Interview with Rene Ramirez on the Socialism of Buen Vivir – P2P Foundation
* “Why should the socialism of buen vivir be considered a bio-socialism? What characterizes it identifies it and makes it unique from the socialism conceived of by the classics—Karl Marx, Frederick Engels and Lenin?
The socialism of buen vivir is a pact of coexistence made by the Ecuadorian people, which has been signed into the new Constitutional Document of 2008. In this constitution, what I have labeled the socialism of buen vivir or republican bio-socialism is made concrete. In simplified terms, the nucleus of classical socialism’s wager was the issue of redistribution, equality. Without a doubt equality has to continue being one of the pillars of the socialism of buen vivir. However, in my view, the leftist agenda that the Ecuadorian people outlined in Montecristi doesn’t just point towards the search for equality. Additional topics exist give it a special place within other current constitutional utopias. One of them is the change from anthropocentrism to biocentrism. What is important is not only human beings but life as a whole, which is constitutive element that guarantees the survival of human beings. We should remember that Ecuador is the only country in the world whose constitution guarantees the rights of nature. At the same time, this Constitution is republican in the sense that it recognizes differences but seeks equality and within the framework of the construction of a democracy that is not only representative but participative and deliberative, in which a citizen not only has rights, but also obligations and responsibilities in the political community.
