ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews degrowth in light of Georges Bataille’s concept of dépense. Setting scarcity aside, the French author starts from the presupposition that all living species structurally face a state of abundance of energy. Dépense indicates the destination of that share of energy (the most conspicuous one) which cannot be employed by living organisms, owing to their physiological limits. This portion continues to circulate aimlessly in the environment until it extinguishes itself. From an anthropological framework, energy could be redefined as the fuel of action, that is, the fuel that calls us to act. Bataille terms “servile” the share of energy that a living being employs for either sustenance or biological growth. The basic problem relates to the residual energy that exceeds the share devoted to such servile use. Excess energy requires a “sovereign” use: it is necessary to choose a destination for the fuel of action on the basis of a philosophical intent and/or a political prospect. It is the sovereign employment of excess energy that qualifies us as “human”. The different patterns of excess energy use characterize and distinguish different types of societies across space and time. All human societies have built up some forms of ritual for dépense, to destroy the “accursed share” of energy which lies beyond the servile dimension and gains a sense from this destruction. The concept of dépense helps us to identify a main hole in the “society of growth,” that is the removal of the issue of excess energy. For this reason, it is condemned to stay nailed to a servile dimension (i.e. the growth obsession), and this circumstance generates all the fateful effects that degrowthers partly denounce. The challenge is not how to deal with scarcity, but, on the contrary, it is how to deal with the abundance of energy that the growth regime isn’t able to drain. The anthropological, political, and institutional profile of a degrowth society could be totally rethought starting from the concept of dépense.
