Towards a New Social Paradigm

Abstract

Today’s crises are the consequence of the centralized form of capital accumulation, with its important negative social and environmental impacts, that are part of the prevailing paradigm based on a market determined rationality. To confront these problems, new social contracts are needed, based on the contributions from new disciplines like social, solidarity, and ecological economics that are incorporating the experiences of many societies whose relationship with nature is based on other principles. The incorporation of new paradigms depends on our willingness to learn to co-exist with, and learn from, the cultural and biological diversity that is presently denied, breaking with the unitary hegemony that currently defines most of our institutions. To be successful, we must go beyond the liberal strategies of inclusion and participation in order to incorporate alternative visions of social organization and diverse rationalities.