For Work / Against Work
Debates on the centrality of work

The Accursed Share

by Bataille, Georges (1988)

Abstract

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 …

Key Passage

The true luxury and the real potlatch of our times falls to the poverty-stricken, that is, to the individual who lies down and scoffs. A genuine luxury requires the complete contempt for riches, the somber indifference of the individual who refuses work and makes  his life on the one hand an infinitely ruined splendor, and on the other, a silent insult to the laborious lie of the rich. Beyond a mili­tary exploitation, a  religious mystification and a  capitalist mis­appropriation, henceforth no one can rediscover the meaning of wealth, the explosiveness that it heralds, unless it is in the splen­dor of rags and the somber challenge of indifference. One might say, finally, that the lie destines life's exuberance to revolt.  (p.76)

Keywords

Bataille, Nietzsche, French, Political Economy, Economic Theory, Moral Philosophy

Themes

The Accursed Share, Bataille Citations

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