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  • Absolute Veganism vs Progressive Ahimsa

    Absolute Veganism vs Progressive Ahimsa

    What is the difference between an absolutist ideology like Veganism and the progressive implementation of a value like Ahimsa? Lets start with the Sanskrit word Ahimsa – meaning without harm A-himsa where Himsa means to strike in sanskrit. However, Ahimsa is a value whose spirit is not absolutist, but rather means do as little harm as possible. Jain monks have tried to adopt this value in an absolutist way and will walk down the road with a brush, brushing insects out of their path lest they tread on them and kill them. The reality of life on this planet is that a human kills millions of microbes with each breath that they take, and thus it is impossible to not do harm, since just by breathing you are doing some harm, and just by eating, your stomach is killing bacteria.

    So the spirit of Ahimsa is to do as little harm as possible. That means, if you are stuck on a desert island and there is only a seagull to eat in order to survive, then eating the seagull would be doing the least amount of harm possible to maintain one’s life. Eating that same seagull in an environment where there is an abundance of plant nutrition would not be causing the least amount of harm. Now, the question arises, whose life is more valuable, a human’s or a seagull’s (or a plant’s). From the perspective of Ahimsa, we can see that while each being’s life is equally precious to it, the more developed the nervous system and the mind, the greater will be the suffering when that being is killed, and so the least amount of suffering is caused by eating as low down the food-chain as possible.

    Applying the principle of Ahimsa in a progressive way like this allows us to rationally decide on what foods are ethically best according to time, place and person.

    If I contrast this to Veganism, I see what I believe to be the major flaw with this ideology. Veganism is absolutist – one should never eat animal products under any circumstances. This gives little scope of flexibility in exercising the principle of veganism. If we go back to our desert island, the human being would die and the seagull would live if we abide by the absolutist ideology. There would also be no circumstances under which drinking milk would be considered ethical, since it would always be considered non-vegan, even if a malnourished human baby whose mother could not breast-feed it were to take the milk. And then things get weird when we extend the ideology to the borders of what is animal – for a long time people have argued over whether we should eat honey – since it harms bees by depriving them of their natural food store. Yet, are bees animals? Should we apply this same principle to eating fungi and yeasts and extend it to plants? Where do we stop? Is it OK for humans to drink a toxin called alcohol, which clearly harms the most developed creatures on the planet?

    Absolutist veganism ties me up in circles, but I support it as a movement, why? Essentially it is something that people can mentally grasp quite easily (whereas Ahimsa takes a little more thought and constant application). It is also the force behind mass movements, blossoming restaurant chains and a foodstuff industry that is far more ethical than anything we have had on the planet up till now. But under the skin – I am an Ahimsik who will constantly challenge myself to live with as little harm in my trail as I could muster.

  • 5 Flaws of Communism

    5 Flaws of Communism

    Prout recognises the great contribution of Karl Marx to the world of politics and economics – there are a large number of things that are good and progressive regards communism, not least that it helps society to move forwards together and not leave anyone behind. However, Communism as a theory is fatally flawed, and so, it can actually be damaging to society in its implementation. Here are five flaws that Prout sees in Communism:-

    1. You cannot treat everyone uniformly – Diversity is the Law of Nature – By nature each expression of each plant, animal and person is unique, and trying to standardise their expressions goes against a fundamental law of nature. (This is a flaw in Capitalist Mass Production also!). Any progressive society must treat every individual according to their merits, and reward them meritocratically, otherwise there are no incentives for hard work or innovation. However, this needs to work in conjunction with two basic Prout principles –  that accumulation of wealth by any individual needs to be restricted and that the minimum necessities need to be guaranteed for everyone.
    2. Humans are more than Material – Both Capitalism and Communism suffer from reducing life to materialism. When looking at how resources are utilised, one must consider that humans are more than just their physical labour/potential. They also have psychic (metaphysical) and spiritual potential that needs to not be exploited and to be given expression in a way that will benefit society. For example, an artist whose works are of a spiritually uplifting nature, should not be made to work in a call centre or restaurant in order to maintain themselves, but should be given support to allow their expression scope to benefit the most number of people.
    3. Spirituality must not be suppressed – Yes, we have all heard that religion is the opiate, but consider for a moment that the physical world is finite. Humans have an innate propensity to not be satisfied by anything finite – to try to let humans satiate this desire in the physical world will only lead to conflict, exploitation and suffering. Humans need boundaries in the physical sphere (this earth is not infinite), but they need to be allowed scope to fulfill their desire for something infinite. This is best done through facilitating spiritual pursuits. Prout understands that the dogmatic constraints of many religions also prohibit the individual from fulfilling their desire for grasping something infinite in nature, and so we would say that these types of religions are the placebo of the masses, and should not be used as substitutes for scientific spiritual pursuit.
    4. Centralised economics leads to corruption – Collecting all revenue in a country centrally and then trying to aportion it out again fairly has always lead to disgruntlement, conflict and even separation (Look at the disintegration of Yugoslavia, and how the North of England has become impoverished of late). Not only that, the practise of trying to aportion a central pot fairly is alway open to corruption regards who will get the large government contracts for spending. A smarter way is to decentralise the economy – allow local governments and boroughs to control their own budgets. Of course this needs to be blended with ensuring minimum standards of education, housing, medical care and infrastructure, and so there should be a portion of funds attributed centrally in a country for this, for execution by a non-political body.
    5. There is no end to political history – There will never come a time when exploitative tendencies will cease and we can give up fighting against them, or forming alternative progressive political movements to fight for better ideas. Capitalist exploitation will in time succumb to Worker domination, then Military domination and then Intellectual domination in society, which will eventually lead to Capitalist domination again. This is a cycle that societies undergo as they progress in a world that requires a physical base. The role of Proutists in all of this is to ensure that we never get stuck at any point and that we continually struggle to move society forwards. This struggle is the essence of true progress.

     

  • Democracy Has Become the Tool by which the Oligarchs Maintain Power

    Have a gander at this short video from Guardian Author and guardian of Democracy, George Monbiot. In it, he explains how the apparently suprising results in global elections which are assumed to be democratic, are in fact being controlled by a few oligarchs who hold the invisible strings of global power.

    From a Prout perspective, we would say that this scenario is expected in the phase of stagnancy of merchant rule. In order to move forwards, we need to decentralise the power base, and in particular, the economic base. We need locally run economies and we need to cut off the real power base of the Oligarchs – their funds – right down at the grassroots level. So we are 100% behind George Monbiot’s call to create local democracies, local power bases and local economies.

  • Financialization – your number has been called.

    In this great video from Labour Party advisor and author Grace Blakeley, she discusses how financialization of first corporations, then households and then the state has lead to the circumstances under which Neo-Liberals thrive and their agenda seems necessary. Using extracts from her book – Stolen: How to Save the world from Financialization, she describes how social democracy (What we here at Prout would term Economic Democracy) can help the people regain a sense of control over their economic fortunes and the economic fortunes of their country. Definitely worth a watch, and if her book is anything as good as her rhetoric in front of the camera, Grace stands to be a major influencer in the fight against Neo-Liberal self-interests.

     

    Prout’s perspective – we need to abolish the stock market system, sooner rather than later. It is holding back human progress and causing greater disparity of wealth and exploitation of the poor by the rich. This is not to say that investment should be thrown out with the bathwater. Investment into companies should not be anonymous and should be local as far as possible, where the investor has a real stake in the success of the project they are investing in, beyond profit. The stock exchange has become a glorified betting shop, where fewer people arer rewarded for taking greater risks, and always, the underlying mental corrosive force of “Get Rich Quick” stealing away the pundits humanity.

  • A Radical PROUT Brexit

    I have seen a lot of comments saying that Brexit is the issue that broke Labour’s back in the last general election, however, I believe the real issue was Labour’s inability to come up with a radical Brexit policy. Their manifesto beautifully dealt with the old issues – NHS, education etc etc, but nothing to add really to the Brexit debate. If all those Labour voters in the North who voted for Brexit and did not want another referendum, had a radical Brexit to back – things may have looked a little different for Labour right now. But what would a radical Brexit look like? PROUT’s Radical Brexit might include

    • Free Movement of People, but Limited Movement of Money
      • PROUT’s radical Brexit would turn conventional thinking on its head and make the free movement of people across Europe a reality. However, there should be no free movement of money. Wherever labour is performed – that wealth or surplus needs to stay in that local area to benefit the local community. So, people should be free to move, but not free to extract wealth from the area in which they perform the labour, thius draining the local area. Migrants need to contribute to local communities with more than just work – for a start, they need to be able to speak the local language, and merge, what Prout terms their socio-economic sentiment with the local culture (i.e have a desirre to improve the community in which they work). If we take this approach, no-one in a benefiting local community could argue against the benefit of migrant labour. Of course, Prout would ensure a decent minimum wage (pegged to a maximum wage) for the local community so that no migrants could be accused of “stealing” jobs for lower than a decent pay.
    • Economic Decentralisation, but Political Centralisation
      • Yes – the UK needs to be Economically independent from the EU! The UK needs to be able to decide how to spend its customs and taxation revenue, but also needs to stop wealth leaving the country by restricting the free movement of capital out of the country. As far as possible, the UK would strive to produce the goods it consumes, and so benefit the local manufacturing industry, which has all but been decimated. So protections need to be introduced for local industry through duties on imports of goods which have locally produced alternatives. Trade agreements with European countries could work on the basis of barter around UK produced goods vs EU produced goods of a different nature.
      • Here’s the rub – Prout’s radical Brexit would bind the UK to a central European law making body – providing it had no economic power over the UK and was insulated from economic and big business influence. This body would be able to set regulatory codes, but not benefit economically for policing them. The European parliament, in its current guise, would need to be radically overhauled to separate itself from Economic power.
    • Common Penal Code and Bill of Rights
      • There should be a common pan-European penal code with a single court of Human Rights that can oversee important judgments on Human Rights Violations.
      • There should be a common ecological policy, based perhaps on a Bill of Nature’s Rights.
    • Shared European Militia
      • Yes, this is certainly not the age of small countries! Europe needs to protect itself from large aggressors (like the US, China or Russia). Pooling militia’s into one European force would lessen the burden on each European citizen to support this, but still give Europe some military protections. The UN and Nato has proven toothless in preventing European conflict, so Europe needs a military force. The UK would subscribe to contribute to and benefit from this. This militia would be under the control of a central European body, on which the UK would sit, and that was free from the influence of Economic or Business interests.
    • Guaranteed Free Medical Care
      • Medical care is a basic human right. Just because someone comes from another European country, does not make them any less human or deserving of medical care. The UK would provide free medical care for all Europeans under this radical Brexit, but expect the same in a reciprocal medical agreement with the EU. The supply chains for NHS and reciprocal bodies across Europe should all come from within Europe and should not be sold to bodies outside of the new European Confederation.

    Those are a few ideas for a radical Brexit. What of the question of the backstop? Prout would sidestep that one by making Northern Ireland an economically independent region, along with Scotland and Wales, with each region being able to choose its own border arrangemenmts with its neighbours. To boot , Prout would invite Ireland into this new Anglo Confederation of Democratic Countries…. (yes ACDC is back in black!)

  • Democracy has Failed Us (Again)

    Democracy cannot work unless and until we have Economic Democracy – that is an economy controlled by local people and the accumulation of wealth limited by local people. Another general election has been bought by those that control the economy, control the media, and the UK public have again sat back and been complicit in allowing big money to grab a firmer hold of the reins of power. This report (https://www.mediareform.org.uk/media-ownership/who-owns-the-uk-media) clearly details how corporations control the media, and the British public – they have again lapped up the bullshit, bought into the Brexit story, and ransomed their children’s wellbeing for the sake of their own sense of safety. Democracy is not working, it has been the bludgeoning tool that big money has used to beat the masses into submission. Last century, religion may have been the opiate of the masses, this century, the drug of choice has become more refined – they beat us with the very tool we use to cry for freedom. We need to insulate democracy from the influence of capital – this is the essence of Economic Democracy – allowing people to truly make good choices free from the influence of those that want to maintain their fortunes. To do this, we need to make some changes:- 1) Decentralised economics – local taxation and local control of distribution of funds. We have to move away from a government corrupted by a large central pot of funds that large corporations prey on. This has lead us to the uncomfortable relationship between big business and government. 2) Free movement of peoples, NOT free movement of money. Local money needs to stay local and be used locally. Corporations especially should not be able to move money in and out of regions at will, and particularly should not be able to donate to campaigns in regions where they are not based. 3) Fairly funded elections – there needs to be a cap on election funds and all candidates need to receive equal funding. It needs to be about policy not bank accounts. 4) A qualified vote – we need a non-discriminatory way to qualify voters to ensure our electorate comprises those that have understood the issues sufficiently. In the age of technology, surely this is possible. Lastly, we need to stop idolising Democracy as a cure all, and see it for what it has become – a tool to suppress and exploit the people. Economic Democracy is a qualified term that can bring new hope to our electoral process.