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A POSTCAPITALIST PARADIGM: THE COMMON GOOD OF ...

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ical companies, etc.) and to the ‘military industrial complex’ (as was denounced<br />

by General Eisenhower at the end of his mandate as President<br />

of the United States), not forgetting the control of the enormous communication<br />

(or disinformation) media.<br />

In a society based on a perspective of ‘common good’, finance must fulfil<br />

the fundamental mission of developing the real economy (production<br />

of goods and services) while the economy should be at the service of<br />

human beings, men and women, with equal dignity and rights. Today<br />

we are living in an upside-down world with the still dominant model (although<br />

in a profound terminal crisis) whereby people work to serve the<br />

economy (supremacy of capital over labour) and what is known as the<br />

real economy is controlled and conditioned by the financial market, particularly<br />

by speculation.<br />

In this text on the ‘common goods’ and the ‘Common Good of Humanity’<br />

there are many detailed analyses and proposals that converge with<br />

the perspectives of the organized workers, even though there are some<br />

definitions that do not meet with consensus in the trade union movement.<br />

I am going to concentrate on the former.<br />

Politics at the service of Capital<br />

Where are the governments that are really governing? Politics (the politicians)<br />

has yielded to the interests of the large corporations. Even the<br />

politicians who have progressive ideologies are unable to carry out proposals<br />

and programmes, because the power of the economic and financial<br />

elite prevents them from doing so. After living in a bipolar world<br />

(United States/Soviet Union), we have passed to a unipolar world, with<br />

a new hegemonic power: financial capital, associated with the huge<br />

transnational corporations, dominated mainly by the United States.<br />

This text compellingly analyzes the various crises that we are at present<br />

undergoing (financial, economic, food, energy, climate, etc.), the accumulation<br />

of which has clearly transformed into a systemic crisis. As for<br />

the financial crisis, it shows that it began when, as Jorge Beinstein affirmed<br />

(quoted in paragraph 11 of the document), “a virtual economy<br />

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