A POSTCAPITALIST PARADIGM: THE COMMON GOOD OF ...

ops some programmatic lines for what could be a new paradigm of
human coexistence with a global reach. This effort must be collective
and the imagination must play a fundamental role. So the concept of
sumak kawsay is invoked, from a politically and epistemologically open
standpoint, as a “foundational” and “inspirational” principle, making use
of a category that has enjoyed a notable success in the political debate
both within and without its social, cultural and linguistic context in the
Andes. The spread of this concept is, without doubt, significant. The conceptual
wealth attributed to sumak kawsay includes, among other things,
a “sense of life”, a “communal ethic”, the “relationship with nature”, the
“attainment of a full life”, the “ought-to-be of the Plurinational State”, a
“paradigm”, a “political project” (see Simbaña, Acosta, Dávalos, Tortosa,
Santos). The convergence of these elements would lead to the establishment
of a radically different civilization. The depth and reach attributed
to the notion of sumak kawsay suggest that it would come to
institute a state of affairs representing an authentic alternative to capitalism
as a social and historical system that is today markedly in crisis
and decline. What catches the attention in the use and spread of this
category (in its cross-cultural epistemological course) is, however, the
scant conceptual development as regards its cultural and linguistic
sources, and the social praxis that it relates to and describes. This search
is not a sterile but a necessary exercise when we consider that every
concept forms part of a semantic field and a conceptual system that
makes it not just a matter of linguistic translation but, as part of a historically
located philosophical and cultural system, a different conception
of the world. Such a consideration should take us back to its linguistic
and cultural origin, to engage in an epistemological dialogue with different
actors from the community of origin. A basic question in this dialogue
stance ought to be: beyond the literal translation of sumak kawsay
as good living, is there an ancestral genealogy existing as a hard philosophical
category in the Andean cultural context? Are there other Andean
(Kichwa-Aymara) concepts underlying or forming a system with
that of sumak kawsay which could lead to the formulation of a new paradigm
of human coexistence? I am convinced in my supposition that a
Kichwa-speaker would answer in the affirmative. If sumak kawsay is a
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