A POSTCAPITALIST PARADIGM: THE COMMON GOOD OF ...

nous society” (Floresmilo Simbaña, 2011, 25-26). As for David Choquehuanca,
he very strongly insists on ‘communal consensus’ as a way of
functioning (2010, 66).
At first sight the two notions are not incompatible. The first (communal)
serves as a basis in various countries (Venezuela, Bolivia) in organizing
popular participation. With the exception of isolated regions, where the
indigenous peoples constitute the whole territory (in Amazonia, for example),
this territorial division cannot be very useful for the indigenous
peoples. The second dimension (territory, community) is much broader,
corresponding to the demands of the autochthonous peoples, but it is
not easily transposed into norms and organization. Internal migrations
and urbanization have created new social and cultural problems, which
cannot be solved by decrees, only by gradual consensus. It is here that
the principle of pluri-nationality (differences) should be accompanied by
the principle of multi-culturalism (a collection of diversities) in a ‘national’
State (Catherine Walsh, 2008). As Boaventura de Souza says, “pluri-nationality
reinforces nationalism” (2010, 22).
Sumak kawsay also implies a vision of the whole of Latin America, Abya
Yala, ‘a great community’ as David Choquehuanca puts it. The Bolivian
Constitution takes up this idea of “uniting all the peoples and returning
to be the Abya Yala that we used to be”. Apart from the difference in
content, it could be said that the concept has a certain affinity with
Simon Bolivar’s ‘Great Country’ and José Marti’s ‘Our America’. However
it is closer still to the ALBA (Alianza bolivariana para los pueblos de
Nuestra América), which uses the concept of “grand-national”, implying
initiatives at the con tinental level based on “solidarity, complementarity,
justice and sustainable development”. Nevertheless, the autochthonous
peoples, with the idea of pluri-national States, are adding in another dimension.
The originality of their contribution is that Abya Yala should be
constructed on the basis of buen vivir, that is, with more fundamental
and integral perspectives that can strengthen Latin American integration
initiatives, confronted as they are by the systemic crisis threatening the
reproduction of life on the planet.
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