Solar Econ 101

A rough outline of Bataille’s economics and a defense of

his economics against various critiques

The Basis of Solar Economics

What Energy is for Bataille

To start, let us recognize that when Bataille talks about energy,

he looks at it in stages.

Stage 1

Stage 1 is energy in the form of ‘solar energy’ (solar radiation):

Solar radiation results in a superabundance of energy on

the surface ofthe globe.— Georges Bataille, The Accursed
Share: An Essay on General Economy, Volume 1:
Consumption.

For Bataille, excessive energy on the earth is natural: it is

first solar (as it comes to us from the sun) — Allan Stoekl,
Bataille’s Peak: Energy, Religion, and Postsustianability.

This solar energy fuels plant growth, which animals and humans
need not only for food (energy), but also for oxygen.

Stage 2
Stage 2 is energy in the form of biological matter (biomass;
‘organic concentrations of solar energy’) as well in the form of
‘fossilized concentrations of solar energy’:

energy is… first solar… then biological (as it passes from

the sun to plants and animals to us) — Allan Stoekl,
Bataille’s Peak: Energy, Religion, and Postsustianability.

The sun which fuels plant growth will therefore lead to an excess
of biomass.

biomass, the excess of which will support a plethora of

animals and, ultimately, humans. — Allan Stoekl, Bataille’s
Peak: Energy, Religion, and Postsustianability.

By ‘fossilized concentration of solar energy’ we mean, energy in

the form of fossil fuels:

As an energy form, solar energy has proven to be

accessible primarily through organic (and fossilized)
concentration: wood, coal, and oil. — Allan Stoekl,
Bataille’s Peak: Energy, Religion, and Postsustianability.

We could even posit substages of stage 2, as there is biomass

(stage 2.1) which can be used to create fossil fuels (stage 2.2)
(see: algae fuel).

Stage 3
Stage 3 is energy (solar, biological, fossilized, etc.) in the form of
its use by humanity:

energy is… first solar… then biological… then human (as it

is spent in our monuments, artifacts, and social rituals). —
Allan Stoekl, Bataille’s Peak: Energy, Religion, and
Postsustianability.

Now on to the axiomatic basis of Bataille’s economics.

The Axiomatic Basis of Solar Economics

Bataille’s ‘Solar Economics’ has at its basis two fundamental

axioms:

Axiom 1:

The radiation of the sun is distinguished by its unilateral

character: it loses itself without reckoning, without
counterpart. Solar economy is founded upon this principle.
— Nick Land, The Thirst for Annihilation.

This is to say that the sun gives (invests) energy and does not
receive energy back (return) from that which gains energy from
the sun.

Bataille expresses this first axiom when he says,

I will speak briefly about the most general conditions of
life, dwelling on one crucially important fact: Solar energy
is the source of life’s exuberant development. The origin
and essence of our wealth are given in the radiation of the
sun, which dispenses energy — wealth — without any
return. The sun gives without ever receiving.—Georges
Bataille, The Accursed Share: An Essay on General
Economy, Volume 1: Consumption.

Axiom 2:

It is because the sun squanders itself upon us without

return that ‘The sum of energy produced is always superior
to that which was necessary to its production’… since ‘we
are ultimately nothing but an effect of the sun’. — Nick
Land, The Thirst for Annihilation.

This is to say that because the sun gives energy (invests) without
getting energy back (return) from that which gains energy from
the sun, that which gains energy from the sun will always be at a
surplus of energy.

Bataille expresses this second axiom when he says,

I will begin with a basic fact: The living organism, in a

situation determined by the play of energy on the surface
of the globe, ordinarily receives more energy than is
necessary for maintaining life—Georges Bataille, The
Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy, Volume 1:
Consumption.

These are the facts on the basis of Bataille’s economics.

If you are still skeptical, here are some words from a nuclear
scientist:

We affirm that the appropriated energies produced during

a period are superior in quantity to the appropriated
energies that are strictly necessary to their production. For
the rigor of the thesis, it would be necessary to compare the
appropriated energies of the same quality. The system
produces all the appropriated energies that are necessary
to it, it produces them in greater quantities than are
needed, and finally it even produces appropriated energies
that its maintenance at the given level does not require. In
an elliptical form, but more striking, we can say that the
energy produced is superior to the energy necessary for its
production — Georges Ambrosino, notes preliminary to the
writing of The Accursed Share.

From these two axioms, we can recognize that Bataille’s theory

of economics is inherently thermodynamic, partly economic,
and ultimately ecological.

We can also realize that the excess energy must then be

expended, squandered, spent, wasted, etc.
For solar economy ‘[e]xcess is the incontestable point of
departure’ [VII 12], and excess must, in the end, be spent. —
Nick Land, The Thirst for Annihilation.

Bataille’s ECONOMICS

The purely economic part of Bataille’s theories is like all others:

cold, hard, and calculative.

As I considered the object of my study, I could not

personally resist the effervescence in which I discovered the
unavoidable purpose, the value of the cold and calculated
operation. My research aimed at the acquisition of a
knowledge; it demanded coldness and calculation, but the
knowledge acquired was that of an error, an error implied
in the coldness that is inherent in all calculation.— Georges
Bataille, The Accursed Share: An Essay on General
Economy, Volume 1: Consumption.

On the Illusion that is Production

Baudrillard follows Bataille in throwing off productivist

economics and ideology which have their central focus on
production rather than consumption (see: ‘The Mirror of
Production’ by Jean Baudrillard).

Following Land, we can say that Bataille’s perspective sees

production as illusory. Production is really just a restricted
version of consumption (expenditure, dépense).
Life appears as a pause on the energy path; as a
precarious stabilization and complication of solar decay. It
is most basically comprehensible as the general solution to
the problem of consumption. Such a solar- or general-
economic perspective exhibits production as an illusion; the
hypostatization of a digression in consumption. To produce
is to partially manage the release of energy into its loss,
and nothing more. — Nick Land, The Thirst for
Annihilation.

Thus all economics focused on production is really just focusing

on a restricted and perverted form of expenditure. One could say
that production is the profane’s attempt at rendering the
heterogeny that is expenditure into the profane world. This
means that all economics, in reality, looks at expenditure. This
means that the only difference between Bataille’s general/solar
economic perspective and restricted economic perspectives is
that Bataille recognizes expenditure as the focus of economics,
where restricted economic perspectives do not.

I had to try in vain to make clear the notion of a “general

economy” in which the “expenditure” (the “consumption”)
of wealth, rather than production, was the primary object.
— Georges Bataille, The Accursed Share: An Essay on
General Economy, Volume 1: Consumption.

Restricted Economy, General Economy

The basis of Bataille’s idea of the general economy is founded
upon the two axioms laid out above. From there general
economy asserts another truth:

all particular activity on earth is a moment or modulation

of the cosmic movements and transformations of
superabundant energy — in our case, solar energy —
Timothy Snediker, To Have Done WIth Forgiveness:
Capitalism, Christianity, and the Politics of Immanece.

This is to say, the perspective of general economy recognizes the

two axioms lined out above and it, therefore, recognizes that
there is an excess of energy.

The perspective of restricted economy sees scarcity, necessity,

lack.

The perspective of general economy sees no such lack, but rather

an excess.

So why can one not advocate for restricted economy over general
economy? Well, you can. But trying to do so would be only
furthering the truth of general economy because:

It is not that the general and restricted points of view are

two independently true perspectives which take the same
object and maintain their truth autonomously, but rather
that general economy is the truth of restricted economy,
the latter which nevertheless maintains or guarantees its
particular truth inasmuch as it is an abstraction from the
general— Timothy Snediker, To Have Done WIth
Forgiveness: Capitalism, Christianity, and the Politics of
Immanece.

Now to address the strawman you probably have already

thought of: ‘Muh scarcity’.

A Refutation of the Scarcity Strawman and its Ilk

From the perspective of general economy, lack is a product

rather than a pre-existing material condition or a
transcendental condition.— Timothy Snediker, To Have
Done WIth Forgiveness: Capitalism, Christianity, and the
Politics of Immanece.

This is not to say that scarcity is not a reality, but rather that
scarcity is only a reality from the perspective of restricted
economy.

Nevertheless, scarcity or lack only appears as such, in all of

its reality, from the perspective of a restricted economy —
Timothy Snediker, To Have Done WIth Forgiveness:
Capitalism, Christianity, and the Politics of Immanece.

Now to address the strawman you have probably already

thought of: “so you’re saying that if I just change my
perspectives then I’m rich? That is stupid”.
No. Bataille is not saying that if you just look from a general
economic perspective scarcity and all of your economic
problems disappear.

raising oneself to the perspective of general economy is by

no means a magical cure-all, a fix for all economic issues
forever. Rather, the general point of view is a way of
thinking differently, of posing problems differently —
Timothy Snediker, To Have Done WIth Forgiveness:
Capitalism, Christianity, and the Politics of Immanece.

To say the strawman above is to admit you have not read Bataille
and do not know what you are talking about. Bataille clearly
says,

The problems are posed… in the first instance by an excess

of resources if one starts from the general point of view.
Doubtless the problem of extreme poverty remains in any
case.— Georges Bataille, The Accursed Share: An Essay on
General Economy, Volume 1: Consumption.

General economy is a perspective as is restricted economy.

The perspective of restricted economy says,

From the particular point of view, the problems are posed

in the first instance by a deficiency ofresources.— Georges
Bataille, The Accursed Share: An Essay on General
Economy, Volume 1: Consumption.
Whereas, the perspective of general economy says,

They are posed in the first instance by an excess of

resources if one starts from the general point of view.—
Georges Bataille, The Accursed Share: An Essay on
General Economy, Volume 1: Consumption.

To reiterate,

Bataille’s theses in The Accursed Share: resources are

indeed scarce, but only from the perspective of the
restricted geopolitical economy of Earth.— Timothy
Snediker, To Have Done WIth Forgiveness: Capitalism,
Christianity, and the Politics of Immanece.

Now that insipid and common strawman has been addressed,

we can quite perfectly go to the next part of this article: a
defense of Bataille’s economics against critiques.

A Defense of Bataille’s Economics

I will now defend Bataille’s economics against critiques as well

as attack those critiques.

A response to Baudrillard’s “critique” of Bataille’s

economics

Baudrillard says,
But Bataille has poorly read Mauss: the unilateral gift does
not exist… “Excess energy” does not come from the sun
(from nature) but from a continual overbidding in
exchange — a symbolic process legible in Mauss, not that of
the gift (this is the naturalist mysticism into which Bataille
falls), but that of the counter-gift — the sole, veritably
symbolic process and one which effectively implicates
death as a kind of maximal excess — but not as individual
ecstasy, always as maximal principle of social exchange. In
this sense, one can reproach Bataille for having
“naturalized” Mauss— Jean Baudrillard, When Bataille
Attacked the Metaphysical Principle of Economy.

So what is wrong with this?

Firstly, the unilateral gift does exist (see: axiom 1 lined out
above). Bataille doesn’t have to adhere to Maussian orthodoxy,
and Bataille can and did develop his own theories.

Secondly, excess energy does come from the sun (see: axiom 2
lined out above). Because Bataille’s theory is ecological and
thermodynamic we can easily recognize that when by talks about
energy he does not always mean energy in a sociological sense.

Thirdly, to respond to Baudrillard’s claims of naturalism in

Bataille.

Land responds to these accusations of naturalism in Bataille’s

solar economics.
Land says,

Bataille’s solar economics is frequently accused of

naturalism by the humanist left. Such resistance to
naturalization is a Kantian insistence, simultaneous with
transcendental philosophy as such (and not in any sense a
specifically post bourgeois subversion of modern culture as
so much recent ‘theory’ would suggest). An antinaturalist
approach to the object is the initiating gesture of
Kantianism. If ‘ideology’ is to be used as a name for the
rationality of capital (a pretentiously gesticulating move),
it is anti-naturalism, rather than naturalization, which is
the pre-eminent trait of this ideology. This is not to suggest
that the denaturalization of the real is inevitably without
‘progressive’ features. If undertaken carefully without
mythotheological relapse — antinaturalism is certainly
able to assist new money (interests) against old,
intervening effectively in disputes between liberals and
conservatives, although it seems that a great deal more
than this is often being claimed. What the bourgeois
intellect forbade was always something quite different,
namely, the thought of natural de-naturalization, or the
acknowledgement of libidinal escalation. This is why
Barthes is inscribed within the horizon of critique — as its
legitimate semiological discipline — in a way that
Nietzsche is not.— Nick Land, The Thirst for Annihilation.

What Land is saying is that resisting naturalism is

fundamentally Kantian (Land does a critique of Kant in his book
‘The Thirst for Annihilation,’ which I do not have time to go
over). This ultimately means that Baudrillard’s accusations of
naturalism are irrelevant. Land is also saying that anti-
naturalism is the rationality of capital. So, we could actually
make and will make an attack against Baudrillard for following
the rationality of capital.

So, it is fair to say that Baudrillard has poorly read Bataille.

A response to Goux’s (and his Ilk’s) “critique” of Bataille’s

economics

Jean-Joseph Goux and those that follow his critique make the
argument against Bataille that the waste of post-modern
capitalism is expenditure.

This argument is laughable.

Stoekl responds to these accusations of Bataille forwarding

capitalism.

Stoekl says,

Waste is, we could argue, a deluded, minor version of

expenditure, analogous perhaps to the right -hand sacred
as it is opposed, yet tied, to the sacred of the left hand—
Allan Stoekl, Bataille’s Peak: Energy, Religion, and
Postsustianability.

That is it.
A response to @progressivelol’s (TikTok) and Asger
Sørensen’s “critique” of Bataille’s economics

Note: Chloe plagiarizes Asger Sørensen’s article, ‘On a universal

scale: Economy in Bataille’s general economy’ a lot and doesn’t
reference nor gives him credit and just passes it off as their own.
So I am also critiquing Asger Sørensen as well.

Chloe’s critique has a lot of (unnecessary) jargon (that

sometimes doesn’t mean anything).

So, Bataille’s theory of solar economics is less economic and

more ecological as I said above. Now Chloe says,

This excess serves as the primary ontological consideration

in the treatment of economic behavior that is to be
considered in unison with the erotic and the sacred — Chloe
(@progressivelol on TikTok), their video.

So, there are issues with this.

Firstly, Bataille’s idea of excess is treated in so many different

ways, thermodynamic, ecological, sociological, cultural, etc.
Excess for Bataille is not treated as the primary ontological
consideration when talking about economic behavior. Bataille
lines out in ‘The Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy,
Volume 1: Consumption’ that his theories of behavior, growth,
etc. are not economic but rather zoological. Secondly, the erotic
is apart of the left pole of the sacred, so I will just address the
two as the sacred. The sacred is the realm of non-knowledge
(non-savoir). The sacred is the realm of silence (see: Hegarty’s
chapter on silence in his book ‘Georges Bataille: Core Cultural
Theorist). The sacred is not of homogenous behavior either. The
sacred is the heterogenous exemplified. Subjects are undone in
inner and limit experience(s) which are of the sacred. Economics
is undone in the sacred; all homogenous discourses are undone
in the sacred. Therefore, there is no behavior that is uniform
with the sacred, rather behavior is undone within the sacred.

The heterogeneous is even resolutely placed outside the

reach of scientific knowledge, which by definition is only
applicable to homogeneous elements. Above all, heterology
is opposed to any homogeneous representation of the
world, in other words, to any philosophical system.—
Georges Bataille, Visions of Excess: Selected Writings,
1927–1939.

Chloe then says,

What societies do with the surplus of energy is

fundametally constituted by their religious and economic
realities.— Chloe (@progressivelol on TikTok), their video.

This is also, I feel, a misinterpretation.

Firstly, Bataille recognizes that societies will have to squander

the inevitable excess. He does not say that how societies do this
is constituted by their religious and economic realities or their
material conditions. Rather, societies will have to get rid of this
excess. How societies expend this excess is usually done through
social rituals, war, sacrifice, etc. The severity/scale of how
expenditure takes place does depend on technological
advancement, though the form of expenditure doesn’t really
change (e.g., technological advancement means expenditure can
be done through nuclear war but still it takes the form of war).
Secondly, the economic reality of all societies is excess. So I do
not know if Chloe means material conditions by economic
reality. Thirdly, religious realities can affect how expenditure is
done but it does not constitute how expenditure is done.

All societies can expend via sacrifice or war, no matter their

religious or economic realities. Society implies more than a
single person, and therefore one person could kill the other.

For a general economy, scarcity is not existent as such, but

an excess.— Chloe (@progressivelol on TikTok), their video.

See what I have said above about scarcity.

The general economy is first considered in a

macrofoundation, which comprises the whole of the
universe, second in a micro-perspective, where the
subjective aspect of economy is maintained as non-
objectified desire and inner experience. I would turn to the
general economy as it was explicitly intended, namely as a
political economy. The suggestions that Bataille himself
presents are intentionally apolitical (ordinary sense), and
that this can be shown to bedue to some conceptual slides
between nature and society and between history and
ontology. Some postmodern attempts to legitimize
respectively alternatives, refer to the general economy, but
argue finally that Bataille can escape both, since he
maintians the important distinction between need and
desire. Although Bataille’s conception of economy thus
reminds us of aspects often overlooked by economy in an
ordinary sense, “it has claimed to also contains aporias,
which means that it does not constitue the theoritical basis
of a new general political economy,” EVEN if I considered
it a optimal rule.— Chloe (@progressivelol on TikTok),
their video.

Firstly, I would like to say that I expected more. The majority of

this paragraph as well as all of their video I’m just now realizing
is actually from Asger Sørensen’s article, ‘On a universal scale:
Economy in Bataille’s general economy’. So, I don’t know, put it
all in quotes, reference it, etc. But this also means that I’m really
responding to Asger Sørensen.

Secondly, there are a lot of issues.

Bataille does not have a micro-perspective nor a macro-

perspective of economy.

Bataille’s economy is equal to the universe that is all.

He even wrote some notes called ‘The Economy Equal to the

Universe: Brief notes preliminary to the preparation of an essay
on “general economy” forthcoming under the title The Accursed
Share’.

Macro- and micro-economic perspectives are perspectives of

restricted economy. General economy does not organize itself
(into more perspectives) (see: the last Land quote right before
‘Concluding Remarks’).

Thirdly, the rest of “Chloe’s” (Sørensen’s) paragraph above runs

off of the false assumption that general economy is just another
interpretation of political economy.

The only way I can even figure that one would interpret Bataille
as trying to do this is from one thing Bataille says in the ‘Preface’
to ‘The Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy, Volume
1: Consumption’. But even then, what Bataille says doesn’t say
anything close to the idea that the general economy is and
should be taken as a political economy.

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.”— Georges
Bataille, The Accursed Share: An Essay on General
Economy, Volume 1: Consumption.

Nothing in this quote says the general economy is political

economy. All it says is that he is writing a book of political
economy, which just means a book of economics, as political
economy can refer to just economics (it even says this in 18th
note in the article Chloe is plagiarizing (Asger Sørensen’s article,
‘On a universal scale: Economy in Bataille’s general economy’)).
If you want to look more into the development of the term
‘political economy’ just look at the Wikipedia article ‘Political
economy’.

Now even if Bataille does mean political economy and not

economics, it still doesn’t matter. Benjamin Noys explains this
precisely when he says,

So, rather than being a work of ‘political economy’, as The

Accursed Share claims to be, ‘The Notion of Expenditure’ is
a work of revolutionary critique.— Benjamin Noys,
Georges Bataille: A Critical Introduction.

Fourthly, Chloe (Sørensen) even CONTRADICTS themself when

they say (they are plagiarizing Sørensen once more),

Bataille thus considers ordinary economical thinking,

including both political economy and the neoclassical
scientification of economy, as an inappropriate reduction,
which is wanting both empircally and theoritcally. He
therefore distinguishes between such a ‘restricted economy’
and his own ‘general economy.’ — Chloe (@progressivelol
on TikTok), their video.

The contradiction is apparent. Bataille considers political

economy to be apart of restricted economy, which IS NOT
general economy (see: my section on restricted economy and
general economy above).

Fifthly, general economy is beyond political economy.

Land makes this point in his work ‘The Thirst for Annihilation’
when he says,

Beyond political economy there is general economy, and

the basic thought at its heart is that of the absolute primacy
of wastafe, since ‘everything is rich which is to the measure
of the universe’ [VII 23].— Nick Land, The Thirst for
Annihilation.

Now on to the next thing Chloe says.

Chloe says,

This approach to think the unreduced desire and the flow of

energy in nature into economy leaves an impression of
economy as totally unmanageable and uncontrollable in a
practical sense.— Chloe (@progressivelol on TikTok), their
video.

Yes.

In The Accursed Share Bataille destroys the framework of

political economy in which he is writing. Political economy
is led by Bataille into moment of excess which cannot be
reduced to political economy: ‘I had a point of view from
which a human sacrifice, the construction of a church or
the gift of a jewel were no less interesting than the sale of
wheat’ (AS1, 9). The last great critique of political economy
has been Marx’s Capital, but what had been intended as a
critique was often transformed into a manual for a new
Marxist political economy.22 Unlike Marx, Bataille did not
operate on the conceptual terrain of political economy and
he swept away the residual Marxist desire for ‘a good use
of economy’ (Baudrillard in CR, 192) by destroying the
axioms of economy itself.— Benjamin Noys, Georges
Bataille: A Critical Introduction.

Bataille is not trying to make a good use of the economy. He is

not trying to manage the economy for an end. Rather, Bataille is
recognizing that excess and expenditure are inevitable. Bataille
rejects utility and therefore practicality as well.

Now to their next argument.

Chloe makes the same argument as Goux when they say,

The anti-authoritarian, theoritical perspective means that

the general economy loses its character of political
economy and instead transforms itself into a scientistic
ontology, the alleged neccesity of which contributes to
legitimate a total liberation of desire and consumption,
which in turn can legitimate a capitalist development
without any restrictions.— Chloe (@progressivelol on
TikTok), their video.

So let’s look at their first claim.

First, they are assuming that general economy at one point had
as it is character political economy, which it did not (see: my
refutations to this above).

Second, this is not a scientistic ontology. Rather, this is a

libidinal pre-ontology.

libidinal energy is chaotic, or pre-ontological.— Nick Land,

The Thirst for Annihilation.

So from there, everything else they say falls as its premise has
already fallen. But I will entertain their argument.

When they say a true liberation of desire and consumption, they

mean a true liberation of libido and dépense (expenditure).

Bataille does no such thing with libido. He is explicitly against

movements for sexual liberation. Bataille wants taboo’s and
prohibitions so there can be transgression. But if I am even more
charitable and assume they just mean desire, my argument still
applies.

Bataille does not try to liberate expenditure either. One cannot

liberate expenditure. One cannot control or use expenditure.
Expenditure is pure loss. Bataille is just recognizing the reality of
excess and expenditure.

Now, they could be making the argument that Bataille’s

expenditure falls in line with capitalist consumption just as
Goux did (see: my response to Goux above).

Benjamin Noys response to Goux’s (and therefore also Chloe’s)

idea that the consumption (expenditure) of capitalism is not
what Bataille means by expenditure when he says,

Goux’s reading sees the accursed share as an element of

capital, becoming the necessary element of risk and chance
in market calculations. However, it could also be argued
that this is a refusal to deal with the accursed share at all.
Capitalism is not just a restricted economy in terms of
accumulation but also in terms of the range of its
expenditures, and Bataille’s point that the bourgeoisie
spends ‘within itself’ does not seem any less true than when
he first made it. The gift of potlatch is exactly that, a gift,
not the gamble of an investment or the selling of goods in
new and unstable markets.— Benjamin Noys, Georges
Bataille: A Critical Introduction.

Now onto their last point.

Economically Bataille maintian a macroperspective on

such a universal scale that one cannot distinguish clearly
between energy and matter— Chloe (@progressivelol on
TikTok), their video.

This is doesn’t matter (see what I did there? “doesn’t matter”.

“matter”).

Following the principles of the theory of relativity Bataille

considers energy as matter in a fluid form. — Asger
Sørensen, On a universal scale: Economy in Bataille’s
general economy.

Matter would then be energy in a static form. Therefore, energy

is matter and vice versa.

But their “critique” could also be taken another way. It could be

taken as ‘Bataille makes everything into energy’.

Our answer would be the same.

Yes.

This isn’t really a critique nor an issue.

If everything is energy and energy is always in excess (see: the

axiom I lined out above) then we are always in a state of excess
which proves Bataille’s argument.

This is also contingent on Bataille having a macro-economic

perspective, which I have refuted earlier in this article.
while he in his microperspective makes the very rationality
of planning and organization suspicious in itself. — Chloe
(@progressivelol on TikTok), their video.

Yes.

Again this is the whole point.

Bataille isn’t trying to use the economy for a certain end. Bataille
is a-teleological in this sense.

Any process of organization is necessarily aberrational

within the general economy, a mere complexity or detour
in the inexorable death-flow, a current in the informational
motor, energy cascading downstream, dissipation.— Nick
Land, The Thirst for Annihilation.

So this isn’t even an argument.

This is also contingent on Bataille having a micro-economic

perspective, which I have refuted earlier in this article.

Concluding Remarks

Note: I have only given a VERY ROUGH outline of Bataille’s

economics. I have tried to make it as digestible as possible given
the amount of time it has taken me to write. If you have any
questions, please comment it and I will reply to it to the best of
my abilities.
It is quite clear that Bataille’s economics are complex and always
developing (in the form of new interpretations). There are
constant strawmen, misinterpretations, and fallacious
arguments against Bataille’s economics; most of which, I have
responded to in this article.

I have shown the axiomatic basis of Bataille’s economics:

Key:

☉-Sun

E-energy

M-matter (the earth, plants, non-human animals, humans, etc.)

>-more than

0-the number zero

→-gives off

⇥-leads to

+-add

An attempt at a rough outline of a formulaic expression of the

axioms of solar economics:
 1. ☉ →E

2. E>0 (always true)

3. ☉⇥M+E

I have explained the differences between restricted economy and

general economy.

Restricted economy has its primary focus on production.

Restricted economy does not recognize that there is excess but
rather puts forward that there is lack. Restricted economy poses
economic problems with the presupposition of lack.

General economy has its primary focus on expenditure. General

economy does recognize that there is excess. General economy
poses economic problems with the recognition of the axioms of
excess.

I do think that Bataille’s economics are very important. They

accurately recognize our problems and forward good forms of
expenditure. Bataille’s economics are becoming increasingly
important with the threat of energy famines, as well as the
climate crisis (see: Allan Stoekl’s ‘Bataille’s Peak: Energy,
Religion, and Postsustianability’ if you are interested).

I will end this fittingly with some words from Bataille himself.

it is not necessity but its contrary, “luxury,” that presents

living matter and mankind with their fundamental
problems.— Georges Bataille, The Accursed Share: An
Essay on General Economy, Volume 1: Consumption.