PROUT Based Grassroots Socio-Economic Democracy for People’s Empowerment and Equitable Global Order for Parity among Nations

By Ac. Dhanjoo N. Ghista

This paper offers guidelines for:

Grassroots cooperative economic development
Socio-economic democratic governance system
Neo-global order, comprising of functionally-sustainable communities, self-reliant economic zones, regional federations, and world government.

Need for a Neo World Order

The current world order necessitates requirements, such as (i) a new format of locally employable economic system (empowering local people) which can provide local and regional stability, as well as (ii) a new Global-Order for political equilibrium (devoid of hegemonism) and based on parity among nations.

There is a need for an independent United Nations, which is not pressurized by the affluent and/or militarily powerful (G-8) nations to either act or to intervene in global and regional disputes, according to the interests of these influential nations.

There is also the need for a World government that can provide a compassionate guiding-hand to struggling nations, while serving the individual and collective interests of all nations.

In order to address these requirements, we need to develop the charter and constitution role of functionally sustainable communities for grassroots democracy, within the benevolent political framework of a human-rights implementing World government.

People’s Empowerment

We are also introducing other concepts of people empowerment that are now being echoed. Some of these concepts are:

Natural resources to be harnessed primarily by the people-of-the-soil;
Non privatization of the natural resources of the land;
Co-operative economic development, with the generators of capital and revenue being also its recipients;
Economic democracy, to constitute the basis of political democracy.
For more information of on this topic, please refer to a newly published book by the author, Socio-Economic Democracy and the World Government. In addition the book contains, among other things, information on how to constitute sustainable communities, with PROUT based socio-economic-governance system and a suggestion on how to form a world government;
The issues and needs of the community can be best addressed by having its Legislative Assembly comprised of elected competent representatives of the various sectors of the community (such as the educational, healthcare, judicial, manufacturing, energy, community-services, media sectors), and not by political parties having self-serving interests and agendas;
Since governments based on political-party systems can be bought off, hence a non-party based governance executive council would better look after the people’s interests;
Functionally sustainable communities (FSCs, based on the above principles) offer the best mechanism for addressing local needs, poverty eradication, collective generation and distribution of capital, local people’s empowerment and their dignified living;
World trade and globalization can be locally, regionally and globally beneficial, based on
a) recognition of the empowerment of local people, and their involvement in natural-resources development, technologisation, and marketing for exports,
b) imports to be only for items unavailable or for better-performing items, so that the local people do not get marginalized,
c) parity in remuneration for equivalent works and jobs across the globe.

Functionally Sustainable Community

We define a functionally sustainable community (FSC) as comprising of several cities with a large rural hinterland. Sustainable development for cities and towns would be concerned with developing adequate standards of living based on the provision of community services and environmental quality, maintenance of trade linkages with their rural hinterland, and measures of social justice.

On the other hand, sustainable development in the rural hinterland would have to deal with the means of generating revenue (by supplying their produces to the cities and other neighbouring FSCs), so as to support their community services (such as healthcare, public transport, education, water supply, sanitation, electrical power) and sustain small businesses. In rural areas, there also needs to be professional opportunities and adequate level of education to service industries, so as to avoid migration to cities.

The problems that FSC(s) need to address are: (i) Economic: financial capacity needed to provide community services, provision of employment, healthcare and social security; (ii) Social: rural underdevelopment and urban slums, rural-to-urban migration and exploitation of migrant labor from rural areas; (iii) Political: civilian involvement in local development and governance, to give them a stake in bringing prosperity to their community.

The solutions for these urban-rural compounding problems are:

Determination of appropriate size of FSC(s) (preferably based on cultural homogeneity), such that there is adequate rural hinterland size to cater to the needs of cities and thereby gather revenue for their own sustainability;
Adroit distribution of population in the rural areas, comprising of the revenue generating sector (about 40%), community service sector (about 40%), and small business sector, (about 20%), such that the revenue brought into the rural townships by the revenue-generating sector is adequate to afford community services and sustain the small-business sector;
Adequate industrial development and a competent services sector in cities, so as to provide
adequate community services and quality-of-life to the city dwellers;
Civilian economic democracy, such that community sectors’ representatives in the legislature have responsibility to cater to the needs of their respective sectors.

Towards Equitable Globalization

For instituting an equitable globalization framework, we are proposing a neo Global order, in which:

A Functionally Sustainable Community (FSC) operates at the grassroots level; in a FSC, we would have a cooperative economic system along with a civilian democratic political system, and a constitutional charter of social justice and human rights;
A number of compatible FSCs in a geographical zone can then form a Self-reliant Economic Zone (SEZ), wherein all the FSCs of that particular zone would have representation in the SEZ parliament;
The SEZs of a region or a continent can then constitute a Regional Federation (or Union , akin to the European Union);
The Regional Federations (RFDs) would then have representations in a benevolent World Government, whose legislative members would be elected from among the members of the parliaments of SEZs; in this neo-global political structuring, all the legislative members of the World Government would be elected representatives of the grassroots FSCs.

This neo global structuring, comprising of FSCs, SEZs, RFDs, under the aegis of the World
Government, will ensure:

Implementation of the most comprehensive charter of human rights,
Grassroots economy and political governance,
Prevent domination of global affairs by a few nations, and
Serve individual and collective interests of all communities of the world.

A Template for Third World Development and Socio-Economic-Political Parity among Nations

We are providing a framework:

For grassroots economic-political structure, for social and living security;
For global political order, leading to an equitable and democratic World Government;
To enable all the nations to have a democratic involvement in global affairs, and enable the advancement of Developing counties.

Neohumanistic Societal Framework

Herein, we are offering a template for a neo-humanistic, non-hegemonic, local-to-global order, involving grass-roots and sustainable economic development and political-governance by community representatives (working for the welfare of the community people). By catalyzing a neo-grassroots people-centred economic and political system, we are providing a multi-stage road map to:

Self-reliant community development within Third-World countries, to constitute strong economic blocs, as Stage 1; within each self-reliant community (SRC), the governance would be managed by elected representatives of all the community sectors (such as the education, healthcare, manufacturing, electrical power, energy, water-supply and sanitation, judicial and residential-housing sectors), thereby dispensing with the unwieldy and corrupt system of political parties (that only serve their own agendas);
Provide the mechanism and means for socioeconomic-political stability of the under-served regions of the world, as Stage 2;
Help to bring together the so-called second-world and third-world socio-economic-political countries into a stable socio-economic-political block, to then serve as an economic-political parity and balance to the present eight-nation global hegemony, as Stage 3;
And (in Stage 4) lead to the eventual and inevitable formation of World government, that will serve the individual and collective interests of all the communities of the world, without being dominated by a few economically and militarily powerful self-serving nations.

The socio-economic system as well as the political and governance system of a society impacts and influences all phases of human living. In this most important arena of human habitat, we are chartering a pioneering course for:

Socially-marginalized fourth-world liberation and third-world development;
Providing a comprehensive charter of human rights for the benefit of the poor and
backward, exploited and depressed communities of the world;
The emergence of a progressive universal society;
Addressing the unfulfilled needs of the marginalized and voiceless, humiliated and silenced people of the world as well as of the idealistic people dedicated to social welfare, to promote the progress of human civilization.

Summary

In summary, we are delineating a neohumanistic global order, for promoting local and global socioeconomic justice, progressive governance and a neo concept of human rights and to serve as a beacon of ideological torchlight for an enlightened society, and (through it all) for sustainable peace.

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