This initiative, launched in early June 2020, is promoted by a group of people and organizations from different Latin American countries. We are motivated by the urgency of building social dynamics to respond (and counteracting) the dynamics of capitalist rearrangement, concentration of wealth and destruction of ecosystems in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis. We seek to build, together with those who wish to join us, a collective horizon of transformation for ‘Our America’ that guarantees a worthy future. More information: https://pactoecosocialdelsur.com/
For a long time, the elites told us that the market and the great machine of capitalist accumulation cannot be stopped. But it turns out that it can – that it is possible to activate the emergency brake when life is deemed to be at risk.
The crisis laid bare by the pandemic has worsened inequalities and shows that our future is at stake. Some people are under lockdown; others are facing contagion, repression and hunger. Indigenous and Afro-Latin American peoples are exposed to a new wave of extermination; patriarchal and racist violence and femicides have increased. Meanwhile, powerful groups both old and new are taking advantage of the emergency to make sure that “the return to normality” or “the new normal” does not deprive them of their privileges.
The pandemic is a tragedy for many people, whose pain we share. But the pause imposed on global capitalism due to COVID-19 also represents a major opportunity to bring about change: to build our future based on caring for life.
Although nature remains profoundly damaged, this enforced brake has also meant a slowdown in the destruction of ecosystems, due especially to the reduction in CO2 emissions. Middle classes around the world are collectively realizing that it is possible to live without that unbridled consumption that causes environmental destruction and threatens life itself on the planet; they are seeing that happiness and quality of life have dimensions more relevant than owning and accumulating things, such as living in a network of reliable caring relationships.
It has become evident that rural life, and the sense of community, caring and reciprocity, are key to sustaining life; that, in spite of living within capitalism, we do not live by and for capital. We are becoming aware that direct trading and bartering in networks outside capitalist markets are today meeting many of our basic needs; and we are realizing that they have a place and potential for the future.
Even in institutional settings, ideas that were previously unthinkable or seen as unviable are now high on the global agenda. Economic agencies such as ECLAC are proposing a universal basic income, and even the International Monetary Fund is advising governments to introduce a wealth tax to counteract the scandalous inequality and reduce fiscal deficits. In the global North, social and political movements are fighting for a new global ecosocial pact that unites social justice and environmental justice to save the planet.
Proposals for a Social, Ecological, Economic and Intercultural Pact for Latin America
Taking up proposals developed collectively in different contexts, we are proposing a Social, Ecological, Economic and Intercultural Pact for Latin America. This Pact is not a list of demands addressed to the governments of the day. Instead, it is an invitation to build collective ideas, agree on a shared path to social change and provide a basis for shared struggles in all the different sectors of our societies. It calls together social movements, territorial, labor and neighborhood organizations, communities and networks, but also alternative local governments, parliamentarians, magistrates or public servants who are committed to change, to alter the balance of power by means of plebiscites, proposals for legislation, and many other strategies that can make a real impact and enable members of society who are organized and mobilized to impose these changes on existing institutions.
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Pacto Ecosocial del Sur | Radio Free (2020-06-16T20:56:20+00:00) For a Social, Ecological, Economic and Intercultural Pact for Latin America. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2020/06/16/for-a-social-ecological-economic-and-intercultural-pact-for-latin-america/
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