A POSTCAPITALIST PARADIGM: THE COMMON GOOD OF ...

eality, sometimes in a very brutal way. This means therefore seeing nature
not as a planet to be exploited, nor as natural resources that can be
reduced to the status of saleable commodities, but as the source of all
life. As such, its capacity to regenerate itself physically and biologically
has to be respected. This obviously entails a radical philosophical
change. Any relationship with nature that is exclusively utilitarian must
be questioned. Capitalism considers ecological damage as ‘collateral’
and inevitable – though perhaps to be reduced as far as possible; or,
even worse, ecological damages are considered as ‘externalities’, since
they are ignored in market calculations and consequently in the accumulation
of capital.
Some authors go much further, and question the anthropocentric bias
of these perspectives, proposing new concepts like ‘the right of nature’,
which the Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff has defended in some of
his writings. It was on this basis that the president of the UN General
Assembly, Miguel D’Escoto, proposed, in his farewell speech in 2009,
a Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth and of Mankind.
The same Assembly had previously approved unanimously through the
votes of 192 countries the adoption of a Mother Earth Day. It was rightly
pointed out that the human being is a part of nature and that a dichotomy
should not be set up between the two but rather a symbiosis. Different
speakers, supporting this position, maintained that only a shallow anthropocentric
attitude could consider the human being as the centre of
the world, without taking into account other living beings, including the
planet itself. This attitude is indeed having negative ecological effects
that are becoming dramatically visible.
On the other hand, what we are calling the ‘Common Good’ of the Earth
can only be tackled through the mediation of the human species. It is
only human intervention that can allow the Earth to regenerate – or prevent
it from doing so through our own predatory and destructive activities.
This is why the Common Good of Humanity involves the survival
of nature - that is, of biodiversity. If we use the expression ‘the rights of
nature’ (Eduardo Gudynas, 2009), this can be understood only in a sec-
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