Summary of Key aspects of Progressive Utilization Theory (PROUT)



                                              "PROUT is a theory of value and a social and economic movement based on spiritual culture.
One approach to understand PROUT is to divide it into five pillars.

1. Spiritual practice.
2. Neo-humanism.
3. Social cycle.
4. Socio-economic system.
5. Governance.
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1. Spiritual practice, acknowledges that there is an inner dimension to the external world - meditation and other similar practices are central to a successful Proutist society. This inner dimension flows through other aspects of  Prout - from ethics to economy, society to science.

2. Neo-humanism is both equal opportunity legislation and inner mindfulness - an ethics that expands our identity from ego to family to territory to religion to society to humanism and eventually to all living beings. Neo-humanism thus challenges geo-sentiments (nationalism), religious sentiments, divisions along ethnic lines, and even humanism, as it is also inclusive of plants and animals. Spiritual practice without 
neohumanism merely creates a type of enlightened fascism - inner bliss in the context of a steep hierarchy where the other is excluded. Furthermore, neohumanism is predicated on coordinated cooperation - that is, on transcending, the current male dominator model and moving toward gender cooperation.

3. Social cycle. Prout provides a theory of macrohistory and future. There are four stages of history and four ways of knowing: the worker, the warrior, the intellectual and the merchant. History is cyclical. However, we are not doomed to the cycle. There is a way out. At the centre of the cycle, argues Sarkar, are Sadvipras ethical and transparent leaders, who can access these four potentials and ensure that the cycle becomes progressive, that each wave of change continues the rotation of the cycle but at ever higher and ever more progressive levels.

4. Socio-economic system. Prout challenges the current corporatist model, focusing instead on the cooperative model (along with private small scale enterprises and state-run public utilities). 


A Proutist society provides a safety net with incentives for innovation. Wealth increases are linked to so that the minimum rises with the maximum. This ensures we do not have a situation like today where the richest sixty-two people are worth as much as the poorest three and a half billion, as reported by the 2015 Oxfam international report."

5. Governance. Prout works in a world governance structure. It imagines a federalist world system and seeks to create "glocal" social movements that challenge the current capitalist world economy. Beside the democratic system are parallel Sadvipras policy boards that inform and guide. Prout seeks to reconcile the two grand traditions in political theory: democracy and wisdom.
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Extract from Sohail Inayatullah's 2017 book 'Prout In Power'

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