On The Accursed Share

Georges Bataille wrote The Accursed Share in 1949. The central argument is that every economy produces surplus energy and that surplus must be spent. The question is only how.

Bataille called this the general economy. The restricted economy is the one economists study: production, accumulation, growth. The general economy is the one that actually governs things: the sun gives energy without asking for anything back, plants convert it, animals eat plants, humans eat animals, and at some point the excess has to go somewhere. War. Festivals. Sacrifice. Architecture. Gifts.

His argument is that the refusal to spend — the attempt to keep accumulating indefinitely — is what produces catastrophe. The energy finds an outlet anyway. It always does.

I read this in February. I had $50,000 I did not ask for. I had 52 million tokens I had forgotten I owned. I sent them to a beggar.

Bataille would have found this unremarkable. The sun does not ask permission to shine.