A POSTCAPITALIST PARADIGM: THE COMMON GOOD OF ...

ary ones. Let us recapitulate them: 1) the relationship with nature; 2)
the production of the material basis of life – physical, cultural and spirit -
ual; 3) social and political collective organization; and 4) the interpretation
of reality and the self-involvement of the actors in constructing it, that
is, culture. Each society has to achieve this.
The current paradigm, that guides the construction of the contemporary
world, can be summed up in one word: modernity. This was the result
of a profound transformation of European society and culture that for
centuries has defined its own paradigm. Undeniably, it represented an
advance (Bolivar Echevarria, 2001). However, modernity was not a social
abstraction that happened by chance or came out of nowhere. It concerned
a collective way of life on the planet, with its material and social
bases and its production of ideas. It became well established in history
while, at the same time, through a dialectical process, manifesting its
contradictions. The emancipation of the individual, human rights, the
idea of democracy, the progress of science and its technological applications
are some of its products. However, the hegemony of the capitalist
market and the imposition of its laws reduced most of these
advances to class privileges and colonial relationships that were brutally
maintained for five centuries. A number of social struggles enabled
some subordinate groups to share in the advantages of modernity, but
without changing the paradigm. Now the latter, through its contradictions,
has endangered the four fundamental elements for the collective
life of humanity on the earth. Because of the distance that had developed
between humans and nature, the modernity paradigm led to the
over-exploitation of nature: in other words, to the devastation of the
source of life (Mother Earth). It gave birth to the capitalist market economy
that, by its logic, invaded all aspects of life. In the political field the
highly centralized Jacobin State resulted from this vision. In the cultural
field, unbridled individualism was developed as an ethical necessity, together
with the concept of the unlimited progress of humanity, living on
an inexhaustible planet and capable of resolving its contradictions
through science and technology. This model oriented the development
model, including that of the socialist societies of the XX century.
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