Decentralized Economy In this connection one thing should be remembered – the more that arts and crafts are decentralized, the greater the benefits for human society. Decentralization does not diminish or dissipate economic potential. Rather, decentralization removes regional disparity because wealth is distributed almost equally everywhere. We do not find situations where people in some places cry out in agony due to scarcity and starvation, while people in other places become immoral due to excessive affluence and over abundance. In fact, industrial centralization is detrimental to a well-knit social order. In a decentralized economy people do not have to leave their homes to work in an industry, and consequently they are saved from the expenditure of maintaining two establishments. Moreover, decentralization increases the possibility of saving labour, because people can earn their livelihood while simultaneously taking care of their household responsibilities. - Shrii Prabhat R. Sarkar What are the benefits of block-level planning in the Prout economic model? Block-level refers to an area of approximately 100,000 people. The benefits of this localized planning are: 1. The area of planning is small enough for planners to understand all the problems of the area. 2. Local leadership will be able to solve the problems according to local priorities. 3. Planning will be more practical and effective and will give quick, positive results. 4. Local socio-cultural bodies can play an active role in mobilizing human and material resources. 5. Unemployment will be easily solved. 6. Purchasing capacity of the local people will be enhanced. 7. A base for a balanced economy will be established. 8. The development of local (block-level) industries will provide immediate economic benefits. How successful has economic centralization been? Question: After so many years of economic centralization (in nearly all countries of the world), how successful have these countries been in eradicating poverty and in improving the standard of living of the people? Was economic exploitation eradicated in those countries or not? Do the people have ever greater purchasing power? If we look carefully, we will find that the existent economic centralization is just a strategy of hoodwinking the people so that a handful of capitalists can accumulate more and more wealth, while the masses are kept quiet by making fake promises or by throwing them tidbits - $300 tax returns, for example, in the face of medical bills amounting to thousands and thousands of dollars! - WPA Proletarian revolution and post-capitalist society Constitutionally the capitalists like democracy, for in a democratic set-up they easily buy off the proletariat-minded workers by force of money. Numerically these proletariat-minded workers are in the majority. At the time of election it is easy to sail across the election-styx after exhorting them with a mouthful of tall talks and promises. Thereafter no harm, even if they forget all about their tall promises, for the proletariat- minded workers themselves easily forget all about them. It can be asserted with emphasis that if, in any of the countries, only the educated people had been given voting rights instead of the general adult franchise, the administrative or state structures of most of the democratic countries would have played quite a different tune. If the voting rights had remained in the hands of the moralists only, there would have been no difference at all between the world of reality and the heaven of imagination. - Shrii P.R. Sarkar On what basis will socio-economic units be formed all over the world? The basis will be cultural, social and economic - not religious or linguistic. Socio-economic units will have to adopt economic decentralization so that local people will be able to obtain all the requirements essential for their physical, intellectual and spiritual progress.
How will local socio-economic problems be solved in a Prout economy? Local socio-economic problems will be solved by the maximum utilization and rational distribution of the resources and potentialities of that region. Therefore information will be collected such as the geographical resources of an area, including the capacity of the rivers, lakes and canals and the locataion of the hills and mountains, location and amount of mineral, forest and aquatic resources; the agricultural and industrial resources, the demography, including the labor skills, health and psychology of the people; the agrarian potential, and communication. The Second Bill of Rights: Excerpt from 11 January 1944 message from President Franklin D. Roosevelt to Congress President Franklin D. Roosevelt had some vision. He could realize that there can be no content in a country if any fraction of the population is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed and insecure. He said that America grew under the protection of certain inalieable rights - free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. These were our fundamental rights. Do we have any of these left today?? No! The Patriot Act destroyed them all. Roosevelt took our rights one step further, and said that people must have economic security, because people who are hungry and out of a job are the "stuff of which dictatorships are made." Hence he gave these rights as the right to a useful job, the right to adequate purchasing power, the right of farmers to produce and sell at a price giving them adequate purchasing power, the right of all businessmen to survive economically without being dominated by monopolies or oligopolies, the right of every family to a decent home, the right to universal health care, the right not to have to worry about economic survival in old age, in sickness or in unemployment, and the right to a good education. All these basic, fundamental rights are the same rights as demanded in a Prout economy. They are the rights demanded by World Prout Assembly for all people in all nations. These are universal rights. It is the intention of World Prout Assembly to work ceaselessly until human beings everywhere have these fundamental rights, which when achieved will indeed constitute life, liberty and happiness! Trade for Regional Self-Reliance "It is patent that in our days not alone is wealth accumulated, but immense power and despotic economic domination is concentrated in the hands of a few .... This power becomes particularly irresistible when exercised by those who, because they hold and control money, are able also to govern credit and determine its allotment, for that reason supplying so to speak, the lifeblood to the entire economic body, and grasping, as it were, in their hands the very soul of production, so that no one dare breathe against their will." Pope Pius XI Encyclical "Quadragesimo Anno." The Recent Summit Between the US and China: Just a Show of Democracy "Once upon a time the downtrodden people of the world were under the impression that communism was the panacea for their problems. But after the communist leaders went against humanity, rationality and human psychology, and disturbed the very base of human civilization, the masses are now challenging their leaders for killing millions of innocent people. A vacuum has been created by their downfall. This vacuum should be filled by your intellect and ideology … by our PROUT. All this will be accomplished in the very near future. This brooks no delay. There is no alternative." - Shrii Prabhat R. Sarkar What is PROUT? PROUT is an alternative to the outmoded capitalist and communist socio-economic paradigms. Neither of these approaches have adequately met the physical, mental and spiritual needs of humanity. PROUT seeks a harmonious balance between economic growth, social development, environmental sustainability, and between individual and collective interests. Combining the wisdom of spirituality with a universal outlook and the struggle for self-reliance, PROUTist thinkers and activists are creating a new civilizational discourse and planting the seeds for a new way of living.