 "Mammonart" is notable for Sinclair's repeated statement that all art, including his own, is propaganda.The popular distinction between propagandists like Jesus and Tolstoi, and Shakespeare and Goethe, who are "pure and unsullied creative artists ... is purely a class distinction and a class weapon..." (p. 106)

The list of artists discussed is similar, though shorter, to a 1940 list of Great Books.Sinclair also includes writers of lesser importance who were included at the time in the American literary canon.