 Cover of the first edition | |
| Author | Georges Bataille |
|---|---|
| Original title | La Part maudite |
| Translator | Robert Hurley |
| Language | French |
| Subject | Political economy |
| Publisher | Les Éditions de Minuit,Zone Books |
Publication date | 1949 |
| Publication place | France |
Published in English | 1988 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover andPaperback) |
| Pages | 197 (Zone Books edition, vol. 1) 460 (Zone Books edition, vols. 2 and 3) |
| ISBN | 0-942299-11-6 (Zone Books edition, vol. 1) 0-942299-21-3 (Zone Books edition, vols. 2 and 3) |
The Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy (French:La Part maudite) is a 1949 book aboutpolitical economy by the French intellectualGeorges Bataille, in which the author presents a neweconomic theory which he calls "general economy". The work comprises Volume I:Consumption, Volume II:The History of Eroticism, and Volume III:Sovereignty. It was first published in France byLes Éditions de Minuit, and in the United States byZone Books. It is considered one of the most important of Bataille's books.
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The Accursed Share comprises Volume I:Consumption,[1] Volume II:The History of Eroticism,[2] and Volume III:Sovereignty.[2] The work's subject is political economy.[3] Bataille presents a new economic theory which he calls "general economy," as distinct from the "restricted" economic perspective of most economic theory.
According to Bataille's theory of consumption, the accursed share is that excessive and non-recuperable part of any economy which must either be spent luxuriously and knowingly in the arts, in non-procreative sexuality, in spectacles and sumptuous monuments, or it is obliviously destined to an outrageous and catastrophic outpouring, in the contemporary age most often in war, or in former ages as destructive and ruinous acts of giving or sacrifice, but always in a manner that threatens the prevailing system.
The notion of "excess" energy is central to Bataille's thinking. Bataille's inquiry takes the superabundance of energy, beginning from the outpouring of solar energy or the surpluses produced by life's basic chemical reactions, as the norm for organisms. In other words, an organism in Bataille's general economy, unlike the rational actors of classical economy who are motivated by scarcity, normally has an "excess" of energy available to it. This extra energy can be used productively for the organism's growth or it can be lavishly expended. Bataille insists that an organism's growth or expansion always runs up against limits and becomes impossible. The wasting of this energy is "luxury". The form and role luxury assumes in a society are characteristic of that society. "The accursed share" refers to this excess, destined for waste.
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Crucial to the formulation of the theory was Bataille's reflection upon the phenomenon ofpotlatch. It is influenced by the sociologistMarcel Mauss'sThe Gift (1925), as well as by the philosopherFriedrich Nietzsche'sOn the Genealogy of Morality (1887).
In Volume I, Bataille introduces the theory and provides historical examples of the functioning of general economy: human sacrifice inAztec society, the monastic institutions ofTibetan Lamaism, theMarshall Plan, and many others. In Volumes II and III Bataille extends the argument to eroticism and sovereignty, respectively.
The Accursed Share was first published byLes Éditions de Minuit in February 1949.[4] Volume II:The History of Eroticism, and Volume III:Sovereignty, were originally published as volume 8 of Bataille'sOeuvres Complètes byÉditions Gallimard in 1976.[5] In 1988,Zone Books published the book in an English translation byRobert Hurley.[6]
The Accursed Share influenced French philosophers and intellectuals such asJean-Paul Sartre,Gilles Deleuze,Félix Guattari, andRené Girard.[7] In the first volume of theCritique of Dialectical Reason (1960), Sartre credited Bataille with interesting insights into the way extravagance can become an "economic function".[8]Deleuze and Guattari drew onThe Accursed Share inAnti-Oedipus (1972).[9] Bataille's ideas also influenced Girard'sViolence and the Sacred (1972).[10][11]
The Accursed Share received a positive review from Keith Thompson inUtne Reader and mixed reviews from David Gordon inLibrary Journal and the philosopherAlexander Nehamas inThe New Republic.[12] Gordon wrote that Bataille offered "a new theory of civilization", but one that "appears more valuable as a framework for his dazzling literary skills than a contribution to knowledge." Gordon concluded thatThe Accursed Share was probably "of greater interest to students of French literature than to economists or historians".[13] Nehamas found much of the book "profound and scintillating" and described Bataille's prose as "always elegant, even at its most abstract and theoretical", but nevertheless concluded that Bataille's views were "too obscure and speculative", and that the work was worth reading "only if the reading is skeptical."[14] The classicistNorman O. Brown credited Bataille with providing "a first sketch" of a necessary "post-Marxist science ofpolitical economy" and showing that growth was not "the self-evident destiny of all economic activity". He found Bataille's ideas about economics to have particular relevance following thecollapse of communism in 1989.[15]
The authorPaul Hegarty argued that Bataille became an "apologist forStalinism" in the book, doing so despite Bataille's awareness of the brutalities of theSoviet Union.[16]
The philosopherMichel Surya describedThe Accursed Share as "one of Bataille's most important books", arguing that its ideas were consistent with those Bataille expressed inInner Experience (1943), despite the apparently mystical character of the latter work. According to Surya, Bataille wanted to profoundly modify or even re-write the book. Surya argued that this showed "the extreme interest and importance Bataille attached during his whole life to critical reflection about sociology and the economy, in a way so essential and so central that one can without risk of error describe this reflection as political."[17] Similarly, the philosopher Joo Heung Lee noted that Bataille consideredThe Accursed Share his most important work; Lee described the book as Bataille's "most systematic account of the social and economic implications of expenditure."[18]
