1. In the delirious double writing of the
opening of Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Œdipe we encounter,
just after a reference to Schreber, who has sun rays in his arse (a organ
machine coupled to an energy machine) the italicized expression Anus solaire. We are with Georges
Bataille, whose prose text L’Anus solaire
was written in 1927 and published, with 100 copies only, in 1931 by the Galerie
Simon, illustrated by André Masson. Is this a reference to Bataille on the part
of Deleuze and Guattari? They continue with Schreber, so it is plausible that
the echo is coincidental, and that no ‘reference’ is intended. It was
only two years previously, in 1970, that the first volume of Bataille’s
complete works, which included the previously anonymous Solar Anus, was published. It is unlikely that Schreber is a common
point of reference for both Bataille, in 1927, and Deleuze and Guattari, in the
early 1970s; Schreber’s memoirs were not published in French translation until
1966, in volumes 5-8 of the journal Cahiers
pour l’analyse, finally appeared as a single volume translated by Paul
Duquenne in 1985. Despite its availability, Deleuze and Guattari do not refer
to this version, and it plausible that their reading of Schreber is mediated
through Freud’s ‘Schreber case’ essay, published in French in the PUF volume Cinq psychoanalyses in1967. The
dispersion and tardiness of the appearance of French translations of these
texts suggests that it is not a question of reference but of a coincidence,
which is nevertheless symptomatic of something.
2. Anti-Oedipe was published in the 'Collection Critique' run by Jean Piel, established by Bataille in the late 1940s following the foundation of the review Critique. Bataille's La Part maudite was the first volume to appear in the series. It was announced as a first volume, subtitled, La Consommation of a major work in which Bataille would develop an alternative or heretical economics, a project begin in the 1930s with 'La Notion de dépense'. The subsequent volumes would not however appear in Bataille's lifetime. Anti-Oedipe is true to the spirit of the collection, with its attention to issues of political economy. To view it as a response to La Part maudite would probably be to stretch the point. But such an angle is suggested by the reference, and this time it is one, in the first few pages to La Part maudite, in which Deleuze and Guattari mark a distinction between their own account of production and Bataille's emphasis on unproductive expenditure.
3. For Bataille unproductive expenditure, both natural and sumptuary, the eruptions of volcanoes and the smoke of burnt tobacco, is distinguished from the realm of production through the criteria of usefulness. The accursed share which Bataille pursues pertains to excess, to waste, to the element of destructive expenditure or of gift without return which Bataille proposes is and also should be the fundamental basis of any economics, or at least one which is attentive to the general economy of energy at a global level. Deleuze and Guattari widen the frame for production, and , in their footnote, place Bataille's unproductive expenditure within this frame as a species of production, the production of consummation. All is production; so called unproductive expenditure is a production of consumption; in Bataille's terms, it is a production of expenditures. In other words, consumption, the using up, or in a stronger sense, the destruction of resources, is in and of itself a production. What do Deleuze and Guattari do here? Is there account categorically different from Bataille's? To the extent that they propose a 'general' category of production, comprising the production of productions, the production of consumptions and the production of inscriptions (enregistrements), perhaps they are in continuity with the 'general' economy for which Bataille argues. Yet in replacing economy with production, the sociological category of exchange, which Bataille inherited from Durkheim and Mauss, is replaced by the materialist conception of production, and the criteria of usefulness is abandoned. Insofar as these notions appear as inherited from an idealist economic theory, Deleuze and Guattari could be said to realise the materialist theory of the general economy which Bataille was unable to think due to the persistence in his thought of the legacy of idealism.
2. Anti-Oedipe was published in the 'Collection Critique' run by Jean Piel, established by Bataille in the late 1940s following the foundation of the review Critique. Bataille's La Part maudite was the first volume to appear in the series. It was announced as a first volume, subtitled, La Consommation of a major work in which Bataille would develop an alternative or heretical economics, a project begin in the 1930s with 'La Notion de dépense'. The subsequent volumes would not however appear in Bataille's lifetime. Anti-Oedipe is true to the spirit of the collection, with its attention to issues of political economy. To view it as a response to La Part maudite would probably be to stretch the point. But such an angle is suggested by the reference, and this time it is one, in the first few pages to La Part maudite, in which Deleuze and Guattari mark a distinction between their own account of production and Bataille's emphasis on unproductive expenditure.
3. For Bataille unproductive expenditure, both natural and sumptuary, the eruptions of volcanoes and the smoke of burnt tobacco, is distinguished from the realm of production through the criteria of usefulness. The accursed share which Bataille pursues pertains to excess, to waste, to the element of destructive expenditure or of gift without return which Bataille proposes is and also should be the fundamental basis of any economics, or at least one which is attentive to the general economy of energy at a global level. Deleuze and Guattari widen the frame for production, and , in their footnote, place Bataille's unproductive expenditure within this frame as a species of production, the production of consummation. All is production; so called unproductive expenditure is a production of consumption; in Bataille's terms, it is a production of expenditures. In other words, consumption, the using up, or in a stronger sense, the destruction of resources, is in and of itself a production. What do Deleuze and Guattari do here? Is there account categorically different from Bataille's? To the extent that they propose a 'general' category of production, comprising the production of productions, the production of consumptions and the production of inscriptions (enregistrements), perhaps they are in continuity with the 'general' economy for which Bataille argues. Yet in replacing economy with production, the sociological category of exchange, which Bataille inherited from Durkheim and Mauss, is replaced by the materialist conception of production, and the criteria of usefulness is abandoned. Insofar as these notions appear as inherited from an idealist economic theory, Deleuze and Guattari could be said to realise the materialist theory of the general economy which Bataille was unable to think due to the persistence in his thought of the legacy of idealism.
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