Reply With QuoteThere are several specialities of PROUTʼs economic system. These include guaranteed minimum requirements, increasing purchasing capacity, cooperatives, industrial development, decentralization and developmental planning.
Guaranteed Minimum Requirements
PROUTʼs economic system guarantees the minimum requirements of life – that is, food, clothing, accommodation, medical treatment and education – to each and every person. Once the minimum requirements have been guaranteed, the surplus wealth is to be distributed among people with special qualities and skills such as physicians, engineers and scientists, because such people play an important role in the collective development of society. The quantum of the minimum requirements should be progressively increased so that the standard of living of the common people is always increasing.
The concept of equal distribution is a utopian idea. It is merely a clever slogan to deceive simple, unwary people. PROUT rejects this concept and advocates the maximum utilization and rational distribution of resources. This will provide incentives to increase production.
To effectively implement this, increasing the purchasing capacity of each individual is the controlling factor in a Proutistic economy. The purchasing capacity of common people in many undeveloped, developing and developed countries has been neglected, hence the economic systems of these countries are breaking down and creating a worldwide crisis.
The first thing that must be done to increase the purchasing capacity of the common people is to maximize the production of essential commodities, not the production of luxury goods. This will restore parity between production and consumption and ensure that the minimum requirements are supplied to all.
According to PROUT, the cooperative system is the best system for the production and distribution of commodities. Cooperatives, run by moralists, will safeguard people against different forms of economic exploitation. Agents or intermediaries will have no scope to interfere in the cooperative system.
One of the main reasons for the failure of the cooperative system in different countries of the world is the rampant immorality spread by capitalist exploiters to perpetuate their domination.
Cooperatives develop in a community which has an integrated economic environment, common economic needs and a ready market for its cooperatively produced goods.
All these factors must be present for cooperatives to evolve. Properly managed cooperatives are free from the defects of individual ownership. Production can be increased as required in cooperatives due to their scientific nature.
For their success, cooperative enterprises depend on morality, strong administration and the wholehearted acceptance of the cooperative system by the people. Wherever these three factors are evident in whatever measure, cooperatives will achieve proportionate success. To encourage people to form cooperatives, successful cooperative models should be established and people should be educated about the benefits of the cooperative system.
The latest technology should be used in the cooperative system, both in production and distribution. Appropriate modernization will lead to increased production.
Cooperative managers should be elected from among those who have shares in the cooperative. Members of agricultural cooperatives will get dividends in two ways – according to the amount of land they donated to the cooperative, and according to the amount of their productive manual or intellectual labour. To pay this dividend, initially the total produce should be divided on a fifty-fifty basis – fifty percent should be disbursed as wages and fifty percent should be paid to the shareholders in proportion to the land they donated. Local people should get first preference in participating in cooperative enterprises.
Developmental planning should be adopted to bring about equal development in all regions instead of just some particular regions. Local wealth and other resources and potentialities should be utilized in this developmental plan.
The controversial problem of the ownership of land can be solved by the phase-wise socialization of land through agricultural cooperatives. Cooperative land ownership should be implemented step by step in adjustment with the economic circumstances of the local area. During this process the ownership of land should not be in the hands of any particular individual or group.
Originally Posted by army88
