Good Living Goals. A proposal for the construction of a global trans-development

The welfare paradigm of ‘trans-modern trans-development’ (Múnera, 2016) is a paradigm that pursues the satisfaction of society’s material and immaterial needs via a participatory process in which people decide what their needs are and how they should be satisfied. All of this occurs under the principles of personal satisfaction, social equity and environmental sustainability (Cubillo-Guevara & Hidalgo-Capitán, 2015; Hidalgo-Capitán & Cubillo-Guevara, 2016). Within this paradigm, in which nature, society and the person occupy the centre of people’s concerns, individuals feel part of both community and nature. Furthermore, they defend harmonious coexistence both between human beings and nature.

This welfare paradigm corresponds to a cultural paradigm or worldview called ‘trans-modernity’ (Rodríguez-Magda, 1989, 2004 & 2013; Dussel, 1996, 1999 & 2002; Luyckx-Ghisi, 1999, 2001 & 2010), which can be defined as a worldview based on intersubjective consensus that seeks consensual truths; that interprets all aspects of life starting from the emotionally intelligent combination of postulates based on faith, reason and imagination; and that pursues the realization of multiple expectations of different individuals through the participatory construction of agreed intercultural and socially and environmentally harmonious projects for the construction of a post-capitalist global society (Cubillo-Guevara & Hidalgo-Capitán, 2015; Hidalgo-Capitán & Cubillo-Guevara, 2016).

It is often asserted that trans-development, as welfare paradigm, is only feasible on a local scale, as is the case of eco-villages or some indigenous communities. Examples include the Findhorn eco-village in northern Scotland or the indigenous community of Sarayaku in the Ecuadorian Amazon (Hidalgo-Capitán & Cubillo-Guevara, 2016). In fact, it has also been argued that the attempts to implement trans-development as a welfare paradigm on a national scale in some Latin American countries has been a failure (for example, ‘buen vivir’ in Ecuador; ‘vivir bien’ in Bolivia; ‘vivir bonito’ in Nicaragua, and ‘socialism of good living’ in El Salvador). On the contrary, these countries are seen to have continued to implement development policies that have deepened their level of maldevelopment.

Nevertheless, there are still some attempts and proposals arguing that trans-development can be implemented beyond the local scale. Among them would be the Good Living Goals (GLGs), a proposed alternative global agenda to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (Hidalgo-Capitán et al., 2018).

www.alternautas.net/blog/2019/12/12/good-living-goals-a-proposal-for-the-construction-of-a-global-trans-development