Notes on eroticism, excess and billionaire accumulation

Abstract

Based on Georges Bataille's notion of eroticism, which brings immoderation and excess as fundamental aspects, we will reflect upon the processes of subjectivation of the greatest financial accumulators of our time, the billionaires. We will ask ourselves whether the excessive accumulation they practice could be an expression of a ruinous Eros similar to that of the characters created by the Marquis de Sade and thematized by Bataille and other authors. We will investigate characteristics present in the protagonists of Sade's fictions, such as apathy, the taste for enumeration and demonstrative language, comparing them with neoliberal corporate practices in order to verify possible approximations. We will also analyze whether prerequisites for the sadian debauchery, such as enclosure and alliance between equals, can also be thought of as conditions for the financial accumulation brought to paroxysm by billionaires.