In Georges Bataille's theory of consumption, the accursed share is that excessive and non-recuperable part of any economy which is destined to one of two modes of economic and social expenditure. George Bataille Georges Bataille (September 16, 1897 – July 9, 1962) was a French writer, anthropologist and philosopher, though he avoided this last term himself. ...

Either it is spent luxuriously and knowingly without gain in the arts, non-procreative sexuality, spectacles and sumptuous monuments, or it is obliviously destined to an outrageous and catastrophic outpouring in war.

The notion of "excess" energy is central to Bataille's thinking. In his book, "The Accursed Share, Vol. 1," he outlines a "general economy," concerned with the play of energy across the globe itself. Bataille's inquiry takes the superabundance of energy, beginning from the infinite outpouring of solar energy or the surpluses produced by life's basic chemical reactions, as the norm for organisms. In other words, an organism in Bataille's general economy, unlike the rational actors of classical economy who are motivated by scarcity, normally has an "excess" of energy available to it. This extra energy can be used productively for the organism's growth or it can be lavishly expended. Bataille insists that an organism's growth or expansion always runs up against limits and becomes impossible. The wasting of this energy is "luxury". The form and role luxury assumes in a society are characteristic of that society.

"The accursed share" refers to this excess, destined for waste.

In "The Accursed Share, Vol. 1," Battaile outlines this concept in a general economy and provides historical examples of its function: human sacrifice in Aztec society, the monastic institutions of Tibetan Lamaism, the Marshall Plan, and many others. Outside of its precision, to leave this matter "as is" would do a terrible injustice to Bataille's vision.

Bataille's idea of "expenditure" risks being misunderstood if it is construed as a theory as to why certain phenenomena, such as war, sacrifice, and potlatch exist, and assigns them an anthropological function, such as the preservation of the social order, etc, for that makes "expenditure" into a useful, conserving, and rational enterprise, which is precisely what expenditure cannot be. True expenditure must be wasteful, non-rational, useless. Therefore, Bataille's notion of expenditure is paradoxical, for it both assigns a use value to certain phenomena (ie. preservation of an organism or society through elimination of energy that cannot be assimilated) even while it identifies the same phenemona as inherently useless and impossible to rationalize. Due to this paradox, it is helpful to consider Bataille's notion of expenditure as an impossility, a horizon that cannot be reached.