Living Currency by Pierre Klossowski

Author:Pierre Klossowski
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Followed by Sade and Fourier
ISBN: 9781472512376
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2019-11-26T16:00:00+00:00

What has a price and what is free?

If something is free, it means (apparently) either that one is enjoying something beyond the realm of price, or that one is deriving enjoyment from something without offering any compensation in return.

1An absolute owner would never dream of exchanging what belongs to him (and which owes its immeasurable price to this possession) for anything he might receive in return.

Who is an absolute owner? A ‘divinity’, or an ‘inexhaustible life’ (given to each according to their measure) – an image of the ‘all-giving sun’.

2But what is given to each and to all (if it can be obtained immediately by everyone, without any initial distinction or discrimination) not only has no price, but can be given and exchanged freely – for instance, the physiological act of procreation and the enjoyment it provides (voluptuous pleasure).

3‘Life’ has no price in and of itself: it is beyond the realm of price. No price is freely given to it, received by it or endured by it. Yet without voluptuous pleasure, it has no value. But voluptuous pleasure, and the ability to experience it, is in turn freely given to everyone. And it too has no price.

But everyone receives only what they are capable of receiving (first limitation). What they have received is what they are, and thus they can take on a value only through what they can give away, above and beyond what they are. This is why no one can tolerate receiving more than they can give away; otherwise they belong to whomever they constantly receive from.

4However, whoever gives more than they are in order to be worth more than they are (more than they first received) believes that they are augmenting what they are. But what could augment them beyond what they are? And how can they increase their share in order to become capable, beyond their capacity to receive, of giving more than they received?

If you give, you augment yourself. But in giving, how can you augment oneself instead of diminishing yourself? You give in order not to receive, and because you are capable of this, your augment yourself. But how would this augment your value, and what makes you capable of giving? You have value only in the eyes of those who remain beneath you, since they cannot be worth more than what they have received. Thus, the value you acquire, in relation to those who receive without being able to give, is expressed in the right to take back even more than you have given.

If the inability [impuissance] to take back did not exist, despite the capacity to receive, then the augmentation of those who give in order to avoid receiving would not exist either. In every case, those who give but do not receive take possession of those who, having received in order to be, cannot give back. The latter is given over in advance to a power that augments, instead of diminishing, by giving without receiving in order to take back more than one gave.

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