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Rene Noel Theophile Girard (; French: [ZiRaR]; 25 December 1923 - 4 November 2015) was a French historian, literary critic, and philosopher of social science whose work belongs to the tradition of anthropological philosophy. Girard was the author of nearly thirty books, with his writings spanning many academic domains.

The mimetic theory has also been applied in the study of economics, most notably in La violence de la monnaie (1982) by Michel Aglietta and Andre Orlean. Orlean was also a contributor to the volume Rene Girard in Les cahiers de l'Herne ("Pour une approche girardienne de l'homo oeconomicus"). According to the philosopher of technology Andrew Feenberg:  In La violence de la monnaie, Aglietta and Orlean follow Girard in suggesting that the basic relation of exchange can be interpreted as a conflict of 'doubles', each mediating the desire of the Other. Like Lucien Goldmann, they see a connection between Girard's theory of mimetic desire and the Marxian theory of commodity fetishism. In their theory, the market takes the place of the sacred in modern life as the chief institutional mechanism stabilizing the otherwise explosive conflicts of desiring subjects.  In an interview with the Unesco Courier, anthropologist and social theorist Mark Anspach (editor of the Rene Girard issue of Les Cahiers de l'Herne) explains that Aglietta and Orlean (who were very critical of economic rationality) see the classical theory of economics as a myth. According to Anspach, the vicious circle of violence and vengeance generated by mimetic rivalry gives rise to the gift economy, as a means to overcome it and achieve a peaceful reciprocity: "Instead of waiting for your neighbour to come steal your yams, you offer them to him today, and it is up to him to do the same for you tomorrow. Once you have made a gift, he is obliged to make a return gift. Now you have set in motion a positive circularity." Since the gift may be so large as to be humiliating, a second stage of development--"economic rationality"--is required: this liberates the seller and the buyer of any other obligations than to give money. Thus reciprocal violence is eliminated by the sacrifice, obligations of vengeance by the gift, and finally the possibly dangerous gift by "economic rationality." This rationality, however, creates new victims, as globalization is increasingly revealing. CANNOTANSWER
<bot>: René Girard