A POSTCAPITALIST PARADIGM: THE COMMON GOOD OF ...

nature and affirmed the symbiosis between human beings and Mother
Earth. The original peoples succeeded in organizing their practical living
conditions with their knowledge, techniques and cultures, both from establishing
the symbiosis with nature and for resolving its contradictions.
They did this rationally and functionally. Their symbolic way of thinking
(identifying symbol with the real) was adapted to their situations and the
holistic vision was part of their cosmovision. Nevertheless, this kind of
vision has also some contemporary expression: “What surrounds us
(mountains, woods, rivers...) is part of a whole and because of this we
have life” says Rodolfo Pocop Coroxon. “They are divinities (water, air,
earth, the universe) whose energy is the same as that of the atoms that
form human beings” (2008, 40). The Kunas of Panama call the elements
of nature ‘elder brothers’ as they existed before human beings. Thus
nature and its components are personified. Permission is requested
from Mother Earth for all the actions needed to satisfy the necessities
of human life but which constitute an ‘aggression’ to its integrity, like
cutting down a tree or killing an animal (ibid., 41).
These representations had their own logic in the specific historical circumstances
of the society and of its culture. It is difficult to perceive if
they are part of the expression of the real, reproducing ancestral way of
thinking in function of the economic and social exclusion of the indigenous
peoples, or if they transformed themselves into highly poetic allegories,
capable of explaining the privileged relationships between man
and nature and therefore, motivating actions that protect the surrounds
and the necessary political commitment. At all events, declares Marion
Woynar concerning the indigenous peoples of Mexico, “the awareness
of the autochthonous peoples of a Mother Earth that is indispensable
for life, motivates them to protect it through a sustainable economy”
(Marion Woynar, 2011, 481).
Nevertheless, in approaching the theme of capitalism and its negative
ecological and social effects, the holistic focus could also be disconnected
from the symbolic way of thinking and integrated into an analytical
way of thinking. The latter establishes the causes of natural phe nom-
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