ANIMAL FORUM

Welcome to another edition of PROUT Gems.

The conservative economists will tell you that there are no alternatives to
capitalism. But they fail to look at co-operatives and blindly mistake them for
communes in the Soviet era. They are wrong. Co-operatives would have to be the
most efficient and effective vehicle for economic enterprise. Why because of
the safeguards of worker-shareholder control, the desire to benefit consumers
and to seek only a rational profit rather than profits driven by greed ... and
many other reasons. There can only be an efficient market through co-operative
structures. For over 200 years capitalism has not solved any problems about
poverty or the like. 200 hundreds years or more it has had - it is an insult to
humanity. Time for alternatives = cooperatives, decentralised economy, economic
decentralisation. Let us examine them.

--

Cooperative Economics: An Interview with Jaroslav Vanek interviewed by Albert
Perkins

Albert Perkins: Professor Vanek, how did you first develop your ideas on
economy?

Jaroslav Vanek: I had four major influences. First, I experienced the evils of
communism when I was a refugee in Czechoslovakia from Stalinism, and later, when
I came to the West, I also experienced the evils of western capitalism. Then, in
between, I was fortunate enough to spend time with my late brother who did
extensive work for the I.L.O. (International Labor Organisation) and wrote the
first book about the workers councils in Yugoslavia. I learned many of my basic
ideas from him. He was a sociologist and I was an economist, and I was able to
transpose his ideas into my field. Third, was the doctrine of the Catholic
Church. Pope John 23rd went a long way toward suggesting the desirability of
economic democracy. Finally, I was influenced by Dubcecks model of social
democracy. It could have been more successful than the Yugoslavian experiment,
but for the Soviet tanks. I have had several interests in my life, including the
area I call economic democracy. Economic democracy is a transposition of the
idea of political democracy. It implies that economic life is governed by people
who are involved in that economic life. Capitalism is based on property rights,
and democracy on personal rights. Perhaps the most important aspect of
capitalism, its objective function, is to maximise profit. If you look at it
more carefully, profit is revenue minus labor costs and other costs. This means
then human beings enter the defining objective function of the system with a
negative sign. By contrast, economic democracy has an objective function where
people are on the positive side of the equation. The idea is to maximise the
welfare of the people participating. This is an enormous difference, and Im
convinced that the tragic difficulties of our culture -- ecological devastation,
starvation, etc - can be traced to this negative side But capitalism could be
cured slowly if we developed economic democracy. One of the main reasons why the
western world is so schizophrenic is th
t we have political democracy and economic autocracy.

AP: What would such a system look like?

JV: The system should be a market system, not ruled from a central ministry,
but by the rules of supply and demand This is the only true market economy. The
capitalist economy is not a true market economy because in western capitalism,
as in Soviet state capitalism, there is a tendency towards monopoly. Economic
democracy tends toward a competitive market. The system is composed of
households, enterprises, government, and so on. The main distinguishing
characteristics are in the area of production. Productive enterprises are small
republics. Everyone who works is a member and the enterprise is run
democratically and directors are elected democratically and the bourse
stockholders have no control.

AP: Do you see all firms run cooperatively?

JV: There are many possibilities. In Mondragon you have cooperatives developed
from the Rochdale principles, characterised by democratic management. And the
Yugoslav firms, although poorly designed, were democratically run and
semi-cooperative. In an article to the Russian Academy of Sciences concerning
Khabarovsk, I argued that during the transition period they should have
democratic, but not necessarily cooperative enterprises. These could be
associations of workers in a democratic firm who would lease the assets of the
factory from the state. The American ESOP co-op provides a good model. By
insisting on co-ops we narrow things down unnecessarily. The idea of economic
democracy is broader than just co-ops. Visualize two sets of loops. One set is
co-ops and one set workers participation. Where they intersect on the co-op side
we could have housing, credit, etc. On the other side we can have participation
as simple as suggestion boxes. There are workers coops where the owners make
$2000 a week while the workers make $200. I wouldnt call that economic
democracy.

AP: Why arent co-ops working in the West?

JV: If you go to a bank and ask for a loan to start a co-op, they will throw
you out. Co-ops in the West are a bit like sea water fish in a freshwater pond.
The capitalist world in the last 200 years has evolved its own institutions,
instruments, political frameworks, etc. There is no guarantee that another
species could function if it had to depend on the same institutions. In
capitalism, the power is embedded in the shares of common stock, a voting share.
This has no meaning in economic democracy. Economic democracy needs its own
institutions for one simple reason. Workers are not rich. Lets face it, most
working people in the world today are either poor or unemployed. They do not
have the necessary capital to finance democratic enterprises. Hence, we need
some instruments and institutions which make this possible. Why? Because we know
that once democratic firms are organized, or even if they have all the elements
of democratic principles, they work far better than capitalist enterprises.

AP: Tell us why?

JV: There are many reasons. First of all, if you know that your employer is
maximizing profits and you are a negative aspect of production for him, it
creates a terrible situation. In the UK recently, the miners said Dont fire the
miners. Fire Prime Minister Major. This is the conflict. Major is like a
director of a state enterprise. But if the director is elected by the workers to
represent their will, as in Mondragon, there is a greater likelihood of mutual
respect. One of the greatest advantages of economic democracy in well organized
co-ops is mutual supervision. Normally, in capitalism, the foreman must be paid
three times more than the average worker, because he is really a slave driver
who doesnt produce anything. In fact the workers will produce as little as
possible in this situation. We have found from studies that the opposing forces
of alienation and cooperation can be exceedingly strong. In French construction
coops, capital productivity is double the norm. The democratic firm can produce
two buildings while the capitalist firm produces only one. The reason for this
increased productivity is that in a democratic firm the workers supervise each
other while in capitalist firms they cover each others theft or poor work. In GM
you will be called a pig if you expose a theft by a fellow worker. Then there is
the savings of materials. Capitalist firms invest in a lot of unnecessary
machinery. They replicate the inclination of the average Americans buying things
they dont need. The democratic firm can adjust to the optimum level of
intensity. Productivity is not measured only in dollars and output but also in
happiness and job security. Job security is more important than whether you earn
three or four or five hundred dollars a week. In fact, one of the main
theoretical and practical characteristics of the cooperative system is job
security. In capitalist firms workers are constantly being laid off and fired.
Unfortunately, the people that would benefit
most from economic democracy have infinitely less power than the people who
rule, the captains of capitalism who create laws, customs, bartering systems,
and especially schools. By and large, the economic departments of Americas
universities are institutions for brain washing. They pour a certain culture
into students heads which teaches them that the capitalist system is the best
thing in the world. Our politicians have called Russia the evil empire, which
might have been true at one time, but since it has disappeared, our capitalist
system has become the most evil in the world.

AP: What sort of support systems do we need to get cooperative enterprises off
the ground? Perhaps you could use Khabarovsk as an example.

JV: First of all, we must take into consideration the history of Russia. The
problem is the Harvard school -- and Western leaders have often echoed this --
wants to take a textbook example of capitalism and transpose it onto Russian
soil. Russia has had a functioning state socialist system for over 75 years. To
suddenly import an alien system is exceedingly difficult. Certain support
structures are necessary if a new system is to be accepted. We know the evils of
the police state, one party system, absence of democratic expression, etc, but
all was not bad with socialism. Income distribution was, if anything, overly
just: medical doctors could earn half that of miners; and workers enjoyed
reasonable job security. Both are necessary conditions for the Russian mentality
of fairness of distribution and job security. However, economic democracy
provides for a more equitable income distribution, and far greater income
security. A major historical coincidence that will help, whether we like it or
not, is that, in Russia, bureaucratic ministries organized most of the
industrial sector. A ministry for shoes, another for mining and so on. The
capitalist model abolishes this structure and substitutes a stock market. So,
this bureaucratic structure is still in place by incorporating it into the
incoming system. What needs to happen is a transition that can be smoothed.
Thus, before we discuss the implementation of economic democracy in Russia, we
must first consider the historical evolution of the Russian people over the past
75 years. When we do this we see the enormous difficulties that a proposed
capitalist system must face. For example, several important ingredients in a
successful capitalist system are risk taking, entrepreneurship and a moneyed
class. None of these three are present in Russia. On the positive side, the
historical conditions that led Russia to accept a system that offered equitable
income distribution and job security will make them much more open to t
e implementation of economic democracy.

AP: Will there be less people working in the ministries?

JV: Yes. Perhaps by as much as 50 percent. However, we must not totally
eliminate the possibility of capitalism in Russia. Some of the younger and more
able bureaucrats may wish to set up private enterprises. Its not my preference,
but it may be theirs - but limit it to small enterprises. Anyone who reads this
interview would benefit greatly by watching the video the BBC made on the
Mondragon co-ops in Spain. You can see the practical implementation of much of
what I am saying. Economic democracy is based on a competitive system, with a
large number of autonomous firms which, by themselves, cannot fulfill all the
functions of a large company. General Motors, for example, is so big it can do
its own R&D, banking, credit, accounting, transportation, marketing, etc.
Democratic companies, which are smaller and more personal, need support systems
to help in these areas. These would be second level co-ops. They would follow in
the same spirit of the larger firms, maximizing welfare and income for all its
members.

AP: How would the poor be able to capitalise their co-ops?

JV: There are existing enterprises already in place. These can be leased to the
workers at a reasonable price. It could be in the form of a fixed lease contract
that would give an incentive to the workers to earn extra income. The lease
money would have to be efficiently allocated to those who need it for start up
costs. The best use of finance is to develop second level co-ops. If we have
mining in an area, we should also have local production facilities. Rather than
ship copper to Moscow for smelting, they could build a smelter and factories for
the production of copper commodities for sale in their local market as well as
for export.

AP: What are their prospects for success?

JV: The Russians are being bombarded by big money on one side, and on the
other, by some Vanekian notions of economic democracy. The odds are a million to
one. It should be said, however, that in the early days of perestroika, there
were some very successful co-ops. Too successful. They were killed by the
bureaucrats because they caused unrest as other enterprises failed. But
education and information are important, as well as pilot projects so these
ideas can be tested in context. Perhaps Khabarovsk will be one of these test
cases.

AP: What are the possibilities of developing successful co-ops in America?

JV. It will not be easy. However, the present economic crisis may worsen and
eventually create a shock that may help the large scale development of economic
democracy in the US. The itinerary, of course, would be entirely different from
that in Russia because our history is so different. Americans are familiar with
political democracy but it will be difficult for them to move away from the Wall
Street power that bought the last two presidents. Labor unions, though not very
strong today, are still important tools. They could help both in the collective
bargaining process, and as part of the support structure for the new economic
democracy. Some developments that fit into economic democracy are already at
work in the US. The so-called ESOP, worker controlled businesses, is a step in
the right direction. Another is profit sharing. They are opening new vistas.
Galbraith points out that many people hold shares but dont exercise power. If
the present crisis deepens, we may complete these experiments of worker
ownership and profit sharing and use them to create support organisations. In my
life to date, I have engaged in a series of transformations, or what I call
praxis progressions, going from critical reflection to action: from Stalins
serfdom to the freedom of the Western white upper class; from capitalism to
economic democracy and self-management; from neo-classical economics to a
critical, history-based and human-oriented study going beyond the confines of
economics; from comfortable agnosticism to a deep, all-pervasive faith; from
believing in Western-style economic development to assisting a sustainable human
betterment of the worlds poor through cooperation, solar energy and human
technology; from the AEA to association with the poor of Calcutta, Lima, Nairobi
or Manila, who indirectly are victims of the former. The inflated standard of
living enjoyed by the rich of the world can never, for many reasons, become the
way of life of the 80 percent who are poor.
he sane levels at which all humanity can survive indefinitely is somewhere near
the order of ten times less than todays rich, and ten times more than today s
poorest. For the latter, whose only wealth is solar energy, there is the promise
of a significant improvement over the long haul. This I would call the
economics of hope. By contrast, the potentially cataclysmic road of our present,
self-centered mainstream economics and atom defense of our ill-gotten riches
is what I call the economics of damnation. The road ahead appears bright for the
poor (if the rich do not destroy it), and assisting and learning from it appears
to me to be the only redemption for the rich.

from Prout Journal
This article was published in New Renaissance magazine Vol. 5, No. 1

Jaroslav Vanek is Professor of Economics at Cornell University, where he
directs the program on Participation and Labor Managed Systems . Vanek is a
leading authority on, and advocate of, cooperative economics. He is currently
working on strategies for the transition to worker-managed economies in
post-communist countries. Vanek also founded and heads STEVEN, a company which
designs appropriate technology for use in the Developing World .

--

The Bankruptcy of Classical Economics
Adapted and annotated from a paper by Walter Haines.

Is the accumulation of physical wealth the most important pursuit of humanity?

Economists today tend to believe that their subject is the most rigorous of the
social sciences. After much time and study they have developed complex
equations, which they can manipulate extensively in modern computers, turning
out solutions to complicated questions in precise detail. Why then are their
predictions so frequently wrong? Why is it possible to say, not wholly with
tongue in cheek, that we probably wouldnt be any worse off if we let economists
predict the weather and meteorologists predict the economy? The answer, in one
sentence is that their theoretical models dont have much to do with reality.
There is a complete lack of fundamental principles to aim for the good and
happiness of all.

Amazingly, capitalist economists assume some superstitious nonsense about an
invisible hand, that it is Adam Smiths invisible hand of competition that drives
the market. But nowhere do we find Smiths concept of competition working. Nor do
monopoly theory, oligopoly theory, and a dozen other specialised market theories
help much. It is incredible that today capitalist economics is based on some
ridiculous dogma about an invisible hand. It is like some outdated religion in
which a magical hand is waving around on the planet dishing out guidance
- and then for whom: well certainly not for everybody that is for sure.

In another direction, if the invisible hand, or even the visible hand or
government, is supposed to keep business honest, why do we hear almost every day
of another instance of fraud, price gouging, and illegal collusion not only by
the small fry, but by our largest and presumably most respectable corporations.
This all represents a disgusting inefficiency in capitalist economics.

Why, in the richest country in the world, are consumers so disaffected, so
unsatisfied, so restless? Why cannot we find pure air, pure water, clean soil,
or relief from the omnipresent oppression of nuclear wastes? Why do we not have
even a suitable place to dispose of all the household wastes that our affluent
civilization produces? What has happened to the market that is supposed to take
care of these economic details?

On the world-wide level what does economics tell us about global warming, the
ozone level, vanishing species, destruction of natural resources, the
disappearing fish catch, bio-diversity? Cost/benefit should say something about
such issues. We arc working feverishly on these problems, but the figures that
are churned out by various researchers vary from one to another by orders of
magnitude, at least partly because we cannot agree on how to measure benefits
often not even costs. Where are the answers?

As economics has struggled mightily to become more scientific, it has become
even more useless. Economists fail to come to grips with real issues. Why this
parlous state of affairs? It is because specialists become blind - they become
analysts rather than synthesists. For several centuries at least the amount of
knowledge that the human race possesses has increased by leaps and bounds, and
scholars have tried to adjust to this explosion by limiting their individual
concentration to smaller and smaller pieces of the whole in the process known as
reductionism. But the ultimate result is the reductio ad absurdum. As one wag
has put it: A jack of all trades is a person who learns less and less about more
and more until finally he knows nothing about everything, while a specialist is
a person who learns more and more about less and less until finally he know
everything about nothing. Our specialization has given us lots of pieces but no
overall pattern into which to fit the pieces together.

What is the economic view of the world and its peoples? They say human beings
are selfish and aggressive. Nature is pure mechanism and has no function except
to be exploited. Material progress is all that matters. Quantity of things is
more important than quality of life. Efficiency is the prime virtue. Atomistic
individuals are the base of civilization, and social community is an aberration.
All persons are rational, and rationality is defined in terms of single-minded
pursuit of wealth. Anything that cant be quantified is irrelevant.

Economists are, of course, human beings, and no human being thinking as an
individual, could possibly believe all these things. The catalogue of economists
who in their saner moments, have written about the idiocy of one or more of
these untenable tenets of economics is long and wide, but when they retreat into
their scientific persona, the old pattern is repeated and strengthened.

John Maynard Keynes, in one celebrated but isolated article, condemned the
current orientation of economics in strong language indeed in his prediction of
a future golden age:

When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there
will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid ourselves
of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us for two hundred
years, by which we have exalted some of the most distasteful of human qualities
into the highest virtues ... love of money as a possession will be recognized
for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal,
semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the
specialists in mental disease.

That quotation brings out the most important and damaging point of all. Which
is that among the most basic premises of economics are a fair number of value
judgments that economists present as if they were facts. Economists present
themselves as unbiased - as pure scientists completely shorn of prejudgments,
ruled only by reality, not opinion. They assume that the highest goals of human
existence are fundamentally economic, that GDP is the most significant measure
of human progress and human happiness. Is that a fact? Or is it merely a fancy?
How has it been proven? No economist has attempted to prove it. It is part of
the folklore of the human race, and like much folklore it is not devoid of
original significance.

When human beings are on the teetering edge of death from starvation, it can
readily be seen that food is one of the driving forces of existence. The
economic activities associated with farming (or gathering) were paramount in the
life of earlier communities. But even at that level the life of the community
included a great amount of non-economic activity: the togetherness of the
family, the rituals and festivities, the social order. Never was food the sole
driving force. And as those most primal physical needs for food, clothing, and
shelter were met, the higher needs, to use Maslows phrase, became more
prominent: health, education, and security; friendship, affection and belonging;
esteem and self-respect; self-actualization.

The sad actuality is that, without proof or even examination, economists have
hammered at their primal myth so long and so effectively that almost everyone
accepts it as Gospel Truth. We have all been brainwashed, and our behavior has
been subverted into chasing false gods. Even economists are tricked by their own
propaganda. Wealth equals happiness; we must get more of it.

How economists have succeeded in perpetrating this fraud on the worlds people
is hard to understand. It is particularly strange because it is such nonsense.
The function of economics is to satisfy peoples wants. That seems legitimate.
What is it then that people want? Is it important to you that your country have
a higher GDP per capita than Japan?

Economists say that wants are given, and then go on to assume that those
wants are predominantly for economic goods. Psychologists, who are supposed to
be the specialists in understanding wants, say no such thing. One would hardly
expect that Freud would be concerned with economics; he certainly wasnt. Henry
Murray, an expert whose inventory of human wants turns up in many psychology
text books lists 20 different categories of wants from achievement to
understanding, not one of which is economic. Achievement sounds as if it might
be economic, but Murray illustrates it by such activities as climbing mountains
and the will to power.

One might also think that if one wanted to discover what people want one could
ask them. Interestingly enough, economists who mention this possibility usually
dismiss it as unscientific. People dont know what they want; only economists do.
But when individuals are asked, they agree with the psychologists (or vice
versa). Public opinion polls again and again put non-economic desires at the top
of peoples list of desires. One startling Harris Poll taken in 1978 found that
76 percent of the respondents preferred learning to get our pleasures out of
nonmaterial experience as important compared with 17 percent who voted for
satisfying our needs for more goods and service. (Current Opinion,
1978)

Similar results have been found by poll-takers over the decades. The statement,
Americans would be better off if they lived more simply elicited agreement
from a surprising 83 percent of those queried in an ABC News-Harris Survey
(1980). A 1987 poll asked, what does the term rich life remind you of? The
highest answers were: health, 30%; happy family life, 20%; spiritual
contentment, 19%; financial wealth, 9%. Examples can be extended ad nauseam.
There are many things that people desire more than wealth.

Who is right: the economists or the people? It should be said in partial
defence of economists that in spite of the fact that poll respondents voice
their strong support of non-economic goals, the actions of those same people
often belie their words. Yet this fact may itself be evidence of the
effectiveness of the economists in urging people to act in a materialistic way
whether they want to or not. The self-seeking that Adam Smith attributes to
individuals may well become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The individual feels
that this is the way I am supposed to act in order not to be a misfit. What
actions show may therefore be conformity rather than inner desire.

One significant approach to a solution is a change in the way we think. Adam
Smith was a thinker who had some significant message for his own day. But that
day is two hundred years out of date. Now his gospel is deadly poison for our
own time. We must acknowledge that we have sold ourselves a bill of goods in
emphasizing the importance of economics, asserting its purely scientific basis,
and touting its medicine as a cure for our ills. We need to recognize that
happiness is more satisfying than pleasure, relationships are more important
than goods, the environment takes precedence over gadgets, nature is our
precious habitat, holism is the science of the future, altruism can be more
gratifying than plunder, cooperation brings more rewards than competition and
peace (both inner and outer). This is the state devoutly to be wished.

Walter Haines is Emeritus Professor of Economies at New York University. His
original paper was presented before the Society for Human Economy, at Drew
University. The complete and unannotated version of the paper appeared in Human
Economy (The Human Economy Center, P.O. Box 28, West Swanzey, New Hampshire,
USA).

This article was published in New Renaissance magazine Vol.5, No.3

---

Global Authoritarian Regimes
by Ignacio Ramonet

A look at the political and social influence of large corporations.

So-called Totalitarian Regimes were those regimes consisting of only one
political party, which allowed no organized opposition, which subordinated the
rights of the individual to the cause of the State, and in which political power
sovereignly guided all the activities of the dominated society.

After these political systems, is following, at this end of the century,
another kind of totalitarianism, that of global authoritarian regimes. Resting
on the dogmas of globalisation and with it as the only consideration, they do
not allow any other political-economic system, subordinating the social rights
of the citizen to the cause of competition and abandoning to the financial
markets the complete control of all the activities of the dominated society.

In our direction-less societies no one is ignorant of the strength of this new
totalitarianism. According to a recent opinion poll in France, 64% of the people
questioned believe that it is the financial markets which have the most power
today. After the agricultural economy which prevailed during thousands of
years, after the industrial economy which marked the 19th and 20th centuries, we
have entered into the era of the global financial economy.

Globalization has killed the national market, which was one of the nation
states foundations of power. In annulling it, globalization has rendered largely
obsolete national capitalism and diminished the role of public agencies. States
no longer have the capacity to confront the market. The volume of central bank
reserves is ridiculously weak against the attack of speculators. States no
longer dispose of the means to brake the formidable flow of capital nor to
oppose the actions of financial markets which are against their interests and
the interests of their citizens. The governed bend to the general requirements
of the economic politics which define world organizations like the IMF, World
Bank, or the OEDC. In Europe the celebrated criteria of convergence established
by the Maastricht treaty (budget deficit, public debt reduction, and contained
inflation) exercise a true dictatorship on state politics rendering fragile the
base of democracy and aggravating social suffering.

If our so-called leaders affirm that their belief is in political autonomy, ie
our hands and feet are not tied in a world which is imposed on us, then if
certain politicians declare like this their will of resistance looks like a
bluff because they immediately add in the disguise of a constant: the
international situation is characterised by the free movement of capital and
products, which is called globalization. And they demand, with insistence, to
make an effort to adapt to this situation. Now, under such circumstances, what
is adaptation? It is simply admitting the supremacy of the markets and impotence
of the politicians. Such is the logic of these global authoritarian regimes.
During the last two decades the those in politic control have favoured policies
such as monetarism, deregulation, commercial free exchange, the free flow of
capital and massive privatisations. Thus capital decisions (in the manner of
investment, employment, health, education, culture, environmental protection)
have moved from the public sphere to the private sphere. It is why, at the
present time, that of the first 200 economies of the world, more than half are
not countries but enterprises.

The phenomenon of multi-nationalising of the economy has developed in a
spectacular manner. In the 1970s the number of multinational corporations was
only a few hundred. Now they exceed more than 40,000. If one considers the
global turnover of the 200 principal enterprises on the planet, this amount
represents more than a quarter of the world economy and for all that, these 200
firms employ only 18.8 million salaried persons; less than 0.75% of planetary
manpower. The turnover of General Motors is greater than the GNP of Denmark,
that of Ford is larger than the GNP of South Africa, that of Toyota is more than
the GNP of Norway. Here, we are in the domain of the real economy, that which
produces and exchanges concrete goods and services. These figures do not include
certain financial economies, such as principal American and Japanese pension
funds, which dominate the financial market. Their volume is perhaps 50 times
greater than the real economy. These funds along with the income of the large
corporations, makes governmental influence on economic policy almost negligible.


More and more countries, which have massively sold their public enterprises to
the private sector and de-regulated their markets, have become the property of
big multinational groups. These dominate entire sectors in the economy; they use
local governments to exercise pressure at the heart of international forums and
obtain the most favourable political decisions in their search for global
domination.

These phenomena of economic globalization and of concentration of capital, in
the South as in the North, break social cohesion. They aggravate, everywhere,
economic inequalities which increase in relation to the augmentation of the
markets supremacy. Thus the obligation of revolt, the right of protest, become
the citizens imperatives for refusing these unacceptable global authoritarian
regimes. Is it not time to demand the installation, on a planetary scale, of a
new social contract?

Ignacio Ramonet is Editorial Director and President of Le Monde Diplomatique.
This article was published in New Renaissance magazine Vol.7 No.2. Translation
Gary Levinson.

---

Some Features of Prouts Economic System - A Brief Look
by P.R. Sarkar

The Progressive Utilization Theory (PROUT) is the basis for an economic system
which is an alternative to both capitalism and communism. PROUT was conceived by
P.R. Sarkar in 1959 who in the article below outlines some of the basic features
of a decentralised, cooperative economic system built upon the principles of
PROUT.

Guaranteed Minimum Requirements and Purchasing Power:

PROUT stands to guarantee the minimum requirements of life, that is, food,
clothing, accommodation, medical treatment and education, to each and every
person. After the minimum requirements have been guaranteed, the surplus wealth
is to be distributed amongst people with special qualities and skills, such as
physicians, engineers, scientists, etc, because these people play a crucial role
in the collective development of society. The quantum of these minimum
requirements should be progressively increased so that the standard of living of
ordinary people is ever increasing also. The concept of equal distribution is a
utopian idea, a clever slogan to deceive simple, unwary people. PROUT rejects
this concept and advocates the rational distribution of economic wealth. Such a
system will provide incentives to increase production. To effectively implement
such an approach, PROUT advocates progressively increasing the purchasing power
of each individual. In fact, the increase in the purchasing power of each
individual is the controlling factor in a Proutistic economy. Because the
purchasing capacity of the people has been ignored in many undeveloped,
developing and developed countries of the world, economic systems are breaking
down and heading towards a crisis. To increase the purchasing power, the
production of essential commodities - not the production of luxury goods - for
consumption by the ordinary people must first be maximized. This will restore
parity between production and consumption and will ensure that the economic
needs of the people are met.

The Co-operative System:

According to PROUT the co-operative system is the best system as far as the
production and distribution of commodities are concerned. Co-operatives, run by
moralists, are the only safeguard against capitalistic and other types of
exploitation. Agents or intermediaries will have no scope to interfere in the
economy in the co-operative system. The main reason for the failure of the
co-operative system in different countries of the world is rampant immorality
which has been perpetrated by capitalist exploiters so that they can maintain
their economic exploitation.

A co-operative usually develops out of the collective labour and intellect of a
community who live within the same economic structure, who have the same common
needs and who have a ready market for the goods produced on a co-operative
basis. If these three factors are not present, a co-operative cannot be
developed. Properly managed, the co-operative system will be free from the
defects of only individual ownership, and through scientific methods it will be
possible to increase the quantum of production. The success of co-operative
enterprises depends on three factors - morality, strong administration and the
whole-hearted acceptance of the co-operative system by the people. Co-operative
enterprises become successful in proportion to the degree that co-ordination
between these three factors is achieved. To encourage people to form
co-operatives successful co-operative models should be established and people
should be educated about the benefits of the co-operative system. The latest
technology should be used in the co-operative system, both in production and
distribution. Appropriate modernization will lead to increased production.

In the co-operative system, managers should be elected from amongst those who
have shares in the co-operative. The members of a co-operative can get dividends
from the co-operative in two ways: according to the amount of capital input they
have put into to the co-op; and/or according to the amount of their productive,
manual or intellectual labour. To pay this dividend, the total production should
be divided on a 50-50 basis - that is, 50% of the fruits of produce should be
spent on wages and 50% as a return on capital input. Developmental plans should
be adopted to bring about equal development in all regions instead of just a
particular region, and local wealth and other resources and potentialities
should be utilized in this developmental plan. Thus, local people should get
first preference in participating in the development of cooperative enterprises.


Industrial Development:

PROUT has divided the industrial system of production into three
categories: key industries managed by the immediate or regional government;
co-operatively managed medium scale industries; and small scale privately owned
industries. This system will not create any confusion or duplication between the
government and private enterprise. An important aim of PROUT is to reduce the
excessive pressure on agriculture presently occurring in many undeveloped and
developing countries of the world. Not more than 40% of the people should be
employed in agriculture under any circumstances. In villages and small towns a
large number of agro- and agrico-industries should be established. In addition,
agriculture should be given the same status as industry so that agricultural
workers can realise the real value of their labour. PROUTs wages policy
advocates that wages need not only be received in the form of money. Wages may
also be received in the form of essential goods and services. PROUT also
supports maximum modernization in industry and agriculture. This can be achieved
by introducing the most appropriate and scientific technology. Yet modernization
and rationalization should not lead to increased unemployment. While there
should always be an effort to maintain 100% employment, this is not possible in
the capitalist systems. However, in PROUTs collective economic system full
employment will be maintained by progressively reducing working hours as the
introduction of appropriate technology increases production.

Decentralisation and socio-economic units:

In order to implement the economic ideas outlined above, PROUT advocates a new
and unique approach to decentralisation. It recommends the formation of
socio-economic groups or units throughout the world. These socio-economic groups
should be formed on the basis of factors like common economic problems, uniform
economic resources and potentialities, ethnic similarities, common geographical
features, and the sentimental legacy of the people, which arises out of common
socio-cultural ties, like language, cultural traits, etc. Each socio-economic
group should be free to chalk out its own economic plan and the methods of its
implementation. Within each socio-economic group/unit there should also be
decentralised planning which PROUT calls block-level planning.

A block is the lowest level planning authority in PROUTs socio-economic system.
In PROUTs system one political unit, like a state or a province, is likely to
contain a number of socio-economic regions. These units should be guaranteed the
full freedom to achieve economic self-sufficiency through the implementation of
their own economic planning and policies. If these socio-economic groups start a
full scale program to achieve all-round socio-cultural and economic
emancipation, there will be a widespread socio-economic awakening in that part
of the world. All people, regardless of whether they are rich or poor, old or
young, educated or illiterate, inspired by a common anti-exploitation sentiment,
will start a powerful movement for socio-economic liberation.

If those living within one socio-economic unit merge their individual
socio-economic interests into the collective socio-economic interests, the
outflow of economic wealth from any region will be stopped and exploitation will
be completely rooted out. In PROUTs system the right of employment for the local
people will be fully guaranteed, and the employment of local people will take
precedence over non-local people. Where there are no opportunities for proper
economic development, surplus labour develops. In fact, in all undeveloped
economic regions surplus labour occurs, and when this surplus labour migrates to
other regions, the surplus labour area remains undeveloped forever. Wherever
there are surplus labour areas, provision should be made to employ the local
labour immediately. While providing employment to local people, the local
sentiment should also be taken into consideration. Maximum
agro- and agrico-industries should be established on the basis of the
socio-economic potential of the region. Also, various other types of industries
should be established on the basis of the collective needs of the region.

This approach will create enormous opportunities for new employment. Through
such an employment policy, increasing the standard of living of the local people
will be possible. The modernization of industry and agriculture can be readily
introduced in a decentralised socio-economic system and the goods that are
produced can be easily marketed. If a socio-economic unit develops its economic
potential, per capita income disparities in different regions will be reduced
and the economic position of undeveloped regions will be raised to that of
developed regions. Economic prosperity can be enjoyed by each and every person.
When every region becomes economically self-sufficient, the whole country will
rapidly achieve economic self-sufficiency.

Another unique feature of PROUTs decentralised economic system is its guiding
principles of planning. According to PROUT, effective economic planning should
be based on four fundamental factors: productivity, cost of production,
purchasing power and collective necessities. Other related factors are natural
resources, geographical features, climate, river systems, transportation,
industrial potentialities, cultural heritage and social conditions.

Trade and Commerce:

PROUT also has its own unique features in commerce, taxation and banking. The
distribution of essential commodities should be done entirely through consumer
co-operatives, not through the government, businessmen or different levels of
middle men, thus leaving no scope for manipulation by profiteers. Essential
commodities should be entirely tax free except for some special circumstances.
Income tax should be abolished, and instead taxes should be levied at the
starting point of production. Wealth ceiling should be imposed. The banking
system should also be managed by co-operatives, and the central or federal
government bank should be controlled by the immediate government or the local
government. In the productive economy of PROUT, which aims above all else to
increase the purchasing power of the people, it will be easy to control price
levels through the co-operative system and decentralisation at all levels.

1981, Calcutta.
P.R. Sarkar (1921-1990) founded Renaissance Universal in 1958.
This article is an excerpt from his book PROUT in a Nutshell.
This article was published in New Renaissance, Volume 9, No. 1, issue 27.



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