A POSTCAPITALIST PARADIGM: THE COMMON GOOD OF ...

uate each new initiative to create a new paradigm within the whole, thus
giving coherence to what could seem a series of separate actions, without
much connection with each other (empiricism). This is also valid for
international politics.
As we have already said, the foundations of the collective life of humanity
on the planet are fourfold: the relationship with nature; the production
of the basics for living (the economy); collective organization, social and
political; and interpretation or the symbolic expression of reality. It is the
fulfilment of a new paradigm with its four elements that we would call
the achievement of the Common Good of Humanity, that is, as we have
already said, the production and reproduction of life. It is an objective
that has to be continually pursued, but which cannot be defined once
and for all because historical circumstances change the context. However,
the current crisis requires a radical re-thinking, one that goes to
the roots of the situation (István Mészáros, 2008, 86) and this means a
complete reorientation of the paradigm compared to capitalism. The concept
of the Common Good of Humanity has been expressed in many
different ways, according to the traditions of thinking and the collective
experiences of peoples - for example in the philosophies and religions
of the East and of the indigenous peoples of the Americas (the Sumak
Kwasay, or buen vivir), as also in the Marxist tradition of the system of
universal needs and capacities (A. Salamanca Serrano, 2011, p. 46 and
S. Mercier-Jesa, 1982).
The new paradigm
Summing it up, we can say that the paradigm of human development
expressed by modernity is indefinite material and scientific progress, on
an inexhaustible planet at the exclusive disposal of human beings, so
that they can benefit, with increasing liberty, from goods and services.
This way of life is based on the effectiveness of a competitive economy
(a particularly masculine characteristic) and it is now being exhausted
because of all its social and ecological contradictions. Hence the need
for a radical change to ensure the continuity of life on earth and of humanity
in the long term.
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