A POSTCAPITALIST PARADIGM: THE COMMON GOOD OF ...

now promoted under the umbrella of interculturalism. In the face of this
new sensibility towards subordinated modes of life, any critical approach
from an Andean pacha 143 - a locus of enunciation situated in the Andes
– must not only wonder at the cross-cultural spread of concepts such
as Pachamama (Mother Earth) and sumak kawsay (Good Living) but also
ask itself if we are seeing a genuine retreat of scientific and philosophical
Enlightenment or a process of Enlightened appropriation of “subjugated
knowledge” in its Foucauldian sense.
Within this framework, Houtart poses important theoretical and practical
questions related to the definition of the Common Good of Humanity
(henceforward CGH). The fundamental idea underlying his reflections is
that the CGH is not limited to a conception of the “common goods” of
societies as assets of humanity. On the contrary, the conceptualization
of CGH focuses on life in its essentials and the social forms that guarantee
its reproduction, which implies the challenge of imagining the production
and reproduction of life on a global scale on bases of collective
coexistence radically distinct from those dominant today. For Houtart,
the definition of CGH is not a point of departure but rather a human project
whose full realisation invites all humanity, in its unity and cultural diversity,
to participate in its construction. It is therefore a challenge in
diverse senses for which the theoretical formulation, its institutional
forms on different scales, and the creation of new collective subjectivities
to sustain it, would only be rendered possible by the task of imagining
the world in which we live otherwise. To this end, Houtart proposes
re-thinking the fundamentals of collective life on the basis of the following
elements: a) our relationship with nature, b) the production of life, c)
collective (political) organisation and d) our reading of reality. His text offers
important contributions on each of these elements, and this is
143 According to several lexicographical and historical sources, Pacha is the Andean
concept, in Quechua and Aymara, that means space-time, world, cosmos; see Gra -
mática y arte nueva de la lengua general de todo el Peru : llamada lengua Qquichua
o lengua del Inca (Cabildo: Vaduz-Georgetown, 1975 [1607]); Shimiyuk Diccionario
Kichwa – Español / Español- Kichwa (Quito: Casa de la Cultura Núcleo de Sucumbíos,
2008).
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