Το καταραμένο απόθεμα

by Georges Bataille, Λένα Λυμπεροπούλου (Translator), Φώτης Τερζάκης (Editor)

Το έργο αυτό, αναμφίβολα το κορυφαίο θεωρητικό επίτευγμα του Georges Bataille (όπου, εκτός των άλλων, συνυφαίνονται όλες οι γνωστές θέσεις του για το ιερό, για τον ερωτισμό και για την εσωτερική εμπειρία), υπήρξε από πολλές απόψεις έργο, προδρoμικό για τη σύγχρονη σκέψη: ερμηνεύοντας με λαμπρό τρόπο τις ανθρωπολογικές παρατηρήσεις του Marcel Mauss για το δώρο και τις πρωτόγονες μορφές ανταλλαγής, συνδέοντας αυτά τα δεδομένα με τη θυσία ως κεντρική έκφραση τoυ ιερού σε ποικίλους πολιτισμούς και συνεκτιμώντας τις μεταβαλλόμενες σχέσεις οικονομίας, θρησκείας και πολιτισμικών αξιών που φώτισε ο Max. Weber, θα πρωτοστατήσει στην αποδόμηση των αξιωμάτων της αστικής οικονομικής επιστήμης που θεωρούσε την επιδίωξη του κέρδoυς ως περίπου "φυσική" και θα αναδείξει το πρωτείο τής χωρίς συμφέρον δαπάνης, της οργιώδους ανάλωσης και της γιορτής στο συντριπτικά μεγαλύτερο μέρος της ανθρώπινης ιστορίας.

Γραμμένο κατά την πρώτη κορύφωση του ψυχρoπoλεμικού κλίματος (1949), το "Καταραμένο απόθεμα" μπορεί σήμερα να φανεί παρωχημένo σε ό,τι αφορά ειδικές επικαιρικές του εκτιμήσεις (π.χ. σχετικά με τη Σοβιετική εκβιομηχάνιση ή το Σχέδιο Μάρσαλ αν ωστόσο κάποιος προσέξει τη βαθύτερη λογική αυτών των αναλύσεων παρακάμπτοντας πολλές επιφανειακές λεπτομέρειες, ίσως βρει ένα εργαλείο που επιτρέπει να καταλάβουμε, αναδρομικά, ποια ήταν η φύση των μηχανισμών αναδιανομής που χαρακτήριζαν το κεϋνσιανό μοντέλο οικονομίας το οποίο εφάρμοζαν απαρεγκλίτως τα δυτικά κράτη όλη τη μεταπολεμική περίοδο, ποια ακριβώς σημασία είχε η εγκατάλειψή τους από τα μέσα της δεκαετίας του 1970 και γιατί, ενόψει αυτού και ιδίως μετά το τέλος των ψυχροπολεμικών ισορρoπιών, ήταν αναπόφευκτη η πιο καταστροφική πορεία του παγκόσμιου καπιταλισμού της οποίας γινόμαστε μάρτυρες σήμερα, στην πρώτη δεκαετία του εικοστού πρώτου αιώνα.

Genres: Philosophy, Economics, Theory, Nonfiction, Anthropology, Sociology, Politics

211 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1949

About the author

French essayist, philosophical theorist, and novelist, often called the "metaphysician of evil." Bataille was interested in sex, death, degradation, and the power and potential of the obscene. He rejected traditional literature and considered that the ultimate aim of all intellectual, artistic, or religious activity should be the annihilation of the rational individual in a violent, transcendental act of communion. Roland Barthes, Julia Kristeva, and Philippe Sollers have all written enthusiastically about his work.

Reviews

[Maxwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Georges Bataille’s book of, um, ‘political economy’ begins “That as a rule an organism has at its disposal greater energy resources than are necessary for the operations that sustain life [...] is evident from functions like growth and reproduction” and follows this energy surplus of the terrestrial-host animal through to its dissolution “willingly or not, gloriously or catastrophically”. We receive more energy from the sun than can be spent productively; so it must be expelled unproductively. Bataille asserts with characteristic puissance that the excess of energy & the onanistic inferno of its disposal is the primary process which pulsates through economic systems and activates productive forces--rather than demand, capital, labour power, etc. This doesn’t necessarily contradict orthodox theories of the market but insists that we understand them as epiphenomenal functions to a solar metaphysics of thermodynamic circulation.

The energy surplus itself is ‘The Accursed Share’ because its disposal is a volatile process; for every beneficent carnival, potlatch and festival amid tight-knit social bonds, there is also opulent religious wastefulness, human sacrifice and the evil wars of bloodthirsty empires--special mention to WWI and WWII. And this ritual euthanasia of unspent energy is not merely primary to our survival; disbursal of the explosive plethora of solar residue flows into joy, art, eroticism and transcendence. There is quite a lot of historical / anthropological data used to support the slightly exorbitant claims, which are impossible to prove but interesting to observe in context. Still, for all its research, The Accursed Share will never be taught in an economics class and cannot be arbitrated except by the stiffest criteria of falsifiability--which would be seriously missing the point.

Bataille brought this to speed with the contemporary post-war environment and you could continue to do so long after his death. Think of our depraved piracy of smaller nations, seizing the glut of resources interred there; energy sources converted into a surfeit of corpulent exuberance which are binged to resource our next imperial adventure. Only slightly further afield, think of modern consumerism, proxy / drone warfare and, I would say, certain developments in technology; nanotech, automation, the AI singularity and other shades of posthuman silicone-fetishism may be the final jailbreak of the accursed share.

My only gripe is stylistic. The sentences are really choppy in some places, flip flopping between clauses arbitrarily, an infelicity which frustrated me with Eroticism and Literature and Evil. I don’t know if this is a problem with the translations or is being faithfully reproduced from Bataille’s French--but the translations of his literary works, especially The Story of the Eye, are very lyrical and pleasant to read (on the level of style anyway...) So what gives?

[sologdin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Weary of “analyzing the complexities of a crisis of overproduction” (13), one of the standard exercises of restrictive economy, Bataille’s libertine interest alights on so-called general economy, “tracing the exhausting detours of exuberance through eating, death, and sexual reproduction” (id.). This sounds promising:

The living organism, in a situation determined by the play of energy on the surface of the globe, ordinarily receives more energy than is necessary for maintaining life; the excess energy (wealth) can be used for growth of a system (e.g., an organism); if the system can no longer grow, or if the excess cannot be completely absorbed in its growth, it must necessarily be lost without profit; it must be spent, willingly or not, gloriously or catastrophically. (21)

That last refers us both to Agamben’s discussion of glory in Homo Sacer V and to Dutt’s discussion of destructive waste in Fascism and Social Revolution. As it turns out, war is only the most obvious form of the necessary waste of surplus, and the remainder of the book details different solutions to the problem of excess.

We see a smithian confrontation of the wealth of nations against the theory of moral sentiments in how “the extension of economic growth itself requires the overturning of economic principles – the overturning of the ethics that grounds them. Changing from the perspective of restrictive economy to those of general economy actually accomplishes a Copernican transformation: a reversal of thinking – and of ethics” (25). That is,

if a part of wealth (subject to a rough estimate) is doomed to destruction or at least to unproductive use without any possible profit, it is logical, even inescapable, to surrender commodities without return. Henceforth, leaving aside pure and simple dissipation, analogous to the construction of the Pyramids, the possibility of pursuing growth is itself subordinated to giving: The industrial development of the entire world demands of Americans that they lucidly grasp the necessity, for an economy such as theirs, of having a margin of profitless operations. (25-26)

Bataille wants to acknowledge “the dual origin of moral judgments”: whereas at one point “value was given to unproductive glory” now “it is measured in terms of production” (29). In that context, “The history of life on earth is mainly the effect of a wild exuberance; the dominant event is the development of luxury, the production of increasingly burdensome forms of life” (33). We see some left politics in his insistence nevertheless that protest against wealth is made in the name of ‘justice’ (38), which is placed into opposition with ‘freedom’; however, “General economy suggests, therefore, as a correct operation, a transfer of American wealth to India without reciprocation” (40). The argument proceeds through chapters that analyze paired mechanisms of handling a general surplus.

The first pair is Native American sacrifice versus potlatch. The Aztecs’ “wars were created ‘so that there would be people whose hearts and blood could be taken so that the sun might eat.’” (49). The Aztecs were nevertheless “not a military society” (54)—“A truly military society is a venture society, for which war means a development of power, an orderly progression of empire” (id.). It is by contrast “a relatively mild society; it makes custom of the rational principles of enterprise, whose purpose is given in the future, and it excludes the madness of sacrifice. There is nothing more contrary to military organization that these squanderings of wealth represented by hecatombs of slaves” (54-55). (cf. Horkheimer in Eclipse of Reason.) Sacrifices are “surplus taken from the mass of useful wealth. And he can only be withdrawn from it in order to be consumed profitlessly, and therefore utterly destroyed. Once chosen, he is the accursed share, destined for violent consumption” (59).

By contrast with sacrifice is potlatch: “one of the functions of the sovereign, of the ‘chief of men,’ who had immense riches at his disposal, was to indulge in ostentatious squander” (63)—involving festivals that were “an outpouring not only of blood but also of wealth” (64). “The gift that one made of it was a sign of glory, and the object itself had the radiance of glory” (65). “Classical economy imagined the first exchanges in the form of barter. Why would it have thought in the beginning a mode of acquisition such as exchange had not answered the need to lose or squander?” (67). “Potlach is, like commerce, a means of circulating wealth, but it excludes bargaining” (67). Aside from gift-giving, it also takes the form of “a rival is challenged by a solemn destruction of riches” (68): “If he destroyed the object in solitude, in silence, no sort of power would result from the act; there would not be anything for the subject but a separation from power without any compensation” (69 ). This leads to the inference that ”present-day society is a huge counterfeit, where this truth of wealth has underhandedly slipped into extreme poverty”—“a genuine luxury requires the complete contempt for riches” (76).

The next pair is Islam versus Buddhism. As a higher development, Islam is noted for its “generally despotic nature of sovereignty” (82), which works itself ultimately in war, which is permanent (84): “for Mohammed the great holy war is not that of the Moslem against the infidel but that of the renunciation one must engage in against oneself” (83). The pre-Islamic moment featured “ostentatious giving and squandering,” and we “infer the existence of a ritual form of potlatch from a prescription of the Koran: ‘do not give in order to have more’ (LXXIV 6),” as well as “bloody sacrifices” (85). Bataille connects plainly “the pre-islamic arabs” with his prior analysis, insofar as they “had not reached the stage of military enterprise any more than the Aztecs had,” both of which have “ways of life [eidos zoe, of course]” consistent with “a society of consumption” (86). The “pietism of primitive islam” deserves study along Weberian lines because of “the pietist way of thinking in the origins and development of capitalism” (86). This system allowed for a conflation of all functions: “the religious leader was at the same time the legislator, the judge, and the military chief. One cannot imagine a more rigorously unified community” (88), about which Bataille comments: “it was an admirable machinery. Military order replaced the anarchy of rival clans, and individual resources, no longer consumed wastefully, went into the service of the armed community” (88). And yet it lacks “Christ’s death on the cross or to Buddha’s rapture of annihilation” (90): “As soon as Islam ceased, because of its victories, to be a rigorous devotion of vital forces to growth, it remained nothing but an empty, rigid framework” (90).

One difficulty is that this rigid framework has no morality of its own but rather “adopted a morality that pre-existed it” (93). Not so in Buddhism: “In a humanity everywhere prepared to start a war, Tibet is paradoxically an enclave of peaceful civilization, incapable of attacking others or defending itself” (93). Tibet thus became “the same thing as the monasteries” (104); in Tibet, there was

a total of 250 to 500 thousand religious persons out of a population of 4 to 5 million”; “the total revenue of the government of Lhasa in 1917 […] was approximately 720,000 [pounds] yearly. Of that amount, the budget of the army was 150,000. That of the administration was 400,000. Of the remainder, an appreciable share was set aside by the Dalai Lama for the religious expenditures of the government. But in addition to these government expenditures, […] the revenues spent yearly by the clergy (income from property holdings of the monasteries, gifts, and payments for religious services) was well over 1,000,000. Thus in theory the total budget of the Church would have been twice as large as that of the state, eight times that of the army. (105)

The rationale thus for Tibet’s development: “Monasticism is a mode of expenditure of the excess that Tibet undoubtedly did not discover, but elsewhere it was given a place alongside other outlets. In Central Asia the extreme solution consisted in giving the monastery all the excess” (108), “a closed container” (id.). Perhaps he is enamored of the radical implications: “the lamic enlightenment morally realized the essence of consumption, which is to open, to give, to lose, and which brushes calculations aside” (109). And then there’s the great historical irony that the Tibetan system spread to Mongolia at the end of the sixteenth century,” a “denouement of the history of Central Asia” (109)—“totalitarian monasticism answers the need to stop the growth of a closed system” (id.).

The third set of opposed pairs is Calvinism versus Marxism. “Calvinism’s zone of influence […] roughly corresponds to the areas of industrial development. Luther formulated a naïve, half-peasant revolt. Calvin expressed the aspirations of the middle class of the commercial cities; his reactions were those of a jurist familiar with business matters” (115). For the medieval economy, “its basic principle was the subordination of productive activity to the laws of Christian morality” (117). The Calvinist ideal by contrast was “an economic world independent of the service of the clerics and the nobles, having its autonomy and its own laws as part of nature, is alien to the thought of the middle ages” (id.). In the old system, “the seller must part with merchandise at the just price. The just price is defined by the possibility of ensuring the subsistence of the providers” (id.)—“In a sense, this is the labor value of Marxism,” and one might see “Marx as the ‘last of the scholastics’” (id.). Usury is unlawful because it “would make time pay, and time, unlike space, was said to be god’s domain and not that of men” (id.). Calvinism “gives precedence in the use of the available resources to the expansion of enterprises and the increase of capital equipment; in other words, it prefers an increase of wealth to its immediate use” (119). In its war against luxury, Calvinism draws certain concordances: “idleness, the pyramid, or alcohol have the advantage of consuming without a return – without a profit – the resources that they use: they simply satisfy us; they correspond to an unnecessary choice that we make of them” (id.) – aesthetics management as non-production? Overall, Calvin “was to the bourgeoisie of his time what Marx was to the proletariat of ours” (123).

After Protestantism, Marxism, “which inherited its rigor, and gave a precise form to disorderly impulses, denies even more than Calvinism a tendency of man to look for himself directly when he acts: it resolutely excludes the foolishness of sentimental action” (134)—describing precisely “what Calvin had merely outlined, a radical independence of things (of the economy) in relation to other (religious or, generally, affective) concerns” (135): “Marx’s originality in this regard lies in his wanting to achieve a moral result only negatively, by the elimination of material obstacles” (id.). Marx however presents “less the completion of Calvinism than a critique of capitalism” (136); “capitalism in a sense is an unreserved surrender to things, heedless of consequences” (136). The problem as diagnosed by Marx: “to the extent that mankind is in complicity with the bourgeoisie (on the whole that is), it vaguely consents to be nothing more (as mankind) than a thing” (138). This means that capitalism generalized the reification of the medieval system wherein “wealth was unevenly distributed between those who manifested the accepted values, in the name of which wealth was wasted, and those furnished the wasted labor” (139); the aristocrats “claimed not to be things, but the quality of thinghood, verbal protests notwithstanding, fell squarely on the worker” (id.). The objection is accordingly that “one cannot expect to liberate man by going to the limit of the possibilities of things and nonetheless leave free, as capitalism does, those who have no other reason for being than the negation of work, which is base, in favor of more elevated activities” (140).

The final opposition is Stalinism versus the Marshall Plan. Some notes follow in opposition to Stalinism, doctrinally: “Stalinism is not at all the analogue of Hitlerism; on the contrary, it is not a national but an imperial socialism” (151)—“a universal state that would put an end to the economic and military anarchy of the present age,” the Soviet Union “is a framework in which any nation can be inserted” (id.). Normally, leftwing politics feature “a greater share of wealth devoted to nonproductive expenditure” (154)--“whence the paradox of a proletariat forced to impose its will inflexibly on itself, to renounce life in order to make life possible” (156). That is, “Stalinist policy is the rigorous—very rigorous—response to an organized economic necessity, which actually calls for extreme rigor […] the strangest thing is that it is judged to be terroristic and thermidorian at the same time” (165). Ultimately, “the current system of the USSR, being geared for producing the means of production, runs counter to the workers’ movement of other countries, the effect of which tends to reduce the production of capital equipment, increasing the objects of consumption” (167).

In order to fight the left, “The Marshall Plan offers an organization of surplus against the accumulation of the Stalin plans”’ (173), though it “is intended to remedy the balance of payments deficit of the European nations vis-à-vis the United States” (174): it became “necessary to deliver goods without payment: it was necessary to give away the product of labor” (175). In the post-war world, “the Bretton woods agreements gave a precise definition to the impasse of the international economy”—“it had to renounce its founding principles, or, in order to maintain them, renounce the conditions without which it could not continue to exist” (177). Cf. Horkheimer: “it is the paradox of the capitalist economy that it is oblivious to general ends, which give it meaning and value, and that it is never able to go beyond the limits of the isolated end” (177). And yet the wheel is come full circle, insofar as capitalists are bound together to sacrifice against their own apocalypse.

[Lukáš · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is generally acknowledged as an attempt at articulating a major theory of political economy out of Nietzsche's ideas with a lethal dose of clarity. First, however, this is a very "Heideggerian" Nietzsche (though, no surprise as Heidegger's work was the only major systematic apprehension of Nietzsche's philosophy at the time). Heidegger's claim that for Nietzsche, nihilism defines some kind of a-historical key to understanding all of Western history seems to me to be reproduced in its entirety (and fallibility), by suggesting that the economy has its own 'will to nothingness'. (Some of the most interesting ideas, further explored in volumes II and III is a kind of positing of Heidegger's 'cleared' stage of authentic, pre-metaphysical knowledge as refigured through the Hegelian concept of totality, certainly used in a much more "french" way, thus building up a kind of historical ontology of the material world, as dependent on the symbolic order of the economy.) What is less Heideggerian is a setting up of a dialectic of production and consumption that is materialized in the concept of 'excess' that comes up with its own historical and peculiar incarnations. I'd say that as much as Mick Dillon's book "Security" uses the concept of security to suggest there is a much richer 'lifeworld' of politics that we can start to see if we handle (that is, deconstruct) the term properly, here the same could count with respect to the use of 'excess' (that as well borders on the now somewhat deflated concept of 'affect') as a key to our economic imagination. EDIT: Having read more Bataille, I no longer think this is really the case, and I no longer think (based on texts prior to the Accursed Share, where some of the differences are stated [for example, a footnote to Method on Meditation]) that Heidegger marks as much influence on his thought as I did before. I actually think that the Nietzsche here is quite different from Heidegger's interpretation on some major and important points (I don't think any more that Bataille's thinking is nihilistic in terms of the usual binary of 'active' and 'passive' nihilism, but it can be refigured as a kind of 'radical' or 'perfect' nihilism). I think that comparison to Dillon's book "politics of security" I've made before are however quite correct, as indeed, the book gives us a richer, deeper and nuanced (i.e. 'extended') view of what we view as the Economy.
Last, the chapters on Bataille's own views of the Cold War and Soviet Communism / Stalinism are to me a fascinating way of suggesting that the Communist imagination (conventionally understood) of the economy reproduces the same fallacy and narrow understanding of the economy in the form of an obsession with 'primitive' accumulation (in Bataille's own words). The nicest thing about Bataille, however, is, that despite his fallacies and his own 'brand' of nihilism, this conceptual system allows for its own broadening and corrections without a need of falsifying. A major and badly 'overlooked' book.

[michal k-c · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bataille gets absolutely lost in the sauce by the end of this volume but that’s alright i’m still one of his biggest defenders... all this has me thinking about the gamestop stock, have any Bataille scholars written analysis on meme stocks

[Michael A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The overall thesis of the book seems to me to be that as organisms we get more energy than we need (surplus, excess) and must (profitlessly, needlessly, uselessly) expend this excess and that while other theories of economy focus on production, his "general economy" focuses on this expenditure/consumption. Everything in this book seems to build off these ideas and it goes in pretty bizarre directions. The chapters on the Aztecs and Soviet Industrialization were very good. The last section of the last chapter talks about "self-consciousness" and how it is a different kind of consciousness because it is not a consciousness OF anything, but of "pure interiority". He likens this not yet realized development as the equivalent of the transition from animality to humanity. He also admits it associates him with mysticism. It was a very strange ending and I can't say I totally understood where he was going with it or if I'm even interpreting it right! Still a really enjoyable read and I'm interested to read volumes 2 and 3.

Re-read Update 4/22/21:

So I still like this book a lot but I often felt like he was losing the thread of his argument in certain places, or more probably, I just didn't understand what exactly he was doing. Particularly in the Islamism and Lamaism chapters, I didn't really see the point of what he was doing. It kind of becomes a bit of a slog to read while simultaneously being oblique. It seems to me that he is really just building upon the central thesis of the book (the sun gives more energy than we need, and we are pressured by forces of life to either use it productively or expend it uselessly whether willingly or not) but I felt myself unsure of where he was going with the details of certain chapters.

The Marshall Plan chapter is totally nuts and kind of funny. I don't know enough history or economics to say if he was right about it. But the self-consciousness stuff is interesting... Bataille really is just working through various binaries in his work (which aren't oppositions per se, but are co-present and make the other possible, i.e. a dialectical relationship) and in this one its restricted/general economy. His thought is pretty decentered, but I don't think it's hugely controversial to say that pretty much all of his writing is concerned with violence and how it's a sort of necessary evil. The Accursed Share shows that this excess energy must be expended. Sometimes it is expended "gloriously" like in festival, other times "catastrophically" like in war.

Despite the details I can't really pick up on, this book (and his thought in general) really is fascinating and I think it is worth taking seriously. The way I have been thinking about Bataille recently is that he is really thematizing and taking up Dionysian excess originally brought up by Nietzsche (after all, Bataille is, if anything, a Nietzschean).

[Aung Sett Kyaw Min · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a somewhat paradoxical book of speculative anthropology. Bataille warns us right from the start that acquisition of knowledge can only consummate itself in the annihilation of the object of knowledge.

This curious observation follows from the fact of what he calls "general economy" (as opposed to particular or resticted economy such as the capitalist economy, presupposing scarcity) that "use" is subservient to the ends beyond it, namely, useless or nonproductive expenditure/loss/. From the viewpoint of general economy, the founding axiom is excess, not scarcity. The Sun is the model for this economy.

So if accumulation must ultimately terminate in pure expenditure, does the same law apply to the very knowledge one acquires of the torturous circulation of solar energy on the terrestrial surface and its ultimate fate, in otther words, precisely the knowledge supplied by the book?

Despite this practical impasse, Bataille insists that Man can no longer afford to be ignorant of the volatile gift of solar energy which throbs and pulsates in excess of the use he can make of it, and learn to dispose of this excess on "his own terms" (excess does not accumulate until all the available space for the growth of the system is saturated). We must find if not invent sacred outlets to dissipate this built-up of excess.

Failure to carry out this urgent task of "glorious operation...useless consumption" (interestingly enough, Bataille sees inklings of the so called general approach in historical Bretton Woods Agreement and Marshall Plan) will result in nothing less than our annihilation.

There is enough anthropological data/statistics to support the general thrust of Bataille's argumentation in this book, but many of his rather brilliantly provocative claims are decisively non-empirical in character. This book will interest anyone looking for heteredox interventions into mainstream economics.

[Tosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A combination of the Erotic with the Economic. How does Georges Bataille combine the two. One of the most original thinkers in contemporary (20th Century) literature. Bataille not only sees economy as a means to exchange goods but also the the extras that are there and how one uses the 'extras'. The excess of power, exchange, and perhaps love itself. Difficult at times, but also incredibly rewarding.

A good introduction to Bataille's work is for sure his fiction (The Story of the Eye, etc.) but that's not really enough. It is like reading just the noir novels of Boris Vian - you need to read everything by this man to get a complete picture of who and what he is. And that is a very rewarding journey my friends.

[Darren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bataille's philosophy of History. Totally cogent and elegant. More legible than his theories of erotics.

[Miloš · Rating 4 out of 5]

Žrtva je, uzeta u masi korisnog bogatstva, višak. Ona odatle može biti izvučena samo da bi bila potrošena bez dobiti, prema tome, zauvek uništena. Ona je, čim je izabrana, prokleti deo, namenjen nasilnoj potrošnji. (61)

Od svih zamislivih luksuza, smrt je, u svom sudbonosnom i neumitnom vidu, svakako najskuplji. Krhkost životinjskog tela, njegova složenost, već izlažu njegov luksuzni smisao, ali ta krhkost i luksuz kulminiraju u smrti. Ona neprestano ostavlja mesto za dolazak novorođenih, a mi nepravedno proklinjemo onu bez koje nas ne bi bilo. (32)

[M · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not gonna be a long review here, because I think I'll need to read Volumes 2 and 3 before I can really say I understood this book.

Bataille's general economy is based on a simple premise: the Earth receives essentially unlimited energy from the sun. Living beings use this energy to grow and compete with each other, but humans specifically can use this energy to accumulate wealth, that is, capital, or whatever you want to call it. The problem is that there is always what Bataille calls "the accursed share"--the surplus of energy that is destined to be squandered wastefully. Earlier societies engaged in grand festivals of sacrifice or ostentatious gift-exchanges, but nowadays, what with all our modern industry and lack of interest in eating one another, we're poised to squander the excess by exterminating each other in grand acts of war instead, unless we come up with an alternative solution.

What makes it hard to judge this text is, ultimately, the fact that I can't tell if Bataille is being serious about his proposed solution, which is basically to look to raise everybody's living standards and redistribute wealth instead of directing economic activity towards profit/accumulation of military weapons. The idea that a radical economy of solar flux and Dionysian excess gives way to a feeble endorsement of social-democratic globalism rubs me up the wrong way, even if the idea is nice. After all, does this not just kick the problem of accumulation down the road? There's no way that states will sit in peaceful equilibrium (or "dynamic peace", by which Bataille means that everyone is scared of fighting each other because they'll all die) forever. Human error, or just good old-fashioned irrationality, or the contingencies of nature, guarantee that things eventually break down.

However, just as the book was winding up, leaving me with a vague sense of disgust and disappointment, the final line seemed to suggest that Bataille was in on the joke.

"In the end, everything falls into place and takes up its assigned role. Today Truman would appear to be blindly preparing for the final - and secret - apotheosis. But that is obviously an illusion. More open, the mind discerns, instead of an antiquated teleology, the truth that silence alone does not betray."

So then, what is that truth? Could it be that we ourselves are the excess to be spent? That we are the accursed share?

[Caspar "moved to storygraph" Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

It seems that this one is a big deal for a lot of the postmodernists. Bataille is shy in the preface about writing on political economy, and the text reads beautifully - possibly due to his literary background and possibly because I've been stabbing at Hegel lately so most things are easier.

I think this text is the best generalisation of Bataille's work (at least so far as I have read). I prefer Erotism as a stand-alone text, and it's still my favourite of the bunch. But this text is entirely worth heading to directly.

The anthropological mid-section is mixed. The Aztec series is by far the best that I've read from GB, but the Islam/Lamaism section is lacking. Impressed by the insight during the USSR section, especially given the time of writing - could be better, but I think justified overall.

Neato

[Woke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ritual sacrifice, potlatches, conquest, festivals, opulence and luxury, lavish public works--avenues through which given social formations must expend their surpluses or risk descending into famine, imperial wars, genocide, mass unemployment, etc. Focusing on consumption in this first volume, Bataille traces societal mechanisms of expenditure through their archaic, medieval, capitalist and communist iterations and offers a model of a solar economy based on excess rather than scarcity.
Bataille's prose here is lucid, lacking the sometimes overwrought style of some of his earlier work on eroticism.

[Neal Spadafora · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alright, alright. I've now read this book three times. Here is a very comprehensive (and I think quite valuable!) summary:

This is an essay on the general economy, a term Bataille uses to designate how human societies are continuous with and similar to organic matter. Like the sun, which dispenses energy without return and thus gives earth an excess energy that is destroyed, the general economy abides by the same drive towards destruction of excess. Rather than narrowly studying, as economists do, the economy of a country or the price of wheat, Bataille examines how human societies and organic matter produce more wealth (energy) than can be usefully expended. Provocatively, Bataille regards his study as “holding the key to all the problems concerned with the movement of energy on earth—from geophysics to political economy, by way of sociology, history and biology” (10) Otherwise put, Bataille contends that human societies are significantly, if not principally, characterized by how they non-productively expend excess energy. Indeed, as Bataille provocatively states, “the choice [for systems] is limited to how the wealth is to be squandered” (23).

Bataille’s notion that societies non-productively expend energy is thus the focus of his subsequent studies on sex, religion, and war. Concerned with the non-(re)productive aspects of sex, Bataille claims animal sexual reproduction is “the occasion of a sudden and frantic squan¬dering of energy resources” that “goes far beyond what would be sufficient for the growth of the species” (35). That is, the drive to grow and reproduce the species is inevitably, inescapably, and necessarily undermined by a drive that non-productively expends excess energy and resources.

Such is the drive that Bataille designates as the inscrutable “accursed share.” This curse, for Bataille, in another Hegelian move, “cannot be lifted if the movement from which it emanates does not appear clearly in consciousness… what it aims at is consciousness, what it looks to from the outset is the self-consciousness that man would finally achieve in the lucid vision of its linked historical forms” (40-41). This self-consciousness Bataille later defines as “the return of being to full and irreducible sovereignty,” it is the full possession of intimacy (189). In yet another Hegelian move, Bataille states that is movement is far from being equal to itself (45). However, in a manner that is directly opposite of Hegel, “the man who is relatively idle or at least unconcerned about his achieve¬ments… helps us to gauge that which we lack” (46). Rather than the assertive man who actively leaves (yet in so doing constitutes) the family, enters civil society, undergoes his own Bildung, and thus gains consciousness of himself and age, it is the idle and passive man who illuminates this general movement of history. Moreover, we experience death, according to Bataille, first as a negation of ourselves and then, in a sudden reversal, as the profound moment of which life is the manifestation (35). Further yet, like Hegel’s idea of the absolute’s movement that retains that which it cancels, Bataille notes that “History ceaselessly records the cessation, then the resumption of growth” (106). Marx flipped Hegel on his head, now it’s Bataille’s turn.

Crucially, the squandering of excess energy can either be glorious or catastrophic. For Bataille, death is the most wasteful and catastrophic of all expenditures. While warmongers may insist that their ends are rational and conducive to a set of desirable political outcomes, Bataille notes that the killing of people, of would-be useful laborers, is the climax of non-productive expenditure. War, states Bataille, “consigns men and their works to catastrophic destructions. For if we do not have the force to destroy the surplus energy ourselves, it cannot be used, and, like an unbroken animal that cannot be trained, it is this energy that destroys us; it is we who pay the price of the inevitable explosion” (24). Indeed, Bataille has in mind how booming industry in the early 20th century lead to an excess that was non-productively expended in war. In lieu of directing non-productive expenditure in such a way that is glorious, such as gift-giving, luxury (as seen in eating, death, and sex) leisure, or squandering, war uses the excess energy of human societies to partake in the costliest of expenditures. In gift giving, for example, the article of exchange was seen to not belong to the order of things (65). These exchanges, per Bataille, were far from present day commercial practices (67). Regarding the potlatch, Bataille’s point is that a good amount of our behaviors are reducible to its laws.

Importantly, the general economy is a ‘general movement of life’ with a logic of its own (34). In Bataille’s remarks on the Aztecs, he recalls his definition of religion from Theory of Religion as the search for lost intimacy and notes that the executioners of the victims in Aztec culture experienced momentary intimacy. This intimacy of the sacrifice, of death, is the unconscious and destructive experience of the sacred (51-52). Why is this the case? Because “Sacrifice restores to the sacred world that which servile use has degraded, rendered profane. Servile use has made a thing (an object) of that which, in a deep sense, is of the same nature as the subject, is in a relation of intimate participation with the subject” (55). Whereas the world of things had been introduced by labor, sacrifice and non-productive expenditure represent a search for lost intimacy (57).

Bataille argues that the one who expends energy non-productively and/or consumes energy uselessly is sovereign. In the case of war, the general is sovereign. However, in the case of ethical life, the one who expends their energy non-productively is sovereign in such a way that productive expenditure of energy is not. The sovereign, for Bataille, choses how energy is squandered. Indeed, Bataille’s fascination with sacrifice and the sacred are demonstrative of his idea of sovereignty. Expending energy non-productively is at once Bataille’s idea of the sacred and the means (which have no ends) through which sovereignty is practiced. Running against the profane grain of work and production, non-productive expenditure, epitomized in the act of sacrificing excess wealth and energy, demarcates a sacred sphere of experience. As Bataille notes, “sacrifice restores to the sacred world that which servile use has degraded, rendered profane” (55). Useless consumption and the squandering of excess energy are how societies and individuals can and do experience the sacred world outside of the profane world of production.

As a scholar of religion, I found his theorizing on Tibetan Buddhism (in which the excess wealth of society was non-productively directed towards and preserved by a large class of monks), the Reformation, and Islam to be fascinating and troubling. Bataille thoughtfully shows how Calvin was a spokesperson for the upper-middle class bourgeois of Geneva. In advocating for the virtue of business (i.e., the charging of interest and profit-seeking) and the saintliness of all labor, Calvin, for Bataille, ironically profanes all of life. As Bataille states of Calvin: “The decisions to rescue divine glory from the compromises in which the Church had placed it could not have had a more radical consequence than the relegation of mankind to gloryless activity” (124). In one move, Calvin condemned luxury and idleness and praised enterprise. Similarly, capitalism and Protestantism alike prefer the increase of wealth to its immediate use (119). Indeed, according to Bataille, the Reformation’s critique of Rome is epitomized in the Reformers’ (especially Calvin’s) reduction of morality to commerce. Though I’m not sure if Bataille is correct in his estimation that Middle Age economic practices were not mirrored in Papal ordinances, I do agree with Bataille that Calvinism symbolically profaned the world and divinely sanctioned a burgeoning capitalism. The originality in Bataille’s understanding of capitalism and Calvinism is that both are not strictly involved in thrift and rational expenditure, but inevitably tends towards non-productive expenditure of excess energy—and the danger of both capitalism and Calvinism (insofar as we can always distinguish between the two) is that the agents of both camps are unaware of such non-productive expenditure.

Notably, Bataille sees similarities between Calvinism and Marxism. Namely, Bataille holds that those who presume that action, that is, work, will liberate themselves from the world subordinate themselves to the realm of things. The proletariat, for Bataille, “readily accepts being finally reduced, by the work of liberation, to the condition of a thing” (141).

Bataille sees the shift from pre-Islamic Arabic tribal societies of non-productive expenditure to a religious-military machine of conquest that oriented all excess expenditure towards the enemy as a shift from tribal sovereignty of oneself to calculative reasoning and expenditure. Reading Charles Bells’ book on the 13th Dalai Lama alongside the longer of Tibet, Bataille sees Tibetan practices that orient excess not towards preparation for impending war, but a dumping of all excess into the contemplative life (109). For the Tibetans, “life was its own end” (109).

In the truest sense of the phrase, this a good book. Though mistakes, oversights, and confusions occur in the text, such as a latent Orientalism in Bataille’s analysis of Islam, the thesis of the book is at each turn substantiated and proven. Moreover, Bataille is one of the few who has shown how his study of ‘political economy’ is different than a study of ‘economics.’ Many Marxists insist that they study ‘political economy,’ but fail to distinguish how this is any different than what Smith and Ricardo were studying ‘economics.’ However, Bataille breaks with the economists and demonstrates what it means to think broadly about the general economy.

[Petra · Rating 5 out of 5]

What can I say, masterpiece.

[Will Horton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of whacky stuff in here. I understood about 5% of it. I’m definitely a stronger reader now, though.

[Ava Jax]

Read this over two 7-hour reads, which was ideal for grasping the underpinnings without getting too bogged down in the weeds of his often, problematic, anthropological analyses.

Upon first glance I thought "wow this feels a lot like Society of the Spectacle" and yup they were were both French continental philosophers alive in the mid 20th century who wrote critique of political economy. Thank you Wikipedia (insert joke about the French here). However, I find what Bataille has to say to be a lot more compelling, or maybe more interesting, than Debord (sorry you big Guy-heads out there). The way this book engages the idea of energy, aiming to connect the vitalism of excess into, what to me, is a spirituality of capitalism. The goal is to attain a more cohesive understanding energy in 'consumption' and 'excess', bridging to a language of "general economy". He operates on the assumption that human systems inherently create an energy 'surplus' that must either expel the excess or accumulate(a la primitive accumulation). Where Society of the Spectacle feels like a book for semiotics, The Accursed Share feels like a book for economics.

But even without attempting to put Bataille into dialogue with Debord, there is a lot going on here. The philosophical, anthropological, economical, and spiritual work being done in this book stretches a long thread. Quite honestly, I would be curious to see how we hold up this work with (I'm hoping and assuming) better, present-day anthropological interpretations of ancient rituals of sacrifice. This book is very colonial and Eurocentric, but that may be where Bataille is best kept?? Idk?? Pulling this all out of my ass at 1am, however, I don't think we should be looking to a French ex-tax collector for opinions on non-western sacrifice rituals, but perhaps we can let him articulate capital accumulation well for us.

I am skeptical of, yet thoroughly enjoyed this book the way I do many Nietzschean works. Good times tbh.

[jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love complimenting people. Sometimes you can sense what someone is really proud of.

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though Bataille continues to deal with religion and ritual in this book, his concerns are more classically Anthropological than in Theory of Religion (population growth, scarcity, social structure etc.). The project he sets out in the introductory chapters is the development of
a "general economy": a system that not only accounts for the
development and exchange of goods, but of all energy on the Earth. From the perspective of general economy, life is a terrific excess that cannot be fully utilized due to the limits of growth and reproduction. Instead of this excess building up pressure (as in a closed container) and exploding, it is instead squandered, as heat for example, and disposed of in a "useless" manner. The accursed share is this remainder that escapes utility yet is always present. Through the examination of historical data, Bataille proposes that the definitive structure of human cultures can be found in how they deal with this primary excess.

[serin · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Bütün olarak bir toplum daima geçinebilmesi için gerekenden fazlasını üretir, bir fazlalığa sahiptir. Onu belirleyen de özellikle bu fazlayı kullanma tarzıdır. Fazlalık, hareketliliklerin, yapı değişiminin ve bütün tarihin nedenidir. Ama birden çok çözüm vardır yolu vardır ve büyüme bunların en sıradanıdır."

"Ben genel olarak bir büyümenin olmadığı, yalnızca bütün biçimleriyle lüks bir enerji israfının olduğu üzerinde ısrarla duruyorum! Yeryüzünde yaşamın tarihi easesen çılgınca bir taşkınlığın tarihidir: Egemen olay, lüksün gelişmesidir, giderek daha masraflı yaşam biçimleri üretimidir."

[Kaplumbağa Felsefecisi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bir iktisat kitabı denilebilir. Bir hoca ile konuşmamda bana söylediği şuydu, "Sosyal bilimler ve iletişim aslında iktisattan beslenir." Ben bu beslenmeyi çok anlamlandıramamıştım. Bu kitap beni buna yordu denilebilir ama pek de (kendi adıma) başarılı olduğu söylenemez. Çok uzağında okumalar yaptığım için olsa gerek diyerek çekilebilirim aradan...

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE FRENCH WRITER PRODUCES A WORK OF "POLITICAL ECONOMY"?

Georges Albert Maurice Victor Bataille (1897-1962) was a French philosopher, novelist, and literary critic (and a librarian by profession).

He wrote in the Preface to this 1949 book, "For some years, being obliged on occasion to answer the question, `What are you working on?' I was embarrassed to have to say, `A book of political economy.' Coming from me, this venture was disconcerting, at least to those who did not know me well. (The interest that is usually conferred on my books is of a literary sort and this was doubtless to be expected: One cannot as a matter of fact class them in a pre-defined genre.) ... I had to add that the book I was writing ... did not consider the matter the way qualified economists do, that I had a point of view from which a human sacrifice, the construction of a church or the gift of a jewel were no less interesting than the sale of wheat. In short, I had to try in vain to make the notion of a `general economy' in which the `expenditure'... of wealth, rather than production, was the primary object."

He continues, "If one has the patience, and the courage, to read my book, one will see that it contains studies conducted according to the rules of a reason that does not relent, and solutions to political problems deriving from a traditional wisdom, but one will also find in it this affirmation: `that the sexual act is in time what the tiger is in space.' The comparison follows from considerations of energy economy that leave no room for poetic fantasy... the perspectives where such truths appear are those in which more general propositions... according to which it is not necessity but its contrary, `luxury,' that presents living matter and mankind with their fundamental problem." (Pg. 11-12)

He states, "I insist on the fact that there is generally no growth but only a luxurious squandering of energy in every form! The history of life on earth is mainly the effect of a wild exuberance; the dominant event is the development of luxury, the production of increasingly burdensome forms of life." (Pg. 33)

He asserts, "One would not arrive at the real cause in this instance if one did not first perceive the general law of economy: On the whole a society always produces more than is necessary for its survival; it has a surplus at its disposal. It is precisely the use it makes of the surplus that determines it: The surplus is the cause of the agitation, of the structural changes and of the entire history of society. But the surplus has more than one outlet, the most common of which is growth... Thwarted, demographic growth becomes military; it is forced to engage in conquest. Once the military limit is reached, the surplus has the sumptuary forms of religion as an outlet, along with the games and spectacles that derive therefrom, or personal luxury." (Pg. 106)

He argues, "What is sadly forgotten in these calculations is, above all, that fabulous riches had to be dissipated in wars. This can be expressed more clearly by saying---paradoxically---that economic problems in which, as in `classical' economics, the question is limited to the pursuit of profit are isolated or limited problems; that in the general problem there always reappears the essence of its biomass, which must constantly destroy (consume) a surplus of energy." (Pg. 182)

He concludes in the final chapter, "If the threat of war causes the United States to commit the major part of the excess to military manufactures, it will be useless to still speak of a peaceful evolution: In actual fact, war is bound to occur. Mankind will move peacefully toward a general resolution of its problems only if this threat causes the U.S. to assign a large share of the excess---deliberately and without return---to raising the global standard of living, economic activity thus giving the surplus energy produced an outlet other than war." (Pg. 187)

This is one of Bataille's major "nonfiction" works, and will be of great interest to anyone studying his thought and its many manifestations.

[Loveloth · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with many things regarding myself, my knowledge of Bataille stems from music, extreme music. Acts such as Deathspell Omega or Plebeian Grandstand frequently referenced this madman, as well as games like the oft misunderstood "Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs". Basically, this has been a long time coming and I am thrilled I finally entered Bataille's realms.
Coincidentally, this marks my return to philosophical and anthropological works so the fact he covers both and uses that to recontextualize economy which he then places through numerous historical eras and societies is just perfect.
The self-awareness, well placed elaborations and tangents struck many a dissonant chords with yours truly and I am eager to finish the trilogy.

Granted, some sentences are needlessly wordy and poorly structured but I'll attribute that to the translation. It's not an easy read but I would honestly recommend this to people interested in modern philosophy as it summarizes a lot without the baggage of seminal works which are often marred by language barriers and just difficult to get through text.
You will need to slow down and take in what he's saying but I feel that's a given in these realms.
I'll refrain from a fuller summarization but will mention the ingenuity and forward-thinking Bataille exhibited as early as 1949 regarding "Marshall's Plan" and other, then much, much lesser known topics like the complex belief systems that the Aztecs showcased in their spirituality, society and how it ties with their sacrificial tendencies. Much more is deconstructed or rather observed but never in a cheap or vapidly biased way. He knows what he's talking about, even though some momentum is halted due to the over-arching and seemingly all-encompassing nature of his work.

Regardless, I am very VERY satisfied with what's on offer and would give it a 4.5 rating if it were possible. Finally I can comfortably say I understand the praise and niche influence he garnered over the years and absolutely, wholeheartedly recommend this to those braver souls.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even though there were some paragraphs a bit difficult to understand, this book was a true delight for a economy for someone like me, who is not very familiar with a lot of concepts.

The accursed share is basically the wealth. Bataille argues that for a given living system, there is indefinite energy put at its disposal. The living system uses that energy to grow and to expand itself. However, some point is reached, where the system cannot use the energy any longer. And that is the moment denoted through luxury and squander. The accursed share is what can be consumed, what can be wasted.

Bataille then starts a chronological journey to see how this production destined to non-production was used. We learn that the Aztecs organized sumptuous festivals for the condemned to be sacrificed, the Mexicans used to make gifts to show their superiority ("potlatch") , the Islam world did wars and expanded itself, the lamaism used it for the monchs' lives of pure contemplation.

And now it gets interesting - the catholics used the wealth into worshiping and that was the time when those huge cathedrals were build. With Luther and Calvin, we continue the journey in the capitalism and the use of the wealth for producing more wealth. Methods of letting this wealth go were those two horrible wars (because at some point, even capitalism gets supersaturated apparently).
And then it was the Marshall Plan, a giving away of wealth...with some buts, of course, nicely covered by the nicely gesture of the Americans.

A very intriguing chapter is the one discussing the dawn of communism in Russia. Bataille argues that the whole horror of communism there had purely economical reasons. The world was technologically very advanced in comparison to Russia, so after the WWI they needed a plan. Fast. The whole wealth went into the production of productions and means of production. It was important that the labor force get the impression they are in charge. It was important to collectivize the fields, so that production of food for the labor workers was assured. A very catchy point of view.

A very good book.

[Fabiana · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a thoroughly entertaining book. Even though this is the nascent exposé of the “Accursed Share”, I was hooked from start to finish. Just the thesis in general of expending surplus energy drew my interest out immensely.


As I was reading I was punched in the face with such a familiarity and then I realized that Źiźek literally ripped the whole “potlatch” and “gift-giving” portion of this book into “In Defense of Lost Causes” (which I read in May). I can’t remember if he cited Bataille (he definitely didn’t) but seriously dawg it’s not cool. Originally I was joking to myself that Źiźek would be Bataille if he really decided not to “go into” things but turns out he’s a LIAR and a PHONY and a FAKE.

Something all people should be reading in every beach near them !! (definitely won’t raise questions you can’t answer !)

[Brandon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is three stars for me mostly due to lengthy sections that were stunning in how uninteresting they were. Bataille at times becomes little more than a third-rate historian, meandering through boring expository accounts of Tibetan history or The Marshall Plan in a style both drab and obscure. I found myself skimming these sections when I was sure they contained little of significance.

He is at his absolute best in the introduction, the sections on the Aztecs, Islam, Christianity and capitalism. His strength lies in perceiving the world in a fundamentally different, but still useful, perspective. This unique view shines in these sections as he has much to say, but the aforementioned “historical” sections contain almost none of that characteristic insight.

I genuinely would recommend reading only half of this book. Skip nearly all of Part 5, and the section on lamaism, and you’ve got yourself a good read for a few hours.

[Wan Feng An · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolute banger of a book on political economy. Bataillle analyses societies through a lens diametrically opposed to that of production. Rather, he elaborates a theory of consumption, of expenditure both wasteful and productive. He takes you through the Aztecs, Tibetans and much more as models of alternative societies and the evolution towards our current mode of production. Gets a bit lost towards the end, but overall a good book.

[Gökçe Leblebici · Rating 4 out of 5]

uzun zaman sonra ilk defa bir kitaptan edindiğim bilgiye bi yerlerde rastgeldim, potlaça ve azteklere selam olsun.

[Evan Williams]

Yeah

[Nuno Pais · Rating 5 out of 5]

Consumação, delapidação, tempestade, a consciência em si, poesia, sacrifício e o Sol.

[HeroineFather · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would probably give this 5 stars if I wasn’t retarded and could understand it a lil better