A POSTCAPITALIST PARADIGM: THE COMMON GOOD OF ...

The crisis of representation: the right to collective,
individual, political, cultural and generational memory
The power of global capitalism is also to be found in the iconic field.
The representations of images of the Afro-descendant and indigenous
peoples are stereotyped in spite of legislation and policies for gender
equality, cultural equality and ‘inclusive’ public policies. But it is necessary
to go beyond decrees and root out the stigmas and stereotypes
that are however unconscious and involve cultural, racial and class prejudices.
Symbolic usurpation, as a colonial exercise, has left its mark
above all on peoples’ consciousness.
Changing these residues involves exercising the right to meaning and
this means giving new significance to the practices, images, forms,
membership, the various languages of our traditional cultures, viewed
positively and creatively, also involving multi-sensorial equity.
Representation takes place through levels of perception that are cultural
constructions so that individuals are not always aware of their prejudices
and they are changed by these cultural constructions, which are justified
as (poorly adopted) tradition, without considering the seriousness of
their racist, sexist and macho connotations. In Ecuador, the policies concerning
the communication media that have so far been implemented
are still unsuccessful in changing the productive and reproductive orientation
of the capitalism-colonialism that is practised in everyday life.
Changing the capitalist system, as the text proposes, involves a change
in peoples’ imaginary that has been inherited and transmitted. It is, in
fact, impossible to think about a ‘common good’ if mentalities are still
imbued with this ‘subtle’ kind of violence, which cannot be penalized.
Positive representation is a source of well-being. There are things that
can be useful or give satisfaction that cannot be bought and sold on the
market (the beauty of nature and of the populations excluded through
hegemony, like the Afro-descendants and the indigenous peoples) which,
at most, are called ‘externalities’.The EBT (Environmental BioTech nology?)
under-rates this important source of human well-being (or suffering).
Confronted by neo-liberal, economistic capitalism, emphasizing goods
and services leaves out the very thing that people value.
285