‘It’s the economy, stupid!’ – the slogan echoed by a number of politicians and economists in the 1990s and taken up by the so-called commonsensical, neo-liberal society became the main slogan of the Western world in the past two decades, in pursuit of which, the state took up the role of an active participant in the market. This stance of governments and elites, in the final analysis intent on pursuing nothing but profit, and quite indifferent to the social cost in all dimensions, was additionally boosted by Mrs Thatcher’s 1980 pronouncement, ‘There is no alternative’. In terms of the prevailing Weltanschauung, such a stance completed the dominant elitist philosophy – of enlightened cynicism. Today, when the Indignados’ movement keeps going from strength to strength, it has become clear that society needs new scripts for the future. Art may turn out to be extraordinarily useful in that process. And so we devote the second issue ofMOCAK Forum to the relationships between art and society.

Stanisław Ruksza
The Editor of the issue