freedom and full development of human beings, thus conveying important implications to the development of society, culture and art.

Key words: political aesthetics, global Capitalism, emancipatory politics, Western Marxism