A POSTCAPITALIST PARADIGM: THE COMMON GOOD OF ...

takes precedence over the real economy; in other words when financial
capital begins to be more profitable than productive capital”. The Argentinian
trade unionist Miguel Gazzera was saying more or less the same
thing already at the beginning of the 1980s.
This is in line with the vision of the international workers’ movement.
In its Declaration to the Summit of the G20 that met in Cannes in November
2011, Sharan Burrow, General Secretary of the International
Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), stated: “The pressure of public opinion
on the governments to take action in the interests of people and not
bankers will continue to increase. Citizens are indignant. The international
trade-union movement is in Cannes to demand measures and reforms
that respond to the justified indignation.”
The same union leader, in her presentation of the Proposals of the Trade-
Union Movement to the Secretariat for the Sustainable Development
Summit (RIO + 20) affirmed:
“Governments have to understand that if there is not a drastic change
in the way that the world is governed, it will be impossible to achieve
social equality and environmental protection. The trade-union movement
is prepared to mobilize to produce a genuine transformation in production
systems so that they offer decent work and prosperity, at the same
time respecting natural resources for future generations.”
In the South Area Forum on the ‘Crisis of Capitalism, of Welfare Society
and of Work’ that took place in Madrid in November 2010 these same
ideas were expressed and can be briefly summed up. Not only do governments
not govern and politics are being controlled by economics and
the speculative financial groups, but the fundamental values of democracy
– equality, solidarity, justice, equity, ethics, etc. – have been subverted
and replaced by individualism, the accumulation of wealth,
concentration and the slogan “everyone for themselves”.
At the ILO, governments, together with employers and workers, were
able to reach important agreements and norms (Fundamental Principles
and Rights at Work, the Decent Work Agenda, Global Jobs Pact) but
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