A POSTCAPITALIST PARADIGM: THE COMMON GOOD OF ...

(the good life), that are cited by Eduardo Gudynas (2011, 8), but also the
Maya tradition in Guatemala, in Chiapas (Mexico) and among the Kunas
in Panama, etc. The Tseltal people (Chiapas) thus talk of lekil kuxlejal (the
good life), not as an impossible dream but as a concept that, even if it
has degenerated, could be revived. Its application is fundamentally moral
in everyday life (Antonio Paoli, 2003, 71) and it includes peace before
anything else, both within each person as much as within the community
and between man and woman in a couple. When peace reigns in
the world, life is perfect: “this is the time of lekil kuxlejal (ibid. 77). Peace
is established with justice and without justice there is no lekil kuxlejal
(ibid., 82). The concept also implies a harmonious integration between
society and nature: the happiness of the community is projected onto
nature and automatically felt in the environment: the happy ecosystem
makes people light-hearted and cheerful” (ibid., 75). 114
Thus we can conclude that the reference to these concepts, that were
important in the life of the original peoples of the continent, meet a need
to create a new way of living, in spite of the contradictions inherent in
the human condition. Awareness of the profoundly destructive character
of capitalism as the economic basis of a culture of progress without
limits and that ignores social and ecological externalities, is making headway
among the indigenous peoples, as it is in many other social milieux
of the continent. The defence of life, the proposal of an ethic of buen
vivir, restoring the equilibria of the ecosystem and the importance of the
collectivity as opposed to individualism, are values that are guiding leftwing
movements all round the world. Such convergence enables us
now to enter into greater detail about the actual functions of buen vivir
and its usefulness in defining the foreign relations of a country like
Ecuador.
114 A local song goes: “We feel our surroundings are smiling, like the birds in the
field, like us, like them, that fly round the world” (Antonio Paoli, 2003, 75)
213