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A POSTCAPITALIST PARADIGM: THE COMMON GOOD OF ...

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Therefore be it resolved that<br />

Article 1<br />

The Common Good of Humanity is the foundation of human life in dignity,<br />

both in the present and in the future. Its preservation and enrichment<br />

is the task of each individual, of the nations, and of their com munities.<br />

Article 2<br />

1. Everyone and each nation is entitled to equal rights of use of this heritage<br />

without distinction, be it of power or of property, of military or of<br />

political force, of culture or of gender.<br />

2. The inequalities existing today in the rights of use of this heritage<br />

must be removed over the course of the next fifty years. This is an obligation<br />

particularly upon those who have hitherto achieved the greatest<br />

privileges and gains from the use of this heritage.”<br />

Part Two: The Transformation from Capitalism to Socialism<br />

and a Concrete Entry Project<br />

The emergence of modern bourgeois societies<br />

The late eighteenth century was shaken by two momentous events, the<br />

Industrial Revolution in England and the political revolution in France.<br />

With the English Industrial Revolution, capitalism created for itself the<br />

technological base from which it could destroy all traditional forms of<br />

production, such as the<br />

Fig.1: The growth of global GDP per inhabitant<br />

peasant household eco -<br />

nomy and the handicrafts.<br />

A historically un pre ce den -<br />

ted boost to productivity<br />

and growth was ushered<br />

in (Fig. 1).<br />

As Marx and Engels wrote<br />

in their eulogy to this revolutionary<br />

aspect of capitalism:<br />

“The bourgeoisie<br />

145

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