"A fundamental activity of human society is buying and selling. This is a primitive action that requires a lot of dissimulation to mask its childish simplicity. Faced with an object, without making the slightest calculation, anyone at all knows how much it costs. Because starting with childhood, the economy of desire is enduring.Everyone is ready to pay an altogether unfair price for what’s needed and desired. But a true price doesn’t exist, because that for which we’re willing to pay an unfair price is available at an abominable discount. Which undermines us. And this applies to everyday objects. We are suffocated, humiliated by the fact that they are no longer worth anything. We no longer even have the right to pay a lot for that which we might want to pay a lot.True economy—that of desire—doesn’t exist."
Michel Butel, “L’autre Livre”, Editions Le Passant.
(Translated from the French by Bruce Benderson)
