The basic reason for having cooperatives as a form of economic enterprise in an economy is to help people work together and move forward in a collective way. Cooperatives are considered to be the best form of economic enterprise because they are capable of seeking a balanced adjustment between collective spirit and individual rights. Dieter Dambiec summarizes PROUT’s views on …
All posts by Prabhakar
Alternative Economic Structures and Business Enterprises – II
Farmer cooperatives
Dieter Dambiec
All people have the right to be guaranteed minimum requirements such as food (including water), clothing, housing, education and medical care. These basic requirements should be cooperatively produced because they are essential collective requirements.
The importance of food means there has to be maximum and safe utilisation of agricultural land. The best way to achieve proper …
Cooperatives
P.R. Sarkar
As you know, human society is one and indivisible. A human being cannot live alone. If a person wants to drink water from a well, he or she needs a rope and a bucket, and to tie the rope one needs a hook. For all these things, the help of the others is indispensable.
In society human beings …
Decentralized Economy Based on the Cooperative System
Ac. Tadbhavananda Avt.
The biggest problem the undeveloped and developing countries face is how to eradicate the poverty and starvation of their people. The developed countries have to some extent succeeded in providing the minimum guarantees of life by providing a measure of purchasing capacity. But still most people even there are facing chronic social insecurity. The cause behind the …
Economic Democracy
P.R. Sarkar
Nature has been kind enough to provide abundant natural resources to every region of this earth, but she has not given the guidelines on how to distribute these resources among the members of society. This duty has been left to the discretion and intelligence of human beings.
Those who are guided by dishonesty, selfishness and mean-mindedness misappropriate these …
The Importance of Morality in Cooperatives
Adapted from A Look at Decentralized Economy and the Cooperative System, by Ac. Tadbhavananda Avt., PROUT Research Institute, Copenhagen, 1993
A PROUT cooperative is not basically profit-motivated. It understands the need for itself to stay afloat, to evolve, and to provide the members of, say, a producers cooperative with more and more incentives and amenities than they would get …
Maleny Cooperatives: Examples of Small-scale Cooperative Enterprises
Kamala Alister
Maleny is situated 100 kilometers north of Brisbane on the Sunshine Coast Hinterland, Australia. It is surrounded by lush tropical vegetation, has stunning views of the Glass House Mountains, and overlooks the Pacific Ocean. It has a population of over 7,000 people. And it is a cooperative place.
Maleny has a long history of cooperative enterprise. On the …
PROUT’s Decentralized Economy
Economic decentralization is at the heart of PROUT’s economic democracy. Centralized economies – democratic or undemocratic – have all failed to guarantee ever-increasing purchasing capacity, or to eradicate exploitation and want. In both capitalism and communism there is economic centralization. Capitalism centralizes economic control in the hands of a few big capitalists, while communism centralized control in the hands of …
The PROUT Worker Cooperatives
Carla Dickstein, Ph.D.
Cooperative enterprises—worker enterprises—worker, consumer, agricultural and credit—form the core of a PROUT economy. The majority of manufacturing and service enterprises are organized as worker cooperatives.
Cooperatives are a privileged sector in the PROUT economy because they are considered the best structures for human beings to work together. According to PROUT’s founder, P.R. Sarkar, “Human society is one …
Requirements For Economic Democracy
P.R. Sarkar
Political democracy cannot fulfil the hopes and aspirations of people or provide the basis for constructing a strong and healthy human society. For this, the only solution is to establish economic democracy.
The first requirement for economic democracy is that the minimum requirements of life must be guaranteed to all. The minimum requirements of a particular age — …