The task for this paper is to locate the works of Shrii P. R. Sarkar in a range of classification schemes and at the same time to make these schemes themselves problematic. In general, we find Sarkar's works exemplary for the following reasons. In terms of economy, his work is strong on both growth and distribution dimensions. Sarkar is also eclectic in his theory of political-economy drawing on market and regulatory mechanisms. Alienation is a result not of private property but of the concentration of wealth and of the location of the self in a materialistic paradigm. Sarkar's Prout manages to satisfy survival, wellbeing, identity and freedom needs. Market models are strong on freedom but weak on wellbeing (especially at the periphery). Local "small is beautiful" models are strong on survival, wellbeing and identity but weak on the freedom dimension. Sarkar also takes an eclectic model of epistemology having a range of ways of knowing the world. He also takes a layered "deep and shallow" view of the nature of reality. Finally, and this is the centerpiece of the argument, Sarkar's social theory combines linear, cyclical and transcendental dimensions, thus avoiding cultural exploitation and fatalism, and accentuating ancient, modern and postmodern constructions of the social and the economic.
Having progressively crossed the different evolutionary stages since the distant past human beings have at last reached the present stage . The journey has not been solitary: People have advanced together in society. Even in the primitive past, humans lived in clans and tribes, for alone they could not easily procure the means of livelihood. An individual who totally shuns collective life finds existence difficult, for humans are essentially social beings. Whenever one thinks of a human being one automatically thinks of the society in which he or she lives. Human existence is thus two-sided - individual existence and collective existence - and as such it has two sets of values : social values and human cardinal principles.
