A POSTCAPITALIST PARADIGM: THE COMMON GOOD OF ...

moditized”. That was because of the neoliberal financial and economic
policies. And the “defense of public services and “common goods”
forms a part of the resistance to those policies”. This is what the revolutions
of the Arab Spring are doing. People are protesting against
poverty, plundering of the national wealth, by the multinationals and the
local capitalistic players as well, and unemployment, as well as the disrespect
of public freedoms and human dignity. In Egypt, for example,
part of the protests is against selling of some public-sector companies
to private investors leading to thousands of workers sent to unemployment.
Revolutionary forces are calling for the recuperation of the nationowned
assets that were privatized.
Not a theoretical approach
Houtart mentions that the approach of the concept of the “common
good of Humanity” might seem overly theoretical, considering the social
and political concerns that now confront us. I think it has become a necessity.
With reaching the “oil peak” in 2002, humanity needs to think of
a radical paradigm shift. Humanity is at the threshold of the collapse of the
“carbon civilization”. Fossil fuels, i.e. coal, oil and natural gas, that mother
nature spent millions of years to form them, have been depleted in a century,
and we have to look for alternative sources of energy that will lead,
with great sufferings, to different ways of life, different world views,
and ultimately to new human civilization less dependent on carbon.
The “common good”, described by Houtart, is “that which is shared in
common by all human beings (men and women)”. But the majority of
human beings do not consider the simple fact that we, humans, are not
the only who live on the planet. We are just one single species, among
millions, who share the Earth. Actually, we are the latest arrivals. The
rest of living organisms were here before us, and they succeeded to
“manage” the planet without destroying it. That was because natural
ecosystems are astonishingly wise. They have plenty of energy and no
wastes. They are inter dependent, smart, multifunctional, and not
greedy. Natural ecosystems, with their members and relationships, do
not depend on us (humans), we (humans) depend on them. They can
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