Samaj: March 2005 Archives

PROUTIST UNIVERSAL, 30 March 2005: The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) has published a new report called Planting the Rights Seed: A Human Rights Perspective on Agriculture Trade and the WTO, which states clearly that the World Trade Organization (WTO) is promoting a trade agenda which supports globalization (global capitalism) and in the process will undermine the poor people as well as deny people their fundamental human rights. Seventy percent of the world’s poorest live in rural areas and sustain themselves on agriculture.

PROUTIST UNIVERSAL (PU) is the organisation created to develop the Progressive Utilisation Theory (PROUT) first conceptualised by seer philosopher Shrii Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar in 1959. PROUT is a comprehensive social and economic concept that recognizes the physical, mental, and spiritual dimensions of human nature and as such provides a map for the holistic development of a truly progressive society. It is an alternative to Capitalism and Communism, neither of which has adequately met the physical, mental, and spiritual needs of humanity. While communism has severely restricted individual expression and human freedom, capitalism has widened social divisions with the unequal access to goods and services and the environmentally and socially destructive over-accumulation of wealth by a few.

The forward march of human beings requires an internal approach and an adjustment with external objectivities. That is, it requires an internal, spiritual approach, as well as an external approach which maintains balance, equilibrium and equipoise in the different arenas of our social, economic and cultural life.

Humanity is presently suffering from two problems - one is affluence or bountifulness, and the other is hortages of not only physical but also psychic pabula. Most of the developed countries suffer from bountifulness. If the flow of affluence is regulated, then an adjustment may be made so that physical shortages and psychic deficiencies can be minimized before they become chronic problems. In most countries of the world there is a tendency towards this type of adjustment. Everybody admits that there should be such an adjustment; consequently, you will find hardly any blind capitalism in the world today. Nevertheless, despite this tendency, there is still maladjustment and mis-utilization of resources in developed countries.