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'social contract' (Hobbes, Locke, Kant) that should lead to a 'just society'.
The institutions are ineffective because they are backed by:
An agreement in which each person adheres to the contract to safeguard
his own individual interest; if the contract, the political association,
does not safeguard them, the individual has the right to break the
contract, because (s)he agreed to the arrangement in terms of an
egotistical interest, and thus if it does not respond in these terms, the
individual may refuse to continue abiding by the contract (Villoro 2003:
48-49).
In contrast, in the context of a peasant association adhering to the principles
discussed above, a contract is one that:
I accept the contract, on the understanding that I am committed to the
well-being of the group as a whole, even if it might advance against
my own particular interests; therefore, I continue to respect the terms
of the contract. Democracy is, in this sense, a political association in
which, at the same time, is an ethical agreement, because it is the way
in which a public group can guarantee the freedom of everyone in
the group, while also remaining a guarantor of autonomy (Villoro
2003: 49).
Communality, then, is a complex composite concept, one that embodies
the totality of the collective commitment to individual welfare in the context
of an individual commitment to collective well-being. It is an implicit
arrangement that goes beyond the limits of material considerations to
accept a different responsibility to the community and to its ecosystem,
an obligation ground in tradition, in cosmology, to respect the community
within its environment.
Although a product of the very specifi c conditions of the struggles in
the highlands of Oaxaca to reclaim their forest resources,
6
the doctrine of
communality is increasingly recognized as relevant for understanding the
many local struggles for self-governance, for autonomy in the management
of social organization and for the right to decide on the best uses for the
resources over which the people involved in these struggles. As such, the
doctrine is a direct challenge to inherited notions of the sovereignty of the
nation-state, of the unquestioned right and ability of national governments
to decree the disposition of the nation's resources without reference to the
considerations of the local peoples.
Without going into more detail, we wish to simply ensure that there be
no illusion about the singularity of the Oaxacan version of this conceptual
approach. Similar approaches are evident in the current efforts among the
Andean peoples to codify and operationalize the heritage of the Sumak
Kawsay ('
buen vivir
' or 'living well'), the explanations of the Zapatistas of
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