Utilità e danno della “parte maledetta” nell’economia dell’immaginario

Abstract

About the utility and liability of the “accursed share” in the economy of imaginary. The “Evil” as excess, waste, total consumption; or “bad”, “accursed” because it destabilizes the current “state of affairs”. This essay is intended to expose the economic theory of G. Bataille by a short reading of The limit of utility and of The Accursed share, where he explains his theory of a “general economy” in opposition to what he called the “restricted economy”, corresponding to the whole of economic sciences. According to the fact that economics just study production/extraction, distribution and consumption of matters and goods by the narrow scope of the “isolated situation” of individualistic interest, he tries to go further beyond this classical perspective with a redefinition of the evaluation/exploitation process and the relation between useful and useless. In this way he discovers the paradox of prosperity, its curse: prosperity is “excess” (prodigality) but it’s always destined to became “waste” (squandering). Finally a reading back of Bataille’s insights it is carried out through a comparison with the analysis M. Anspack runs in his A charge de revanche, a book in which he outlines a wide overview of reciprocity in human relationships and in economic phenomena.