A POSTCAPITALIST PARADIGM: THE COMMON GOOD OF ...

was happiness. In the ancestral way of thinking of the indigenous peoples,
there is the notion of ‘full life’, which is only possible if the reference
is to ‘us’ and not to ‘oneself’. “The community is the support and
basis for the reproduction of the collective subject, which is what everyone
is, [which makes it possible] to be part of that totality in a spiral, not
a linear perspective” (ibid., 32). The link with nature is central and its elements
‘are angry’ because it is being destroyed by a false definition
of development. According to the introductory part of the Plan, the two
concepts reject “a fragmented vision of development, that is economistic
and concentrated on the market”. It is the function of the Plan to
translate these ideas into concrete policies through participatory planning,
decentralization and genuine participation in diverse fields: rights,
the different aspects of common goods, etc.
An analysis of this document shows that sumak kawsay is a new word
for integrated development, inspired by the tradition and the discourse
of the indigenous peoples and that it wishes to propose, through its original
contribution, a change of paradigm from the capitalist conception of
development. There are similar intellectual efforts being made in African
and Asian societies and it is the bringing together of all these initiatives
that help to clarify the objectives of the diverse social movements and
political organizations that are struggling for a change of society.
Clearly, both the Constitutions and the National Plan are written documents
and do not necessarily reflect realities. There is a broad tradition
that seeks juridical perfection in Latin America without being overly concerned
about its application. Nevertheless, certain discourses can ‘perform’,
as is said in linguistics, and serve as a reference for action. This
is the reason why the indigenous movements are struggling in Ecuador,
Bolivia and other countries on the continent to obtain recognition of their
nationalities in juridical texts and are still using ancestral language to express
certain concepts, like buen vivir. Some people describe the Buen
Vivir National Plan as a beautiful ‘poem because the great principles, expressed
in a very valid philosophical and anthropological language, are
in the final analysis allegories that are not applicable – or worse still, a
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