Reflections on economy and public life

Rasmus Ugilt
Jeanne van Heeswijk


Preface

In these pages we seek to finish the work we began more than a year ago, as we started our discussions about the economy and the public sphere. We began in the streets of Copenhagen talking about the seemingly never-ending crisis, and we did it in perhaps the most inhospitable environment imaginable: the main shopping street where people are eager to move quickly from purchase to purchase and hence already well-trained in the art of avoiding encounters with various people who want something from them: donations, panhandling, protests. Our trick was to announce forcefully that we were relatively harmless: we had signs saying “We just talk!”
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Our interests were not harmless however. We think the discussion, we began, is anything but harmless. Indeed, it might end up being somewhat destructive. But our point is that the only thing more dangerous than beginning to rethink the relations of economy, public life, social justice, would be to refrain from doing it. The question we are asking is not at all simple: how can we have a public life in a situation where strictly defined economic logics seem to saturate all parts of our social and political world? Is there a way to reinvigorate the public sphere in such a way that we are not already from the start assigned certain positions defined by the current neo-liberal regime? We think this might be the only way in which we can hope to solve our current political predicament.


”We Just Talk!” has been printed in 75 copies. 50 of these have been given to the proper adressee. In this case the proper addressee was bypassers at Købmagergade in Copenhagen.
Taschenspiel Press prints small philosophical books that target a specific trend or a specific contemporary phe-nomenon. Every book has an adressee, and this addressee will receive the greater part of the printed copies of the book in question. The books are little gifts or openings. A domino that suddenly lies in front of you.
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