A POSTCAPITALIST PARADIGM: THE COMMON GOOD OF ...

In the 1990s, Riccardo Petrella made great efforts to give a new meaning
to the traditional notion of the ‘common good’ and the notion of public
interest, showing their contrast to neo-liberalism. He published
various works on the subject and founded the ‘University of the Common
Good’.
A most recent proposal concerns transformative social protection. This
proposal was put forward by the Asia-Europe Forum in the Philippines
and was in turn inspired by the ideas of a universal social subsidy, of the
social security in the more advanced industrialized countries, of the programmes
of struggle against poverty in the progressive regimes of Latin
America and the awareness of the non-renewable, unsustainable character
of the capitalist logic.
The European office of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation organized a
seminar on the theme ‘From common goods to the Common Good of
Humanity’, which took place in Rome in April 2011, the occasion being
the Italian referendum on the privatization of water and the use of nuclear
energy. Three weeks later the results showed unequivocally the
common feeling of public opinion against an all-privatizing capitalism and
its insatiable appetite.
In the same spirit, the Canadian NGO Development and Peace, convinced
of the importance of a theoretical reflection to guide the collective
action of social movements, contributed by funding studies and meetings,
as well as the preparation of work on the Common Good of Humanity
on a large scale.
These activities produced several results. The first was the publication
by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation of a basic text on the subject: From
common goods to the Common Good of Humanity, translated in several
European and eastern languages. The next step was the preparation of
this book, also by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, with analytical feedback
and commentaries on various aspects of the ‘Common Good of
Humanity’ notion and its social and political functions.
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