The emergence of expenditure: on Georges Bataille’s first economic essay

Abstract

This paper proposes a recontextualization of
Georges Bataille’s 1933 essay The Notion of
Expenditure within his own theoretical development and historical context. Current reconstructions of expenditure focus on situating this
notion from La Critique Sociale forward or based
on his relation to other authors. Instead, by
revisiting Bataille’s earlier writings in Documents,
I argue that expenditure could also be seen as the
culmination of a broader and prior critique of
principles that standardize human experience.
In this light, Bataille’s engagement with the
Communist Democratic Circle is regarded as
the occasion for a redirecting of this broader
critique toward economics, where utility appears
as a guiding principle. Highlighting Bataille’s
Marxist influence at that time, the article also
challenges the idea that Bataille’s concept of
expenditure could be seen as an interpretation
or as a presentiment of consumer society.