The Accursed Share

The Accursed Share is a 1949 book on political economy by the French thinker Georges Bataille, in which the author proposes a new economic theory he calls "general economy". Unlike the "restricted" perspective of most economic theory, which starts from scarcity, Bataille argues that every system produces a surplus of energy that must somehow be spent. That excess, which gives the book its title, may be consumed luxuriously and knowingly through art, non-procreative sexuality, spectacles or sumptuous monuments, or it may erupt in destructive form, most often war in the modern age, or in earlier societies through ruinous acts of sacrifice and giving.

The work has three volumes. The first, devoted to consumption, sets out the theory and illustrates it with historical examples ranging from human sacrifice in Aztec society to the monastic institutions of Tibetan Lamaism and the Marshall Plan. The second and third extend the argument to eroticism and sovereignty. Bataille's reflection grew out of his interest in the potlatch and engages with Marcel Mauss's study of the gift and with Nietzsche's genealogy of morality.

The book first appeared in February 1949 from Les Éditions de Minuit, and the last two volumes were published posthumously within his Complete Works. It influenced thinkers such as Sartre, Deleuze, Guattari and René Girard. Some readers have valued it more as a literary framework than as a contribution to economic knowledge, and critics have noted both its originality and its political ambiguities. Bataille himself regarded it as one of his most important books.