The Prout Research Institute of Venezuela

When the original exponent of PROUT, Prabhat R. Sarkar, (or Baba as he is affectionately known to many of us), first developed his PROUT philosophy, he gave in fact three things:

First, he gave us a vision of what an ideal Society should look like. In

Secondly, he proposed some of the structures and policies needed in such a society, like the three tier industrial set up, the emphasis on co-operatives, decentralized planning, a balanced fiscal policy, etc.

Finally, he gave a historical analysis in the form of his theory of the social cycle.

What we did not get, was a detailed blue print of how to bring the society from where it is now, with its gross inequalities and degenerated economic structure, to the progressive ideal society Baba painted in his visions.

Though Baba in his writings gave us specific ideas and answers to many economic and political questions, he nonetheless left us with several specific questions unanswered, such as the problem of capital formation in third world countries, the question of intellectual property rights, and so on.

It is therefore not possible for us today to directly take PROUT and implement it in any specific country or region. We still lack much of the information and knowledge required to do so. This is a fact we must boldly recognize, or else we will never learn to acquire the knowledge we need to ma terialize
Baba’s vision. As long as we keep our glasses full, we can not get any new water in it. And as long as we believe that we know everything about PROUT, we will never be able to learn enough
to practically implement it. As Baba said,

One will not be able to know anything unless one develops the psychology of, “I know not.” It is the fundamental spirit of a true aspirant. But though we do not know all the specifics to establish a working PROUTist society today, Baba provided us with enough hints and guidelines for us to find out the answers we need to succeed. Indeed, the more we get acquainted with the economic problems of the real world, the more we are in a position to understand the profound wisdom and ingenious solutions Baba has given us in his philosophy.

One of the tasks of Prout Research Institute therefore, is to
Based on research carried out on [the Progressive Utilization Theory and economic question], to prepare and present tentative PROUT-based outlines for economic, political and social policies for specific areas, countries, or regions.

This publication, An Introduction to Block Level Planning, is meant as a contribution to this goal. We hope it will be useful for PRI staff and others who are interested in economic planning for local communities of about 100,000 people or thereabout, based on the principles of a PROUTist economy.