A POSTCAPITALIST PARADIGM: THE COMMON GOOD OF ...

However, traditional concepts are now once again being invoked, as
tools for historical memory, cultural reconstruction and affirmation of
identity, all of which can be very useful when questioning capitalist logic.
There is a certain pride in being able to refer to historical cultures and in
using its concepts to contribute to a process of social reconstruction, although
there is always some danger of falling into a paralyzing fundamentalism,
more oriented to the past than to the present.
The references to Pacha Mama (Mother Earth) and the Sumak Kawsay
(buen vivir) of the Quechua peoples and to the Suma Gamaña (living well
together) of the Aymara peoples (Xavier Albó, 2010, 45-55) belong to
these categories. These are two of the founding concepts of indigenous
peoples which, in concrete historical conditions, signified a specific cosmovision
and practices regarding respect for nature and for shared collective
life. As such they can inspire contemporary thinking and social
organization and can revitalize the symbol. However, success will depend
on making the adjustments that will be necessary “in such a way”,
as Diana Quiroga Suarez writes, “that the transformation provides an
opportunity to combine the best of ancestral and modern wisdom, with
knowledge and technology working in step with nature’s processes”
(D. Quiroga Suarez, 2009, 107).
This, obviously, does not mean questioning the necessary harmony between
nature and the human species, or swallowing the capitalist concept
of the exploitation of nature as a necessary by-product of the kind
of development conceived as just endless material growth. Nor is it to
deny the need to revise the philosophy of the relationship with nature
which ignores other living species and the capacity of nature to restore
its balance. Nor should we undervalue or marginalize the cultures that
can offer a healthy critique of humanity, both in its exploitation, brought
about by the logic of capitalism, and in the rampant individualism of the
consumption model and all the other kinds of behaviour that go with it.
Nevertheless it has to be acknowledged that different cultures do exist.
If we try to describe the necessary change only in terms of symbolic
thinking, representing the symbol as reality, this will come into collision
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