buen vivir and
sumak kawsay (“good living”) are written into the constitutions. While mechanisms for enforcement still need considerable strengthening, these principles establish a powerful alternative to extractive practices, offering a legal and ethical platform for legislation based on harmony—both with nature, and between humans.
In Europe, large-scale thriving cooperatives, such as the Mondragón Cooperative in Spain, demonstrate that it’s possible for companies to prosper without utilizing a shareholder-based profit model. With roughly a hundred businesses and 80,000 worker-owners producing a wide range of industrial and consumer goods, Mondragón proves that it’s possible to succeed while maintaining a people-focused, shared community of life-affirming values.