From ‘common goods’ to the ‘common good of humanity’

François Houtart

11/03/2012

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Foreword

From crisis to crisis, where are we coming from, and where are we going?

Birgit Daiber and François Houtart

Must we really destroy the planet in order to develop? Does economic growth necessitate the sacrifice of millions of men and women? Is youth unemployment the price to pay for saving the economy? The succession of crises, the obstinacy in pursuing the path of neoliberalism, the generalization of injustices: all these pose some fundamental questions for humanity. Indignation continues to mount, all over the world. The cries of the oppressed are echoed in the moans of Mother Earth.

Initiatives to solve the crises continue to fail: the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen 2009 and subsequent meetings have not lead to binding decisions. The recommendations of the UN Conference on the financial and economic crisis calling for a regulation of destructive speculative capital have been ignored.

The time has come to take action and to do so by developing new ideas. However repairing the dysfunctions of the capitalist market economy, preaching green capitalism, regulating financial markets, struggling against poverty by doling out aid, drawing up security systems that are increasingly militaristic and criminalize resistance are all simply ways of adapting the existing system. What we now need is a radical change, another paradigm: in other words a fundamentally new orientation of the life of human beings on the planet.

The capitalist system has run its course: it has become more destructive than creative. We must construct an alternative. Most people live in confusion. Numerous politicians announce a gradual end to the crisis, even though all signs point to the contrary. Political parties considered progressive have become managers of the crisis. Moral institutions usually limit themselves to denouncing abuses without indicating the causes or condemning the logic of the system. The economic precariousness of broad sectors of the population tends to make them cling on to what they have acquired with such effort, rather than take on the risk of change.

So we must think; we must analyse; we must anticipate. This is a task for all of us, not just for a few experts. Where are we going? To reply to that question, we need to set up a permanent two-way dialectic exchange between doing and thinking.

* Complete document in PDF

This text, prepared by Francois Houtart, was presented by Francine Mestrum to the conference From ‘Common Goods’ to the ‘Common Good of Humanity’, organized by the Rosa Luxembourg Foundation in Rome, 28-29 April 2011, and revised after the conference discussions. The text has also served as the basis of a document for the Instituto de Altos Estudios Nacionales (IAEN) of Quito and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Ecuador.

https://www.alainet.org/es/node/156473