PROUT

PROUT
For a More Progressively Evolving Society

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Top Ten American Steps Toward a Police State


Guest article


The police state, a term first coined in the mid-19th century in German (Polizeistaat), is characterized by a standing political police, by intense domestic surveillance and by restrictions on the movements of citizens.  Police states are on a spectrum, and unfortunately in the past
decade the Unite States has moved toward police-stateness in small but key ways.  Here are the signs:
1. The United States National Security Administration recently requisitioned all Verizon phone records in the US for a period of 3 months.  Your telephone records (who you called and for how long) say a great deal about you.  This is a form of mass surveillance.  
2. The US has assigned 250 NSA agents to sift through a massive further British database of US telecommunications and email, derived from attaching packet analyzers to transatlantic fiber optic cables.  
3. The Federal government claims the right to examine the contents of the laptops of US citizens whenever they enter the United States, in contravention of the Fourth Amendment.  Some 60 million Americans travel abroad annually.  
4. The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world.  Those in prison have grown from 220 per 100,000 population to over 700 per 100,000 population since 1980.  The US holds over two million inmates, and has 6 million people at any one time under carceral supervision– more than were in Stalin’s Gulag.  State spending on prisons has risen at 6 times the rate of spending on higher education.  
5. Some 6 million persons convicted of felonies have been disenfranchised and cannot vote.  Most are not in prison.  Because of the ‘war on drugs,’ many of these persons are not actually guilty of serious crimes.  The practice hits the poor and minorities.  Some 7 percent of African-Americans is ineligible to vote, but less than 2 percent of whites is.  
6. Police can take DNA samples of all arrestees on serious crimes, whether they are proven guilty or not.  Even Justice Scalia believes the ruling opens the door for DNA sample collection for all arrests.  Some 13 million Americans are arrested annually, 1.6 million on drugs charges and half of those on marijuana charges.
7. American police are becoming militarized, with SWAT teams proliferating, and use of drones, GPS tracking devices, and military equipment, as well as participation of National Guards in the ‘war on drugs.’  
8. Legislators are increasingly attempting to criminalize public protest, as with a current bill that would make it a crime knowingly to ‘trespass’ in security zones where persons are found who are under secret service protection.  Authorities have sometimes also attempted to restrict public protesters to “protest zones”, thus keeping them out of the view of news cameras.  
9. The USA PATRIOT Act institutes gag orders that are a violation of the 1st Amendment,forbidding persons and companies from revealing that the government has secretly asked for surveillance records.
10. The same act allows government agencies (including the Pentagon) to issue “National Security Letters” without any warrant, making broad and unspecific demands for records on large numbers of persons.  
Political Democracy can and will be fortuitous
when Economic Democracy is established.

Explore this and other articles covering alternative economics, ethical leadership, economic democracy, and a society without the weal and woe of social and economic vicissitudes HERE
How does PROUT compare or contrast with capitalism or communism?  Explore the answers HERE
What are essential ingredients assuring progressive sustainability bereft of the vicissitudes of economic or political predation, privation or disparity?  Learn more HERE

Friday, June 21, 2013

Population Growth and Control -- Is Overpopulation Depleting Our Potentials?



PROUTist Economics

Population Growth and Control


P.R. Sarkar, Founder of PROUT
The socio-economic environment of society today is extremely restless and disturbed.  In this abnormal environment population growth has been projected as a menacing threat to the existence of human society, but in fact this sort of propaganda is nothing but an evil conspiracy engineered by vested interests.  No problem is greater than the human capacity to solve it.  Like all problems confronting humanity, the problem of population growth should be tackled and solved in a proper way.  
In the natural course of evolution, birth and death maintain the continuity of the never ending flow of creation.  Every day, with the birth of babies, the parents and the other family members naturally enjoy great happiness.  But it is a matter of sorrow that there are some people in the government or other spheres of public life who consider the increase in the birth rate a curse on the society.  This negative attitude is definitely a blot on the human race, which has achieved a degree of intellectual development and scientific knowledge.  

Population Growth

The theory that population increases at a geometric rate while food production increases at an arithmetic rate is completely defective.  Such a situation can only occur in an imbalanced economic system.  
Is the population problem really a natural problem?  The population problem should be considered in the context of two vital factors – the availability of food and the availability of space.  Today human beings have sufficient means to manage their food.  The earth is abundant enough in food resources to feed many times more than the present population.  Due to lack of coordinated cooperation, collective effort, a proper ideology and sound planning, society has been fragmented into many belligerent groups and sub-groups, and rich and poor nations have been created.  As a result of this fissiparous tendency, society is presently incapable of producing enough food to meet human requirements.  The tragedy is that even though there are enough resources to supply nutritious food to all the human beings on the planet, due to the defective socio-economic systems, an efficient method of distribution has not been developed.  
Moreover, there is no shortage of living space on the planet if the existing space is properly utilized.  Because the earth has been balkanized due to so many arbitrary social, economic and political restrictions and the pervasive influence of evil dogma, people are unable to tackle problems in a natural way.  If there were maximum utilization and rational distribution of all natural resources, pressing socio-economic problems could be easily solved.  
It is a law of nature that a mother is provided with sufficient breast milk to feed her newly born baby.  In the same way nature has generously provided sufficient resources to meet the food and other essential requirements of all human beings.  People need to
utilize these natural resources in a proper way.  Shortages of food or space cannot be blamed on nature.  These problems are essentially the results of the mistakes made by human beings.  
It is a fact that the population of the world is rapidly increasing, and consequently many people have become frightened.  In capitalist countries there are sufficient reasons for such fear.  In these countries an increase in the population means a corresponding increase in the poverty of the people.  But there is no reason for such fear in a collective economic system.  In the event of shortages in food and accommodation people will collectively convert barren land into arable land, increase agricultural production by scientific methods and produce food by chemical processes using the potentiality of earth, water and air.  And if this earth loses its productivity, then human beings will migrate to other planets and satellites and settle there.  
If people living in capitalist countries voluntarily adopt birth control methods to avoid economic hardship, perhaps we should not criticize them.  But it should be mentioned here that using birth control methods which deform the bodies of men and women or destroy their reproductive powers forever cannot be supported, because this may cause a violent mental reaction at any moment.    

PROUT’s Solution

Under the present socio-economic conditions, PROUT advocates a comprehensive, clear-cut policy to tackle the population problem.  According to PROUT, population growth will automatically find a natural level if the following four factors exist in society:  
1) There should be economic liberty in society so that people may get a nutritious diet.  In Scandinavia, for example, the purchasing capacity of the people is high and they enjoy a good standard of living.  Because of this they do not face the problem of overpopulation.  
2) Everybody should have the right to enjoy sound health.  If people have a healthy body and mind their glandular system will remain balanced, and they can easily transform their physical energy into psychic energy and their psychic energy into spiritual energy.  Through this effort of channelizing the mind in a spiritual direction, the baser mental propensities are easily controlled.  
3) People should be free from unnecessary mental worries and anxieties.  When one suffers from mental agonies continually, the mind naturally indulges in baser physical enjoyment to get rid of that unwanted condition.  When mental agonies disappear, human beings will enjoy peace of mind and be able to assimilate subtle ideas.  
4) The intellectual standard of humanity will have to be elevated.  With intellectual advancement human beings will develop their all-round psychic potentiality and can easily evolve their psycho-spiritual potentiality.  Through continuous effort human beings will be able to attain the supreme stance, merging their individual unit existence into Cosmic existence.  
Thus, the population problem is not just an economic problem – it includes economic, biological, psychological and intellectual aspects.  
Today people give more importance to the political than to the bio-psychological and economic aspects of population growth.  
The theory that population increases at a geometric rate while food production increases at an arithmetic rate is completely defective.  Such a situation can only occur in an imbalanced economic system. In a progressive and balanced economic system no such problem will exist.

Collective Economy

It is completely wrong to propagate the idea that a rapidly increasing population will affect the collective economic structure.  Today capitalists are trying to check population
growth by propagating birth control because an increasing population is detrimental to capitalism.  In a collective economic structure there will be no need to support birth control. Rather, an increasing population will help in the production of the essential commodities.  
Good varieties of seed, fertile land, adequate nourishment, light, air and water are all essential for good reproduction in both the plant and animal kingdoms.  In this respect human beings are no different from other creatures.  In human society the selection of suitable males and females is desirable for reproduction of a high order.  Until human beings are produced in scientific laboratories, it will be detrimental to society if this matter is neglected.  
If people of sublime intelligence and brilliance reproduce more offspring, it will be very beneficial for society.  The responsibility for nurturing and bringing up these children will have to be taken by the society or the government.  Similarly, it will be harmful for society if mentally deficient, naturally delinquent or insane persons produce many children.  In fact, society will be benefited by the permanent destruction of their reproductive capacity, providing this does not cause any harmful reaction.  
Science has reached such a stage that it can usher in a new era.  It can produce synthetic food in the form of tablets to help solve the food problems of the world.  A single food tablet can be sufficient to provide sustenance for a whole day, so we need not fear population increases.  Future generations will spend more of their time and energy on subtle psychic and spiritual activities, so their demand for physical food will decrease.  
Through oceanographic research abundant food resources have been discovered within the ocean and on the sea bed.  With the application of science and technology we can harness these resources to meet the challenge of the food problem.  The crisis faced by society today indicates that humanity is not encouraging the maximum utilization and rational distribution of the world's potentialities.  Science today is being used to develop increasingly destructive weapons of war rather than for benevolent and constructive purposes.  
Society will have to adopt a collective economic system for maximum production and economic security in order to control accumulation; ensure the rational distribution of collective wealth through a well-knit cooperative system; implement decentralized socio-economic planning; and secure the maximum utilization of all types of mundane, supramundane and spiritual potentialities.  So far society has not adopted such an approach so it has been unable to solve the food problem.  
Instead, certain inhuman birth control practices have been forcibly promoted.  Not only are such practices detrimental to a healthy human body and mind, they cause physical deformity, disturbances and misunderstandings in family life, and mental derangement and debility.  Those inflicted with such psychic ailments lose the courage to face adversity in life and the power to fight for social justice.
Imposing a fear of population growth is nothing but a cunning conspiracy by vested interests to misguide people and exploit society.  Optimistic people throughout the world will have to unite and raise their voices against such a heinous conspiracy, and work together to construct a just and benevolent society.
1981, Calcutta, from Proutist Economics  


Political Democracy can and will be fortuitous
when Economic Democracy is established.

Explore this and other articles covering alternative economics, ethical leadership, economic democracy, and a society without the weal and woe of social and economic vicissitudes HERE
How does PROUT compare or contrast with capitalism or communism?  Explore the answers HERE
What are essential ingredients assuring progressive sustainability bereft of the vicissitudes of economic or political predation, privation or disparity?  Learn more HERE

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

New Technology Nearly Doubles Solar Efficiency

There is huge potential in solar power, but our current methods of capturing the sun’s energy are limited as widely used silicon solar cells approach their theoretical limit of 33.7 percent efficiency. Now a Princeton University research team has applied nanotechnology principles to incorporate a design that significantly increases their efficacy.


Led by Stephen Chou, the team has made two dramatic improvements: reducing reflectivity and more effectively capturing the light that isn’t reflected. The new solar cell is much thinner and less reflective, capturing many more light waves via a minute mesh and bouncing off only about 4 percent of direct sunlight. The new design is capable of capturing a large amount of sunlight even when it’s cloudy, producing an 81 percent increase in efficiency even under indirect lighting conditions.  

Source: OpticsInfoBase.org  

This article appears in the June 2013 issue of Natural Awakenings  



Explore this and other articles covering alternative economics, ethical leadership, economic democracy, and a society without the weal and woe of social and economic vicissitudes HERE
How does PROUT compare or contrast with capitalism or communism?  Explore the answers HERE
What are essential ingredients assuring progressive sustainability bereft of the vicissitudes of economic or political predation, privation or disparity?  Learn more HERE


Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Universal Principles for a Healthy Society Today

Cardinal Human Values



What are some of the Universal Principles possible for a  lastingly healthy society, in every realm of life?  

At some point, on the evolutionary scale, single-celled organisms came forth in cooperation and unity to arrive at greater gestalts together, developing more complex organisms, more evolved than themselves individually with greater capacities, which came to ensconce into a new organism with intents and capacities unique to itself, and often replicating into similar organisms sauntering forth in cooperation to arrive at new gestalts in cooperative intelligence at greater thresholds of evolutionary excellence, including us, you and me. 

Such thresholds of evolutionary progress arrived at their excellencies through the tried and true exercise of proven universal practical principles which have carried us to where we are today, as a species, right along with all the other organisms alive today.  So, what's next?

We've come up with some relatively universal principles and concerns for making a more progressively evolving human society for the wellbeing of all and welcome your insights for furthering success for a healthier society.  Please explore these, ponder them and witness how they may, and perhaps already have, prove practical for a more progressively evolving society.


* Lasting and adaptable principles must be comprehensive, covering all core facets of a political philosophy, including: values base, theory of history, political system, economic system, ecological philosophy, social and cultural concepts, future vision, and methodology of change.  

* It is optimal, indeed necessary to synthesize into one theoretical framework a wide array of progressive concerns, such as: cooperatives, economic democracy, bioregionalism, economic decentralization, social justice, environmental protection, guaranteed basic necessities, social equity, world government, fair trade, rights of species, spiritual values, global peace, cultural autonomy, and sustainable development.  

* To positively affect the wellbeing of all in a progressively responsive and upgrading manner, offering viable alternatives to materialist-based political philosophies -- such as anarchism, communism, and capitalism -- is necessary.  Any worthwhile and relevant social, economic or political philosophy, starting from a new, post-materialist worldview, must give rise to a profoundly different wholistic political vision from that of existing political paradigms.  


* Viable social, political and economic alternatives must have a values base grounded in the holistic cosmology found in such diverse places as the perennial philosophy of the wisdom traditions, indigenous peoples' spirituality, deep ecology, and the philosophical implications of quantum physics and modern cosmology.



* Alternative paradigms should be compatible with an emerging shift in planetary consciousness synthesizing the strengths of Western, Eastern, indigenous, and holistic scientific contributions to human knowledge.


* Progressive alternatives must be designed to serve the totality of human nature: physical, mental and spiritual.  It should not neglect or suppress the development of any facet of human nature, rather promote their balanced and integrated expression.

* Viable paradigms should not privilege material development above spiritual development, nor spiritual development above material development, but recognizes their interdependent contributions to nurturing a healthy, balanced, and fulfilled human society.

* Doctrines and policies must arise from, and get validated by, practice; policies of the present must be proactively changed in response to changing social and economic conditions.

* We must expand the concept of humanism beyond a concern for human welfare and attainment to a new humanism concerned for the welfare of all living beings.  A new humanism must assert that the welfare of individuals, groups, and species cannot be separated from the welfare of the whole.

* Ideas of progress must be conceptualized based beyond material and technological change to one based on improvement in the all around welfare of human beings, society and all life at large.  Progress is best indicated at a material level by an increase in people's quality of life; at the mental level by expansion of neohumanist consciousness; and at the spiritual level by growth of love, inner peace, and cosmic disposition.

* Core social ideals -- such as economic democracy, social equity, world peace, and ecological protection -- in a progressive paradigm must provide a practical framework for their attainment.

* Progressive solutions must not be or operate as a reaction to social problems, rather as a positive effort to envision and build a wholesome, viable and sustainable human society.  It should not stem from a critique of current global realities, but rather start from the seeds of life and the needs of human beings to find holistic fulfillment.

* We should not place collective interests above individual interests, nor individual interests above collective interests, rather perceive individual and collective interests as being inherently interrelated.  The well-being of individuals lies in the development of the collective, and collective well-being lies in the development of individuals.

* The liberation of society can only arise from the liberated consciousness of individuals.  We therefore do not give primacy to political change, rather stress cultural change, proper education of the human intellect, moral development, and spiritual growth.  Change in political power should be driven by a change of collective consciousness, not imposed by new wave vested parties.

* Fundamental shifts in the locus of power are necessary, such that the locus of economic, social and cultural power must devolve from transnational corporations and nation-states to local and regional levels, and the locus of political and military power be taken from nation-states and invested in a world confederation.

* Profit as the core motive for economic activity must be rejected, replaced.  While profit is an important practical consideration in operating enterprises, it must not supersede in importance such concerns as consumer needs, community well-being, resource sustainability, environmental health, social equity, and worker fulfillment.

* Remedial solutions cannot be characterized as either conservative or liberal; neither can they be called libertarian, socialist, or anarchist.  Lasting solutions must arise from their own values base, transcend the left-right political spectrum, and acknowledge the strengths of many social philosophies.

* Progressive solutions must conceive of a deep sustainability based in maintaining balance at all levels of material, mental, and spiritual development in society.

* Lasting solutions model the way nature works.  Those with knowledge of ecological science, complexity theory, systems theory, or the philosophical implications of quantum physics will experience a familiarity with the necessary values, principles, and operational structure that will provide lasting solutions through the myriad changes life presents.

* We call for neither a free market nor a command economy, but a regulated and planned market economy that does not support control of enterprises by large corporations or by the state, but by cooperative, small private entrepreneurs, and -- in the case of key industries -- by public boards.

* We affirm the relativism of post-modernism with respect to the phenomenological world, though reject the notion that there is no basis for universal values; we assert that a sound and durable value base lies in the transcendental ground of material existence.

What about some additional basic design principles?  What are your insights and wisdom?  


Political Democracy can and will be fortuitous
when Economic Democracy is established.

Explore this and other articles covering alternative economics, ethical leadership, economic democracy, and a society without the weal and woe of social and economic vicissitudes HERE
How does PROUT compare or contrast with capitalism or communism?  Explore the answers HERE
What are essential ingredients assuring progressive sustainability bereft of the vicissitudes of economic or political predation, privation or disparity?  Learn more HERE