A POSTCAPITALIST PARADIGM: THE COMMON GOOD OF ...

INTRODUCTION
There are various sources that can be used for a rethinking of the idea
of the Common Good of Humanity and how to apply it to the life conditions
of the human species and the planet.
First of all, the crisis we are experiencing today, which is by no means
confined to its financial aspects, clearly shows that it is not enough to
regulate the system that is at the origin of all these dysfunctions. What
is required is a change of paradigm for the collective life of human beings
on earth, as said at the UN General Assembly in October 2008, shortly
after the eruption of the crisis. 1 The way this crisis has expanded in all
its aspects since then makes the need for a profound transformation all
the more relevant today.
In January 2009, during the first session of the UN Commission on the
international financial and monetary crisis (aka the Stiglitz Commission),
it was proposed for the first time to draft a Universal Declaration of the
Common Good of Humanity (parallel to the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights), affirming the need for a change of paradigm to save the
planet and humanity. Miguel D’Escoto, President of the UN General Assembly
during the 2008-2009 session, relaunched the idea in his farewell
address, proposing a Universal Declaration of the Common Good of
Mother Earth and of Humanity.
The defence of the ‘common goods’, initiated by various social movements
around the world as neo-liberalism set its mind to privatizing public
services, both in the North and in the South, also served to promote
new thinking, showing that the issue was about much more than a mere
economic endeavour to integrate public services into the logic of the
market, as the only way to make them contribute to profitability and capital
accumulation. This new thinking showed that the exacerbation of
the individual, the loss of the sense of the collective, the disappearance
of pride in public service were all results of this endeavour.
1 François Houtart, No bastan las regulaciones, UN General Assembly, 30 Oct. 2008
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