The coordinates of transformation must change | Sunil Ray

BOOK EXCERPT

[ . . . ] global society witnessed several social and national movements. Many of them were anti-systemic. Some such as the Russian Revolution and the uprising in 1968 in Europe or what Wallerstein calls the ‘world revolution of 1968’ were strong. Others such as the women’s movement and ethno/racial/ religious movement were, however, less strong (ibid.). Many of them stood to capture the state power and fundamentally transform social relations by removing the inegalitarian system and introducing democracy. While they succeeded in achieving the first goal, they were far from achieving the second one. Hence, these movements can hardly be characterized as anti-systemic. Although they struggled against the established power structure to replace it with a more democratic and egalitarian system, they were in fact colluding with the same system in practice (ibid.: 164).

The philosophy of Buen Vivir or Sumak Qawsay (meaning living well) reinforced the political process of Ecuador that was already under the influence of Zapatistas. Ecuadorians also challenged the neoliberal market reforms. However, its cosmovision is primarily made up of the ethical principles of the Andean culture of harmony and balance. It is ‘living well’, not ‘living better’ that invites competition, not cooperation, disintegration, not integration, and deprivation, not equity. In contrast to the hegemonic anthropocentrism of western capitalist modernity (Jiménez, 2011), human beings are seen here as equivalent to other parts of the cosmic whole. One is related to the other part, and each exists based on reciprocal relations. The profound impact of the ethical principle of Buen Vivir is discernible when it is seen as a remedy to the civilizational crisis under a hegemonic development paradigm that disintegrates humans on the one hand and humans and nature on the other. While the horizontal coexistence with nature dissolves the society-nature dualism (Gudynas, 2011: 445), it upholds the radical notion that ecosystems have the legal right ‘to exist, flourish and regenerate their natural capacities’ (Kawano, 2018: 8). In view of this, the rights of Mother Earth (nature) have been enshrined in the new constitution of Ecuador in 2008 and Bolivia in 2009 (ibid.: 9). It not only mirrors perceptual validity and the reasoning in favour of solidarity between humans and nature but also exemplifies cultural conditioning for the survival and development of all living species.

The transformative narratives explicitly or implicitly recognize different principles to organize the economy and society that are antithetical to the dominant development paradigm. Central to all is breaking off from dualism between human and nature. The accordance of legal right to nature exemplifies its uncontested solidarity that must be rebuilt with the people of multicultural origin within the relational context of reciprocity. Legalizing such an intrinsic bond, done nowhere else so far, is a unique attempt to stop its destruction that threatens the coevolution of human and nature. It contributes to the formation of an alternative development paradigm by being based on nature-centric development epistemology. Equally important is its radical understanding of well-being that never considers economic growth as the means of development (Villalba, 2013; Walsh, 2010). It then naturally restricts unlimited production and irresponsible waste. It is an epistemic change from where the ‘principle of sufficiency’ emerges as its basic tenet that contributes to the formation of the alternative development paradigm. It works as a building block to counter the global ecological crisis by rejecting the commodification of nature. The transcendental influence of this paradigmatic shift of development on several other countries, including Bolivia and Brazil, has turned Latin America into an epicentre for deconstructing the dominant notion of development.

Lessons that one learns from several other transformative initiatives worldwide against the dominant regime rooted in capitalism, patriarchy, racism, statism and anthropocentrism during the past two decades or so are equally robust. These initiatives found their expressions either through social movements, like the ones discussed here, or ideological reconstruction or new experiment with a fresh idea of development. Each attempt, in whichever direction, is geared to replace the dominant regime with the new one. These initiatives unmask the false epistemological base that has pushed humanity to its catastrophic end. The lessons that one learns from these experiences break new grounds for designing new organizing principles for the society and economy.

The emergence of self-organizations, for example, as niche institutions in several parts of the world, demonstrates it sufficiently well. The new practices and behaviour of these organizations illustrate how significant have been the new grounds they break for creating a ‘fitness landscape’ in the competitive environment for the survival and development of the people (Kauffaman, 1995). The reinvention of workers’ co-operatives, as an independent creation of the workers, not as protégé’s of either the government or the large capital (Marcuse, 2015: 34) or of producers or community-based organizations in India (Kumbamu, 2009), Kurdistan (Akbulut & Aslan, 2019) or Bangladesh (Mazhar, 2019) and in many other countries including Brazil, Argentina and other Latin American countries, are some examples that one can cite to show how new organizing principles that are antithetical to the dominant regime have grown in the intestine of the capital system detrimental to the interest of the latter.

As I have argued elsewhere, this suggests that the coordinates of transformation must change from the parts to the whole (Ray et al., 2020). Unlike the dominant paradigm that explains the dynamics of the system based on the properties of the parts, it is now between the parts on the one hand and between parts and whole on the other (Capra, 1996). It also suggests a radically different social metabolic order that corresponds to the reproductive order of the society which is sustainable and based on the principle of substantive equality and freedom (Mészáros, 2017: 8). The process of substantive freedom finds its expression only when the development paradigm rests on cooperation and solidarity between humans and humans and nature (Honneth, 2015; Ray, 2012). The coordinates of transformation must arise from cooperation, not competition. The dialectics of progress of human society are then governed by the law of reciprocal altruism, not methodological individualism. Cohesive development arises as an alternative development paradigm based on these new coordinates of transformation. [ . . . ]

[Reproduced for educational and non-commercial use from: Birth of an Alternative Development Paradigm: Unfolding of Transformative Mode of Production by Sunil Ray (Germinal Publications Pvt. Ltd, 44 Balaram Dey street, Kolkata 700006, WB, India, August 2024, ISBN: 978-81-974981-1-4)]