A POSTCAPITALIST PARADIGM: THE COMMON GOOD OF ...

Gandhian Vision
Where as socialism advocates distributive justice under the control of
state, and differs totally from capitalism that advocates individual freedom
to profit and monopoly mediated by the market rather than the
state, one can argue that as far as increased and mass production of
goods is concerned, both agree. So where as the difference is about
‘public common goods’ and ‘privatized goods’, there seems to be agreement
about having more and more goods. Increased production of an
increasing range of goods has an inherent assumption, that the earth
has inexhaustible resources to sustain both the range and the extent.
Sustainability of ecological resources was not seriously considered a hindrance
to increased production even under socialism, one may argue.
Moreover, the disruption of ecological balances and relationships that
are critical for maintaining the regenerative capacities of the earth have
remained completely outside the purview of high growth theses. It is
not only the depletion of the earth’s resources, but the tampering of its
ecological cycles, like the hydrological cycle, the food chains, the photosynthetic
processes, the climatic cycles, the gulf stream, the tropical
cycles that have produced and sustained vital biodiversity; that have put
humanity and earth under increasingly non-reversible stress. This has
been brought around through large scale pollution, deforestation, tampering
of river systems, changed agricultural practices for capitalistic
farming, chemicalising the soil and above all now, through climate
change. With the advent of globalized market economy, the roots of capitalism
have so penetrated the production and reproduction of scientific
knowledge so as to take it away more and more from the knowledge
commons into private domains. The crafting of the General Agreements
on Tariffs and Trade and the revised patent laws, overseen by the World
Trade Organisation not only grant monopoly control on inventions and
discoveries, but also make it possible to convert the nature’s commons,
like seeds and genes, into private monopoly through patenting of life
forms. Consequently, the common good of humanity, which must also
include the earth, is therefore so threatened that we can no longer postpone
seeking alternative visions and practices of development.
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