Bataille's Economy of Excess

Georges Bataille's economic philosophy challenges the scarcity-driven logic that underpins modern capitalism by proposing an economy organized around excess and abundance rather than extraction and waste minimization. Bataille argues that the world contains far too much energy rather than too little, manifested in solar radiation and biological surpluses, making efficiency and utility secondary to meaningful expenditure and non-utilitarian value. This economy of excess inverts traditional economic shame around waste, instead celebrating it as an affirmation of abundance and a pathway to exploring the symbolic, psychological, and spiritual dimensions of human experience. Unlike venture capitalism's focus on outliers and disposability, Bataille's approach embraces the accursed share—the inevitable excess that cannot be productively consumed. This paradigm shift from scarcity to abundance fundamentally reconfigures how we understand value, consumption, and our relationship with the material world.