If you stand in front of the "Runde Ecke"—the former Stasi museum in central Leipzig—and look some 50 to 60 meters to the left toward the "Blechbüchse" mall, there is a green space right inside the inner city ring road. There, unhoused people have pitched several tents. The police have already attempted to clear the makeshift camp and drive them away—so far without success. Whether polite society likes it or not, these individuals are part of the city of Leipzig.
This sight raises an urgent question for Prof. Dr. Timo Meynhardt and the organizers of the "Leipzig Common Good Parliament" (Gemeinwohl-Parlament Leipzig): A society is structured like a chain—and a chain is only ever as strong as its weakest link. Your parliament operates right in the city center. Have you ever spoken with the people living in those tents? Do they even exist in your perception, or do you consciously exclude them from your vision of the common good? So far, there has been complete silence from your side.
This contradiction becomes even more glaring considering how the city of Leipzig recently celebrated itself with the "Good Life Leipzig" (Gutes Leben Leipzig) festival. During this massive public relations spectacle, Christian Felber himself appeared in Leipzig, sharing the stage and the applause with Timo Meynhardt. Yet did Christian Felber visit the people living in tents just a few hundred meters away? What is his answer—and what does his Economy for the Common Good actually offer to those at the very bottom of society?
When the "common good" is celebrated in heated halls as an academic prestige project or municipal PR stunt while the most vulnerable are left out in the cold right outside the door, it exposes itself as an elitist facade.
