Table Of ContentA POSTCAPITALIST
PARADIGM:
THE COMMON GOOD
OF HUMANITY
BIRGIT DAIBER
FRANÇOIS HOUTART (ED.)
Rosa-Luxemburg-Foundation
Brussels
Birgit Daiber and François Houtart (ed.)
A POSTCAPITALIST PARADIGM:
THE COMMON GOOD OF HUMANITY
Rosa Luxemburg Foundation Brussels Office 2012
[email protected], www.rosalux-europa.info
A postcapitalist Paradigm: The Common Good of Humanity
Published by Rosa Luxemburg Foundation Brussels
www.rosalux-europa.info
Layout: Edition Lit.europe, Berlin
Printed and bound by Motiv Offset
With Support of the Republic of Germany
Content
Introduction
Birgit Daiber | François Houtart 7
Chapter I
From ‘common goods’ to the ‘Common Good of Humanity’
François Houtart 11
Why associate the notion of ‘common goods’ with the concept
of ‘Common Good of Humanity’?
What solutions?
The multiple facets of the crisis
The new paradigm
The Common Good of Humanity as a global objective
Towards a Universal Declaration on the Common Good of Humanity
Chapter II
Building axes of the Common Good of Humanity:
additional reflections
1. The relationship with nature
Commons goods, socio-ecological metabolism and the Common
Future of Humanity: a North/South analysis
Gian Carlo Delgado Ramos 57
2. The production of life (economy)
Reflections on the crisis and its effects
Rémy Herrera
85
Prioritizing use value over exchange value
Marc Vandepitte 109
Making the Common Good of Humanity concrete:
Free Public Transport – for a Life in Solidarity
Michael Brie 133
The Commons, the Public and the Left
Rainer Rilling 159
On Common Good, Money and Credit
Pedro Páez Pérez 163
3. Social and political collective organization
Some memories of the future
Birgit Daiber 183
Commons: social justice by sharing
Tommaso Fattori 195
4. Culture
The concept of Sumak Kawsay (Living Well) and how it relates
to the Common Good of Humanity
François Houtart 207
What modernity, what interculturality?
Reflections from South America
Gabriela Bernal Carrera 233
Chapter III
The Common Good of Humanity seen from different perspectives
1. The Workers’ Movement.
A comment from the viewpoint of workers
Eduardo Estevez Marin 255
2. The Farmers’ Movements.
The Common Good of Humanity, Good Living and the
Peasants Movements
Ivo Poletto 267
3. Afro-descendants Women.
The Women of African Descent
Gabriela Viveros Padilla and Marisol Cárdenas Oñate 277
4. Indigenous peoples of the Americas.
The poetics of Sumak Kawsay on a global Horizon
Armando Muyolema 293
5. The People’s Science Movement, India.
People’s Science for the Common Good of Humanity
Vinod Raina 309
6. The Arab Awakening.
From “Common Goods” to the
“Common Good” of all living species on the Planet Earth
Hassan Abdou Bakr 325
7. Asia-Europe Peoples’ Forum.
Restoring the Right to Life and a Life of Diginity for All –
The Campaign for Transformative Social Protection in Asia
Tina Ebro 335
8. Today’s World and the Winding.
Search for the Common Good
Aurelio Alonso 347
Chapter IV
Conclusions and Transitions
François Houtart 363
Regulations versus alternatives
The transition
Bibliography 375
The Authors 389
INTRODUCTION
There are various sources that can be used for a rethinking of the idea
of the Common Good of Humanity and how to apply it to the life condi-
tions of the human species and the planet.
First of all, the crisis we are experiencing today, which is by no means
confined to its financial aspects, clearly shows that it is not enough to
regulate the system that is at the origin of all these dysfunctions. What
is required is a change of paradigm for the collective life of human beings
on earth, as said at the UN General Assembly in October 2008, shortly
after the eruption of the crisis.1The way this crisis has expanded in all
its aspects since then makes the need for a profound transformation all
the more relevant today.
In January 2009, during the first session of the UN Commission on the
international financial and monetary crisis (aka the Stiglitz Commission),
it was proposed for the first time to draft a Universal Declaration of the
Common Good of Humanity (parallel to the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights), affirming the need for a change of paradigm to save the
planet and humanity. Miguel D’Escoto, President of the UN General As-
sembly during the 2008-2009 session, relaunched the idea in his farewell
address, proposing a Universal Declaration of the Common Good of
Mother Earth and of Humanity.
The defence of the ‘common goods’, initiated by various social move-
ments around the world as neo-liberalism set its mind to privatizing pub-
lic services, both in the North and in the South, also served to promote
new thinking, showing that the issue was about much more than a mere
economic endeavour to integrate public services into the logic of the
market, as the only way to make them contribute to profitability and cap-
ital accumulation. This new thinking showed that the exacerbation of
the individual, the loss of the sense of the collective, the disappearance
of pride in public service were all results of this endeavour.
1François Houtart, No bastan las regulaciones, UN General Assembly, 30 Oct. 2008
7
In the 1990s, Riccardo Petrella made great efforts to give a new mean-
ing to the traditional notion of the ‘common good’ and the notion of pub-
lic interest, showing their contrast to neo-liberalism. He published
various works on the subject and founded the ‘University of the Com-
mon Good’.
A most recent proposal concerns transformative social protection. This
proposal was put forward by the Asia-Europe Forum in the Philippines
and was in turn inspired by the ideas of a universal social subsidy, of the
social security in the more advanced industrialized countries, of the pro-
grammes of struggle against poverty in the progressive regimes of Latin
America and the awareness of the non-renewable, unsustainable char-
acter of the capitalist logic.
The European office of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation organized a
seminar on the theme ‘From common goods to the Common Good of
Humanity’, which took place in Rome in April 2011, the occasion being
the Italian referendum on the privatization of water and the use of nu-
clear energy. Three weeks later the results showed unequivocally the
common feeling of public opinion against an all-privatizing capitalism and
its insatiable appetite.
In the same spirit, the Canadian NGO Development and Peace, con-
vinced of the importance of a theoretical reflection to guide the collective
action of social movements, contributed by funding studies and meet-
ings, as well as the preparation of work on the Common Good of Hu-
manity on a large scale.
These activities produced several results. The first was the publication
by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation of a basic text on the subject: From
common goods to the Common Good of Humanity, translated in several
European and eastern languages. The next step was the preparation of
this book, also by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, with analytical feed-
back and commentaries on various aspects of the ‘Common Good of
Humanity’ notion and its social and political functions.
8
The economic and cultural aspects are those that have received the
most attention. We would like here to thank the authors and especially
Gabriela Bernal and Renato Sabbadini for their contribution to the work.
However, much still remains to be done. Besides clarifying the concepts
and broadening the field of their application, it will be necessary to define
strategies and social actors, and to reflect on the transition between the
logic of capitalist accumulation and the post-capitalist society of the
Common Good of Humanity, as the achievement of socialism in its
fullest meaning. It will also be necessary to continue preparing the Uni-
versal Declaration of the Common Good of Humanity, in collaboration
with the progressive social and political movements of all continents.
Birgit Daiber
François Houtart
9
Chapter I
FROM ‘COMMON GOODS’
TO THE ‘COMMON GOOD OF HUMANITY’
FRANÇOIS HOUTART
All around the world there is deep unease caused by the growing divi-
sions in society, lack of respect for justice, youth unemployment, abuse
of power, destruction of nature. A new wave of social movements has
emerged. The Social Forums enabled their globalization. A collective so-
cial consciousness is developing that things cannot go on like this. The
economic development model that we have, with its political, cultural
and psychological consequences, is at the origin of these imbalances.
But it is necessary to find solutions urgently. The time has come to put
forward new orientations and not just adaptations of the existing sys-
tem. To reflect on this and to bring together the forces for change has
become a top priority.
Alongside the Italian initiative for a referendum on water (one of the
‘common goods’), the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation organized a confer-
ence entitled From ‘Common Goods’ to the ‘Common Good of Human-
ity’, at Rome in April 2011. The aim was to reflect on the connections
bet ween the two notions, i.e. ‘common goods’ and ‘Common Good of
Humanity’, in order to encourage thinking about the links between the
two notions and to integrate the demands and social struggles for a
change of society.
Why associate the notion of ‘common goods’
with the concept of ‘Common Good of Humanity’?
The defence of the ‘common goods’ is, these days, an important priority
for many social movements. The phrase includes both the indispensable
elements for life, such as water and seeds, as well as the ‘public serv-
ices’ that are today being dismantled by neoliberal policies, both in the
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