Kathrin Röggla: wir schlafen nicht

17.02.2025 - 17.02.2025

The discussion focused strongly on the now already historical point in time of Röggla's analysis, namely the early 2000s. When asking as to what has changed since then, the moderators considered whether the focus of this book could perhaps be understood as an unconscious duplication (reproduction) of the neoliberal ideology of the time. Some difficult points of insight are missing from Röggla's perspective. For example, the privatisation of public institutions and services was a major theme of the time - and yet the novel focuses mainly on 'new' immaterial commodities such as language, relationships, time management and the like. We came to the conclusion that Röggla limits her 'novel' to the development of the private sector and the event economy in particular.
Historical comparisons were unavoidable (much like geographical comparisons were obligatory when discussing Tram 83). We came to the conclusion that although work culture has now incorporated the idea of work-life balance, relaxation zones in the workplace, retreats etc. and is supposedly not as stressful as it was 20 years ago, this does not mean that it is any less extractivist on the human lifeworld. After all, improvements have been made in some sectors, while in others exploitation is still relentless (e.g. delivery services).