Cooperative members should form a board of directors for each cooperative. The board should decide the amount of profit to be divided among the members; that is, the dividend to be paid to each shareholder. However, the total profit should not be distributed in the form of dividends - some should be kept for reinvestment or purchasing items such as tractors, manure, etc.; some should also be used for increasing authorized capital; and some should be deposited in the reserve fund. The reserve fund should be used to increase the value of the dividend in the years when production is low. If this system is followed the authorized capital will not be affected. The board of directors should be elected from among the cooperative members - their positions should not be honorary. Care should be taken to ensure that not a single immoral person is elected to the board. All directors must be moralists. To stop black-marketeering strong steps need to be taken by the government. For example, to protect the clothing industry, the government should pass a law that prevents the sale of any clothing without the trademark of the producers cooperative where it is made. Thus, if black-marketeers try to sell any clothing without trademarks, they can be easily caught. Many intelligent people know this simple but effective remedy, but still they do nothing. This is because they are the agents of capitalists who need money from these black-marketeers and hoarders to fight their election campaigns. This kind of corruption in the electoral system is part of democracy, so we can say that democracy is not the best form of government. Hoarding, profiteering and black-marketeering cannot be stopped in the democratic system because those who try to stop it will be thrown out of power. In the high point of the ks'attriya (warriors) Era smuggling and hoarding were controlled, but as soon as the influence of the intellectuals (vipras) or capitalists (vaeshyas) emerged, the control over these corrupt practices slackened.
Many small satellite cooperatives should be formed to supply various items to large producers’ cooperatives. Take a car factory, for example. The many different parts for a motorcar can be locally manufactured in small cooperatives. The members of these small satellite cooperatives may even carry on their work from their homes, involving all their family members. The main function of large producers cooperatives will be to assemble the different car parts. This will have two benefits: the large cooperative will not require many laborers hence labor unrest will be minimized, and labor costs will be reduced and thus the cost of the commodities will be kept low.
The problem of a floating population and immigrant labor will not occur in the cooperative system, as cooperative members will have to be local people. Floating laborers should have no right to be cooperative members -- migratory birds have no place in cooperatives -- as they can disturb a whole economy. Howrah district, for example, produces sufficient crops in a season to feed the local people for seventeen months, but due to immigrant labor the produce is consumed in six and a half months. The elimination of the floating population will also protect the social life of the cooperative from the possibility of adverse social influences.
In the cooperative system unemployment will be solved. As production increases the need for more facilities and resources will also increase. Educated people can be employed as skilled workers. There will also be a need for tractor drivers, laborers and cultivators, and cooperative members will naturally do this work. Village people will not need to move to the cities for employment. In the cooperative system there should be no compulsory age for superannuation. People should be free to work as long as they like, providing their health permits.
Those socio-economic units that do not have a sufficient supply of raw materials will have to manufacture synthetic or artificial raw materials. Suppose a unit or region does not have an adequate supply of fodder to feed its cattle or sheep. Will it import fodder from another unit or region? No, it should manufacture artificial fodder instead. Similarly, it takes a substantial volume of cotton to produce one dhoti [the traditional lower garment worn by men in northeastern India]. To transport large amounts of cotton also requires much energy, and so if it is not readily available, synthetic fabric can be produced instead.
As science advances, cooperatives will develop and manufacture a great variety of commodities from synthetic raw materials. In the capitalist system, raw materials are imported from other countries or regions in order to manufacture finished products. Cooperatives will not follow this system. They will develop their own raw materials through research so that they are not dependent on foreign raw materials.
Through the cooperative system human society will progress with accelerating speed, ushering in a new revolution in science. No part of the universe will be left unutilized -- every nook and corner will be properly used. Where fodder is available, grazing land, dairy farms and milk production can be developed. Where fodder is not available, synthetic milk will be produced. In this way progress and development will be maintained in every field of life. The day is very near when science will be guided by spiritually oriented intellectuals. When this day comes, science will move forward with leaps and bounds, causing the intellectual capacity of human beings to increase immensely. Cooperatives will greatly assist this psychic and spiritual advancement.
To enhance the unity in society we should encourage all common factors and discourage all fissiparous factors. For example, in India there are many common factors that help create unity, and there are many fissiparous factors that create disunity. The most fundamental point of unity in India is that the Indian mentality is God-centered; that is, it is intrinsically based on theism. It accepts divine providence as a cardinal human factor. Even Indian communists are theists in their hearts, but on a political platform they speak as atheists. Although the spiritual standard of the people is high, the moral standard is lower than in western countries. Thus, the moral standard needs to be increased. Moralists should be created. For this a universal ideology should be propagated in every nook and corner of the country.
Another point of unity in India is the Sanskrit language. The Indian people may or may not know Sanskrit, but they all certainly have a deep love and respect for it. If Sanskrit had become the national language of India instead of Hindi, all the present problems relating to the national language would have been avoided. Take another example, the calendar system. In North India and some parts of South India the lunar calendar, called Sam'vat, which depends upon the movement of the moon, is followed. In this system the seventh as'a'rh is in the morning, the eighth as'a'rh is at noon and the ninth as'a'rh is at night. A lot of problems arise with such a calendar. In Bengal, Assam, Manipur, the Punjab, Jammu, Kashmir, Orissa and some parts of South India the solar calendar, called Shaka'bda, which depends upon the movement of the sun, is used. According to this system, in Bengal the first Vaesha'kha is on the fourteenth of April and in the Punjab the first Vaesha'kha is on the thirteenth of April. Should we encourage this difference in the calendar system? No, so either the Shaka'bda system or the international calendar system should be followed. So, to integrate the entire human race, unifying factors should be encouraged and fissiparous factors should be discouraged.
The sweetest unifying factors are love and sympathy for humanity. The wonts of the human heart are joy, pleasure and beatitude. In the physical realm the best expression of this human sweetness is the cooperative system. The cooperative system is the best representation of the sweet nectar of humanity.
(Excerpted from Prout in a nutshell - 14, 18 February 1988, Calcutta, Copyright Ananda Marga Publications 2001)
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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." |