Beautiful Day
Jörg Amonat, Anne Eberle, Stefan Krüskemper

bik: Anne, you are unemployed and you work in trade union organized groups of the unemployed. Are the unemployed today's »avant-garde of labour«, because they are living, what many will also soon be living or is the majority still dreaming the dream of the economic miracle of regular employment?

Anne Eberle: I do not think the term of avant-garde applies here. We are certainly forerunners in many areas of life, because we must think about a different way of living and figure out how we can use the time to our advantage. You see, we are no longer submitted to the conditions of exploitation by capitel or in other words, our living work has been set free. Of course, one can better reflect on social conditions and better discuss a different way of life, if politicians, political parties, economic federations and, contrary to their better knowledge, experts would stop daily propagating that wage labor is the central element of life. They spread confusion. The »superfluous« themselves are being blamed.
Poverty and unemployment are not seen as economic causes, the economization of the social is being focused upon. Being freed from wage labor was supposed to be a victory over wage labor. Wage labor does not liberate. It causes psychological and physical illness, but it is the only form available for people to materially survive better. It is necessary to get the idea out of one's mind that social and individaul recognition is only possible through wage labor, because in the prevailing status of wage labor, there is too little room for living.

bik: One example of your activities was the organization of a workshop in düsseldorf. You invited artists and unemployed to participate. You have now found for yourself a form of work, that goes beyond the categories of wage labor and leisure time. What is the particular quality of your present form of working?

A. E.: Apart from the fact that I spend a lot of time organizing my survival according to the rules of the unemployment office, complying with various rules and permanent availability in accordance with the law, above all, I do have one thing: time! I don't have to work eight hours a day, I have time to relax and regenerate, I have time for myself, which I can organize according to my own plans and pursue goals, which make my life worthwhile. Of course, I have less freedom due to a healthy effort in organizing others, but it is good to »resist«. It is, simply, not wage labor!

bik: What, do you think, keeps people from finding their own new fields of work through self-commissioning?

A.E.: »Yeah, but, what can you do?« - everyone has heard this. It is important to understand that the »but« is a clear reference to a more profound recognition. These people know that »somehow« what they are doing, how they are working and living is wrong. They know that they yield to the pressure of the conditions. But they see no alternatives, have no one to talk to, no one, who could show them the way out of this dilemma.
It is the economic constraints that force people to do what they know is not the right thing to do: some people drive cars, not because they love cars, but because they otherwise don't have a job or income. They burn coal or mineral oil, because, unlike the middle class teacher, owner of a house and green party member, they don't have the money to install a photovoltaic system with combined heat and power production in their home. The thing is, that the dominant conditions determine the predominating consciouness. It is not easy to »resist«.

bik: There is the notion of »general intellect«, the (social)knowledge of a society, in contrast to the knowledge of the individual. Do you feel that you are participating in the production of social knowledge?

booklet »WildCards« as part of »Science Fiction« 2003 - 2005

A.E.: »General intellect« - a difficult concept. I am sure and convinced that there is much more than what is being perceived. But a lot has been hidden, forgotten, displaced, even perverted, or is used under false premises to achieve the contrary of its original purpose.
I am not sure, whether my/our thoughts influence society and if so, in which direction. There cannot be a straight answer. There are too many ghettos in our society, for example the ghetto of those, who are employed (especially in trade unions), those, who are unemployed and artists also like to define boundaries. It would be nice to try to blur and overcome these limits and to undertake joint initiatives.

bik: Isn't the wish to transform society utopian? Or, to put it differently: could not a consistant »ghettoization«, which gives you, for example, the chance to keep you away from certain mechanisms of exploitation, also be an opportunity? There are different worlds and each in itself, is a working cell, interacting with other cells.

A.E.: The wish to chance a society is not utopian. It has a long history, it has plenty of successes and it will persist. The establishment of ghettos, however, would not be an opportunity, but represents the opposite of interacting cells. It would mean withdrawal, which overlooks other aspects in many places.
This is, where I see an opportunity: in overcoming boundaries, fixed points of view, confined enviroments, in learning from each other and in living together.