Building Post-Capitalist Worlds: Zapatistas, Via Campesina and other rebellions*

In the context of the prevailing abundance of diversity (biological, ethnic), the profound social inequalities, and the trends and attitudes of hegemonic forces in Latin America, a coherent process of environmental governance is proving difficult and environmental injustice is aggravated. Regardless of where one turns in the region, there is an increase in the number and intensity of conflicts between groups committed to promoting economic development (i.e., growth), and those claiming to speak for the planet and/or the welfare of the large majority of the population or particular minorities, who feel excluded from these processes and are bearing the brunt of the negative impacts of these activities. This paper gives voice to the actors actually involved in developing alternatives to the development proposals of the hegemonic forces driving the transformations in their societies. These alternatives emerge from groups whose organizations are shaped by different cosmologies, products of their multiple ethnic origins, and by the profound philosophic and epistemological debates of the past half-century that emerged from numerous social movements proposing different strategies for achieving progress, improving well-being and conserving ecosystems. Introduction: In 1999, protestors outside the negotiating sessions of the World Trade Organization lifted their voices and banners to declare “Another World is Possible,” taking their cue from the theme of the World Social Forum. In Latin America, however, we had a different slogan: “Many other worlds are possible, AND they are already under construction.” For a very long time communities throughout the Americas and in the rest of the world have been actively involved in forging alternatives to the strait-jacket of globalization, the present stage of neo-liberal capitalism that has triggered the current triple crisis in which most of humanity is currently living. Our colleagues in the economics profession are desperately searching for paths out of the multiple crises—economic, social, and environmental— without recognizing that they are the product of the very institutions within which they are operating. Further, the renewed official commitment to implement environmental governance mechanisms, as the global problem of climate change begins to become increasingly evident, will remain difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. This is the result of deep social inequalities and trends and attitudes of hegemonic forces that have shown an extraordinary “perverse resilience,” not only preventing progress in the implementation of public policies and social strategies that protect the various dimensions of the planetary system and its extraordinary diversity –biological, cultural, and ethnic– but also managing to restructure their own agendas and discourses, claiming to be leaders in the implementation of a ‘green economy’ without changing their basic strategies or reducing their impacts (Barkin, 2013). This process is provoking the double movement that was central to the Karl Polanyi’s analysis (2001): a direct confrontation between, on the one hand, politicians, wealthy investors, ** Prepared for presentation in the URPE session, Crises and Conflicts in the Global Economy, at the ASSA meetings, 3 Jan. 2016. For comments and other communication: [email protected] technology providers, investors with concessions in regions and sectors recently opened to foreign investment, and, on the other hand, organized social groups that consider these intrusions a threat to their productive systems and their ways of life and health, while also destroying their communities and cultures and the ecosystems on which we all depend. Our analysis is grounded in the visions of the myriad local and regional groups who, over the centuries, were continuously relegated to increasingly inhospitable regions as successive waves of conquerors laid claim to their lands, their resources, and even their bodies, transforming them into victims of colonialism and (inter)national capitalist development. Today many of these peoples are rejecting their insertion into global markets, the appropriation of their lands and resources, and their assignation into the lowest ranks of highly stratified and polarized societies. Today, they are creating new spaces in which different social and productive structures are responding to demands for local control of the governance process, ensuring local welfare and environmental stewardship. This requires new ways of doing research and building models for understanding these societies; this paper reports on some of the results of our recent work. As participants in this process, we find that, since classes are deeply rooted in institutions, an intercultural dialogue has proved particularly fruitful, in going beyond both universalism and cultural relativism, to accept and value cultural pluralism for advancing towards a democratic, just and peaceful harmonization of conflicting interests (Panikkar, 1995; Vachon, 1995; Dietrich et al., 2011). The growing interest in the commons, as a system that emerges beyond the market and the State, offers a context within which to understand this process (Ostrom, 1985, 1990; Walljasper, 2010; Bollier and Helfrich, 2012; Linebaugh, 2013; McDermott, 2014; Barkin and Lemus, 2014). On this basis, these groups are designing and implementing their own proposals for decision-making, based on a system of values that promote collective over individual well-being, assuming a cosmocentric vision of planetary processes. These proposals arise from a more complex system with different objectives, rooted in historical experience, cultural traditions and intergenerational relations and responsibilities, based on goals fixed on a much longer time horizon than we are accustomed to. To overcome inherited inequalities, exacerbated by the public policy, communities are adopting strategies to create opportunities for their members, considering both social justice and environmental restoration. In many cases this implies a redefinition of identities, combining their knowledge of their cultural roots with their history of struggle. These struggles... ... have never been a blind reflex, spontaneous, to the objective economic conditions, [rather] they have been a conscious conflict of ideas and values all the way (Thompson, 1959:110). 1 1 Although Thompson describes the idea of class consciousness in post-war England, it seems appropriate to apply his analysis to the indigenous struggles