Rediscovering our own Suma Qamana

The United States was founded on a strong middle class. Since that time, distribution of wealth has become wildly unequal. We need to return to ideals advanced by Franklin and Jefferson and influenced by their observations of indigenous societies, especially The Iroquois. South Americans also are returning to these ideals, under the Aegis of the Inca Suma Qamana.

Popular indicators measure well-being and success by economic gain.  According to United Nations 2012 indicators, the US wins with the world’s highest GDP of $16.2 trillion.  Yet economic gain comes at a cost; the cost of the environment whose resources and space is used for production, people exploited for cheap labor, and community which is placed second to personal gain.  Besides great wealth, the US also has massive inequality.  It boasts the highest child poverty rate in the developed world with 21% of US children living in poverty according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in February 2011, and an unprecedented accumulation of capital with the top 10% of US households controlling almost 75% of all wealth as explained economist, Richard Wolff.  This inequality and concentration of wealth, and power, is exactly what our forefathers set out to avoid when forming this country. 

The US was founded on principles of represented democracy, public opinion, shared property and “happy mediocrity,” as Ben Franklin liked to put it. These ideas were based on the indigenous ways of the Iroquois Confederacy which Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock and many of the founding fathers knew well and were greatly influenced by.  The Iroquois Confederacy, formed more then 300 years before European settlers first arrived on the continent, united disparate warring tribes by focusing on collective gains, shared power and careful deliberation.  The Iroquois Confederacy was a democratic, cohesive, sustainable government and trade structure that met tribal needs and collectively solved challenges.  Over the centuries the US forefathers’ original indigenous-influenced ideals were eroded by greed, a loss of collective memory as native populations were decimated, and a growing lust for power and dominance by US leaders.

By 2006, the Inca descendents of the Andean region were tired of 500 years of unsuccessful development.  Though they followed the latest neo-liberal capitalist models, they were continually plagued by high poverty rates which the Economic Commission for Latin America reported fluctuated from 35% regionally to 70% in rural areas, and a according to the National Institute of Statistics, had a 7.3% infant mortality rate in 2007.  So upon electing a sympathetic indigenous president, Bolivians re-visited the times when things were better, before the Spanish conquest and colonization, to the Inca empire and Tiahuanaco era.  This was a time spanning more than 1,300 years with intact government and sustainable models of being.  Bolivia, being the most indigenous nation in Latin America, has a vibrant collective memory of governance and culture from that time.  Many people in rural areas still abide by rules and guidelines set up during pre-Inca times.  What resulted from this re-birth of indigenous knowledge was Suma Qamana in the native language of Aymara, or bien vivir in Spanish which means to live well together. 

The US does not have the opportunity to return to a collective, indigenous memory of how governance was in a time when people were content and needs met because this memory arguably no longer exists.  However, Suma Qamana offers a model that parallels those ideals.  Going back to the original doctrines and stated intent of our forefathers when setting up this country one finds many similarities from the Iroquois Confederacy-inspired government of that time to the ideas of Suma Qamana today.

There are six basic principles of Suma Qamana several of which match the principles the Iroquois Confederacy and the US forefathers also embraced.

·      Community first (working and thinking collectively)

·      Sufficient not efficient economy (slowing down and valuing community and nature over time and money)

·      Local production – local consumption (similar to the localvore movement and farmers markets)

·      Less is more (having what is needed but not more than that, no accumulation of excess wealth).

·      We are all part of mother earth (this links all people as having a shared humanity, making us more alike than not).

·      Owning our health, learning and communication (this is about shared knowledge and working together to care for each other)

As Bruce E. Johansen wrote in Forgotten Founders, the US Constitutional values based on the Iroquois Confederacy are as follows:

Represented democracy.  One of the core principles of the Iroquois Confederacy as explained by a commission of colonial leaders in 1775 was, “Divided, a single man may destroy you; united, you are a match for the whole world.”  Male leaders were elected by women from different tribal regions to represent their ideas and beliefs.  Leaders returned to the tribe to consult with the women before any decision was made.  If men did not represent the tribe correctly, they were removed from power.  This led to Jefferson writing about retractable governments guided by laws of impeachment.  He advocated for small states, the size of the original 13 colonies, which allowed public opinion to function most efficiently.  This ties in with Suma Qamana’s community first principle.  Decision making with Suma Qamana comes from a pre-Inca system of ayllu in Bolivia which has rotating leadership positions shared by members of communities one is born into and linked with for life.

Public Opinion.  The Iroquois Confederacy was a bottom-up structure.  The public elected the leaders to represent them and had power to remove leaders they felt were not properly doing so.  Jefferson promoted this in the First Amendment of the US Constitution.  Personal influence and persuasion were important societal controls for the Iroquois Confederacy because mis-actions were answered to in front of the whole community, which one was born into and knew intimately.  This resonates again with Suma Qamana’s community first principle.  Leaders work for the good of the community not a corporation, lobby group, PAC (public action committee), or their own personal gain.

Happy mediocrity.  This is a term coined by Franklin which meant striking a compromise between consumption, competition, and classism with the egalitarian, democratic ideas of the Iroquois Confederacy.  He saw this realized in a strong middle class.  However this could also be interpreted as the Suma Qamana principle of a sufficient not an efficient economy.  A sufficient economy could be a 30-hour week where goods are competitively produced for a limited time, just enough to meet needs.  Workers will produce and earn less and also consume less.  The US would no longer be a world leader in GDP but the quality of life would improve in non-monetary ways as the slowing down creates happy mediocrity, balance for nature and people, giving all a place to rest and rejuvenate. 

Shared property.  Jefferson looked at the Iroquois Confederacy’s manner of sharing resources amongst the entire community and embraced that idea as well.  He felt the accumulation of property led to power and dominance that advanced the well being of one at the expense of all. “Whenever there is, in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so extended as to violate natural right,” wrote Jefferson.  He was also against inherited wealth which did not exist with the Iroquois as possessions were redistributed amongst all in death.  This idea of limited accumulation resonates with the Suma Qamana principles of less is more.

Under Suma Qamana success is measured not by accumulated wealth, but by how well the community is doing as a whole.  Community is broadly defined to include the earth and nature as well as people.  So a thriving town located beside the banks of a polluted river is not doing well under Suma Qamana, because a community member, the river, is ailing.  When one part of a community is damaged, it affects the whole.  This way of thinking of the community as being the responsibility of all can be applied to many situations, for example a person entering a school and shooting children, would be an indication of the failure of the community to properly care for its own, to enable a person to feel so alienated and detached that they lash out against the same community they are a part of.

Andean scholars claim that this is the time of pachakuti, or world change, and Suma Qamana is the model upon which the new world order can be formed.  The United Nations recognized this model in 2009 and funds research and studies to support it.  Suma Qamana is being taught in Latin American universities, written about in academic journals, and presented at world summits.  Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador have all adopted parts of it in their new constitutions and have ministries, think tanks and organizations supporting civil society in applying these principles to their everyday lives.  More than 300 years ago a great enlightenment grew from the Iroquois’ ways of being, influencing many European thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas More, and Karl Marx. Today Suma Qamana is capturing people’s imaginations with new ways of being that are not much newer then our US Constitutional roots. 

Dr. Tamara Stenn is an Adjunct Professor in the Sustainable Development Program at the SIT Graduate Institute and author of The Economic and Political Intersection of Fair Trade and Justice (2013).  She can be contacted at tamara.stenn@sit.edu.