8 RMB February 17–February 23, 2005 www.rockymountainbullhorn.com Economic Evolution Progressive Utilisation Theory visualizes an end to capitalism.
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Dada Vimal Ananda isn’t your typical monk. When he and his colleagues at Proutist Universal Inc. in Washington, D.C. aren’t busy organizing disaster relief and nongovernmental activities in underdeveloped countries—their motto is “self-realization and service to human-ity”—they are leading a New Age spiritual movement called Progressive Utilisation Theory or, simply, Prout. This hybrid of capitalism and com-munism—perhaps with a little meditation and yoga thrown in—founded four decades ago by the late Indian philosopher Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar (and praised by the likes of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and noted linguist Noam Chomsky) stresses economic democracy, with government ownership of key industries like energy, transportation and communication; coopera-tive ownership of agriculture and other large industries; a small private sector, and—here’s one for all you Libertarians—no income tax. Ananda, who was Sarkar’s protégé and the one who took the first written nota-tion of the economic guru’s theory, spoke at CSU earlier this month. He says Sarkar was the first, in 1979, to predict that the Berlin Wall, the literal and figurative divider between the two ideologies, would be torn down. Rocky Mountain Bullhorn: So do spiri-tuality and the Prout philosophy go hand in hand? Dada Vimal Ananda: Yes, very much so. As I was explaining in my talk, one of the main works of nature is to cause evolu-tion, so humans are also evolving, and as they are evolving, they are becoming more contemplative. So they need something to add in their lifestyle so they can enjoy that natural urge which is coming in the mind of the new generations, and also the need to change their social institutions [to] accommodate their individual aspirations.
RMB: Do you call it “Proutism”?
DVA: We don’t call it “-ism”, because -ism is limited to time, place and person. These ideas are not based on time, place and person factors; these values are universal values that we want to promote.
RMB: It seems that Prout works on the assumption that capitalism has failed. Do you think capitalism has been given a chance yet to work itself out?
DVA: [Laughs.] It’s not that I am saying that; everyone is discussing that capitalism has become dysfunctional. What’s happening in capitalism is that we are buying time, we are buying a chance to survive a few more years. It’s always like crisis management going on. So if you are in crisis management year after year after year, you’re actually not functioning well.
RMB: The theory is quite involved. Where do you come up with the numbers, and have they been run by the economists?
DVA: There are some economists involved with this, but the idea is that we should have a balanced economy, because the planet is small and we have 6 billion people, and the concept of economy is to see that the resources can sustain this huge population for the longest period of time. That should be the purpose of economy. The purpose of economy should not be to use and abuse the resources and die out soon.
RMB: What about the human factors, like greed and dishonesty? How do you account for those in Prout?
DVA: Well, greed and these things come from outside pressure. You have scarcity cre-ated artificially, and this is where you start thinking to hold a lot of things, and you start becoming greedy. If it is natural, then you will not be greedy. Greed satisfies one aspect of your mind, one corner of your mind. If that corner of mind could be satisfied by some higher value, then you will not be turn-ing toward greed. This greed is not in any other animal, this greed is not in the plant, this greed factor is not in the rural population. This greed is in the 20 percent of population which is trapped in our capitalistic dream world.
RMB: You say that the Prout society will be gov-erned by leaders, not by politicians. What’s the difference to you?
DVA: We have a classic example: Mohatma Gandhi was a leader. Nelson Mandela was a leader, not a politician, see? But what comes after the leader, the politician starts capital-izing on the achievements of the leader. Politicians polarize the society, whereas the leaders unify the society. RMB: What is it about Prout that can be appeal-ing to many divergent cultures?
DVA: Because Prout knows that there are some factors of unity amongst diversity. We stand on those universal factors. Unity and diversity factors are in each area of life. … In our understanding, all human beings only have one culture, but its expressions are different. The spirit of the culture is the same. The spirit of the culture is to move from imperfection to perfection.
RMB: How do you propose we implement Prout and overcome the resistance that you’ll no doubt encounter, especially from people who are really attached to capitalism?
DVA: No, there’s no resistance. What’s hap-pening in our theory is that capitalism has really gone through a crisis. And this is a situation where everyone is looking for a face-saving situation, especially capitalism. Prout is a very good way out for capitalism, too. Because what is the sense of five people losing $5 billion rather than 5,000 people protecting the $5 billion investment? RMB: How far are you from successfully implementing it in the rest of the world? It looks like you have a long way to go.
DVA: Well, any theory is like that. But now, the situation is very interesting. Prout stands on some fundamental truths, and Prout has been able to predict things and it happened. P.R. Sarkar was the first one to predict that Marxism, communism, would die a premature death. … Likewise, he said capitalism will also die, but it will die a mature death. It cannot sustain itself, and the time, perhaps, is coming closer, that capitalism is slowly trans-forming into something noncapitalistic. So I’m saying to you that nature is bring-ing humanity toward a synthesis of far left and far right together, and Prout is the only ideology which combines the two extremes. In Prout you will find the prosperity of capi-talism, and in Prout you will find the social justice of Marxism. So Prout is a natural out-come of the evolutionary process.