A POSTCAPITALIST PARADIGM: THE COMMON GOOD OF ...

demands egalitarian distribution (ibid., 38) and implies promoting use
value over exchange value. It poses the question of limits to growth in
order to preserve the natural surroundings (respect for Mother Earth).
For this reason, the vision of sumak kawsay has to take into account,
not only the processes of production, but also those of reproduction
(ibid., 38). Finally it is a question of giving new meaning to geographical
space (ibid., 20): that is, to the territories that play a central role in the
life of the indigenous communities.
c) Organizing another State
The long struggles of the indigenous peoples have shown that they have
a very negative view of the State. Not only did the colonial State radically
destroy them; the post-colonial nation-State excluded them from public
life. In addition, with neoliberalism the nation-State has lost much of its
national status through globalized commerce. Hence the concept of a
pluri-national State has been taken up by the Constitutions of Ecuador
and Bolivia. It is a question of finding a difficult equilibrium between, on
the one hand, the nation-State that is emerging from a neoliberal period
that had reduced its functions in order to open up space for the market
and, on the other, the indigenous people, who are recovering their identities
and seeking their autonomy. For the National Plan of Ecuador, this
means a decentralization and the organization of a ‘polycentric’ State,
but not a weakened one (38). The conflicts between the indigenous organization
in Ecuador and in Bolivia show that it is not easy to find practical
solutions to this problem.
There are two different conceptions of the communal: the first conceives
the community as a way of organizing a reduced segment of society (particularly
rural), which, according to Floresmilo Simbaña is an achronistic
and ineffectual in the contemporary situation. The other, quoting Luis
Macas, considers the community as one of the key institutions “in the
process of reconstructing the peoples and the ancestral nations … [necessary]
… for the historical and ideological reproduction of the Indian
peoples”. According to the former leader of CONAIE, in this sense, the
commune and the territory is a living totality that, as Norma Aguilar says,
“is the fundamental axis that expresses and gives coherence to indige-
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