While the vision above presents Sarkar's thinking, it does not place it in the context of other images of the future. By placing Sarkar's vision in the context of other images we will better be able compare his thought. We use as our points of comparison, the images developed by futurist James Dator.32
He has attempted to identify compelling images and visions of the future. The first image is that of Continued Growth (progress and developmentalism, capitalist and socialist). The second is the Steady State image (no or slow growth, environmentally conscious, beta in structure, largely the Gandhian image). The third image is that of the Collapse of civilization (either through external factors such as the environment or internal social factors such as depressions), and finally the last is that of Transformation (new technologies changing the very nature of nature, and thus leading to an anarchic, individualistic, but gentle world). These images begin the process of comparison and to some extent they include action-commitment given that they are empirically and historically derived images of the future held by various actors, movements, and peoples.
Continued Growth:
This image assumes that what worked in the past will continue to succeed albeit with minor adjustments. Politically this is liberal pluralism, that is, the liberal democratic party system works fine, we just need better leaders, or less political action committees, or more watchdog groups. Capitalism, in this image of the future, is the provider of goods and freedom. Through the market, needs can be met and wealth accumulated. The problems with capitalism can be handled through government intervention, global economic summits, the coordination of exchange rates, or through various fiscal and monetary policies; in general, "muddling through." In this image the US is seen as the home of the entrepreneur ("if we can just free up regulations, the US can continue its march forward").
The previous communist nations even with their many recent dramatic changes too can be categorized as "continued growth" given that their assumptions of reality are similar to capitalist states; they too are concerned with nationalism and economic growth. Their methods are simply state (party/military) bureaucratic, not state corporate. Thus, even as they attempt changes they remain within the growth model.
The image of humans in this scenario is that of industrial man with work as the prime motivation; females, the elderly, and the other races (the internal as well as external third world) are seen as secondary. The self in this image is determined by matter, that is, it is constituted by the brain and knowledge is understood by reason. Science, then, is the primary explainer of human phenomena and the harbinger of increasing levels of progress. Progress and knowledge are linear and cumulative with clear stages, such that the West is on top and the rest of the world on bottom. The process of the transformation of the rest of the world into the image of the West is often called technology transfer, modernity, or in the language of critics, colonialism.
This model has been increasingly hampered in the past few decades with the decline of the US, the increasing instability of the world economy, the environmental crises, the rise of Islam, and the development and growth of alternative visions of tomorrow. However, a new variant of this model which does offer promise to the system as whole is that of the Pacific Shift or Pacific Co-Prosperity. In this, the problems of the US (and Western) debt, consumerism, alienation and declining wage rates are resolved through the Pacific Rim countries. Thus, there is a shift in world culture, polity and economy from Atlantic to Pacific, with the Pacific providing the goods and the US consuming them, both in desperate need of each other and both committed to capitalism. The system continues; it is only who runs it that changes. In addition, this new form of capitalism manages to coordinate labor/management, government/business, and labor intensive/capital intensive.
Sarkar, of course, rejects the corporate, state and Pacific variants of this model. Sarkar defines progress quite differently (for him, only spiritual progress is real progress, and the goal of society is not profit, but closeness to the Great). Economic development exists so that people can develop themselves spiritually and intellectually. And obviously the Self is not constituted apurposefully, nor materialistically; rather the self is spiritual, part of the larger mystery of the Cosmos; the self's existence is teleological--that of enlightenment, a return to the timeless Source.
From the Continued Growth perspective, movements like PROUT should not given much official attention, but secretly watched very carefully in case they begin to grow and are able to implement their policies against the overconcentration of wealth. In any case in the long run, by and large, the onward march of capital continues, and all ideologies eventually must deal with the bottom line, and there is only one system that can deliver that promise: capitalism. And as long as they remain non-violent, they can be left alone. If they become violent, there are ways to repress them, and if that is problematic, in the long run, rational self-interest will lead to cooption.
Conserver/Environmental/Green:
Critics of the Growth model, however, have been active in developing a new model, which in recent history is closely related to the Environmental movement. This model is interested in steady-state economics. Zero population growth and the development of economies that exist with nature and do not exploit the elderly, females and the third world. The key words in this image are stability, conservation and predictability--"we are going too fast, there is too much growth, we need to slow down technological development so as to determine its impact on humans," it is said. This vision of the future is strongly anti-nuclear and anti-genetic engineering. The preferred economy is small scale, based on self-sufficiency in the context of decentralized bio-regions. Politically, this model is committed to local community-level democracy, to negotiation, that is, a process where the means are far more important than the ends. The present day Green movement is perhaps the best example of this image. This perspective is also largely concerned with expanding the isolated self/family to include the community. Recent efforts have included plants and animals as well. This model is resistant to consumerism, professionalism, and bureaucratization.
Obviously, one can see many strands of Sarkar's thought in this vision. However, there are some serious areas of difference that should be mentioned. First, for Sarkar the debate should not be constituted as between high-tech and low-tech, that is, as between types of technology, but with the ownership of technology and the cultural and political messages embedded in any technology. That is, although technology is a culture in itself, it is because we are in the declining phase of capitalism that technology aids the wealthy and impoverishes the already poor. In an alternative polity, for example, the green revolution would not have had to result in the landless becoming laborless as well. Instead in a cooperative economic structure, there could be range of alternatives that would be progressive--such as reduced working days or employee ownership.
Furthermore, while various conservation groups and Greens prefer a decentralized polity, PROUT, like various socialist movements, acknowledges that capitalists will not give up power unless one takes power. A decentralized polity will easily be controlled by those with the greatest wealth. Thus Sarkar argues for a centralized polity although with strong civilian, populist overtones provided through the emergence of spiritual leadership.
Finally PROUT aims at the maximum utilization of resources (although in the context of equitable distribution, the needs of plants and animals, and the larger collective good) and thus is pro-economic growth, however economic development is defined as increases in purchasing capacity, not gross national product. While both PROUT and the Green perspective see the basic problem as the maldistribution and idleness of wealth; PROUT, however, emphasizes growth as well as the role individual initiatives can play in increasing economic development. Moreover, the Conserver image sees work as an integral part of human development; while PROUT sees employment as only an intermediate state, the final goal is full unemployment, the creation of a society where material needs are fulfilled so our intellectual and spiritual selves can be cultivated. Finally, PROUT does not locate the present global crisis in the population discourse, thus it rejects zero population efforts.
Instead of an expanding population, it is the values embedded in materialism and capitalism that PROUT believes to be the key problems. Moreover, PROUT is committed to the nuclear family, while the Conserver image tends to be more inclined toward alternative forms of the family (communes, gay families, for example). Finally PROUT does not totally reject nuclear power; it is cautiously open, believing that the solution to the nuclear crisis is political and technological.
All in all while PROUT shares some key similarities with this vision of the future and with various strategies to realize it, PROUT remains significantly different in key areas.
Note:
Read other articles by Sohail Inayatullah at metafuture.org
Reposted from KurzweilAI.net.
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"In economic life there is extreme inequality and exploitation. Although colonialism no longer exists openly in the political and economic sphere, still it persists indirectly, and this should not be tolerated... In this respect you should remember that in economic life, we will have to guarantee the minimum requirements of life to one and all... There cannot be any sort of adjustment as far as this point is concerned. The minimum purchasing requirement must be guaranteed to all. Today these fundamental essentialities are not being guaranteed. Rather, people are being guided by deceptive economic ideas like outdated Marxism, which has proven ineffective in practical life and has not been successfully implemented in any corner of the world. Why do people still believe in such a theory, which has never been proved successful? The time has come for people to make a proper assessment of whether they are being misguided or not." |
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"Human beings have still not been able to form a human society, and have still not learned to move with the spirit of a pilgrim. Although many small groups, motivated by self-interest, work together in particular situations, not even a small fraction of their work is done with a broader social motive. By strict definition, shall we have to declare that each small family unit is a society in itself? If going ahead in mutual adjustment only out of narrow self-interest or momentary self-seeking is called society, then in such a society, no provision can be made for the disabled, the diseased or the helpless, because in most cases nobody can benefit from them in any way... in that case there always remains the possibility of some people getting isolated from the collective. All human beings must attach themselves to others by the common bond of love and march forward hand in hand; then only will I proclaim it a society." |