ABSTRACT
The most plausible hypothesis for the origin of the sacrifice is that the sacrificial system began with the advent of animal husbandry and political centralization. In Mauss, Caille, and Henaff groundbreaking Essai sur la nature et la fonction du sacrifice from 1899, Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss describes the sacrifice as a communication process. For Caille it also follows from this that the sacrifice initially contains a strong contractual and utilitarian motive. While the sacrifice is initially coupled with corruption, revenge, purchase, and self-interest, world religions made their gods into beings of love and compassion. This uses a very different logic in the relationship between Gods or the gods and humans; the utilitarian sacrifice is devalued, repressed, and abolished. Neoliberalism calls for altruistic sacrifice however; the common good is now no longer a 'we', but abstractly the benefit of the economy and the public finances.
