Health care is something we believe must be available to everyone at a cost that they can afford.  However, the recently passed healthcare bills are a classic example of democracy gone wild.  The miracle of the bills is not that they passed at all, but that there is something in them for everyone to hate.  It’s government by equal opportunity dissatisfaction.

Those who wanted the “public option” of a government run health insurance didn’t like the bill because the public option wasn’t included.  Those who wanted to keep their existing plans didn’t like the bill because they fear the mandates for business coverage will cause their employers to cut back on coverage or increase their contributions.

Those who wanted the removal of pre-existing condition exclusions or denials were disappointed also.  While the bill prohibits insurers from denying claims due to pre-existing conditions, it does not prohibit them from refusing to sell new coverage due to pre-existing conditions or charging more to cover them.

Seniors who participate in Medicare Advantage, a private insurance program under Medicare, don’t like the bill because of a cut in funding to the Advantage program.

Those who have been angry at private insurers controlling their medical decisions are angry with the bill because the bill doesn’t change this.  Rather, it provides a windfall to the private insurance industry by mandating that millions of Americans without health insurance buy new health insurance from private insurers.

Those who wanted to see the costs of health insurance curbed were disappointed that the bills do nothing to regulate the cost of the plans that insurers provide so that there is every reason to believe that health insurance costs will continue to rise.  Contributing to this is the anti-trust exemption that the health care insurers have which was not removed in the new bills.

While the included reforms to student financial aid was a positive step in controlling the high costs of student financial aid which private banks have been unnecessarily profiting from, these financial aid reforms had no place in a health care bill and unnecessarily complicated an already complicated legislation.

A somewhat overlooked provision of the health care bills allows states to set up their own government run health insurance programs should they care to do so after 2014.  But there is no guarantee that states that don’t already have these programs will do this.

Still many questions remain unanswered with the current healthcare reform bill, which passed on March 22.

The public option, government-run health insurance, was not included in the final bill and most of the items in the bill don’t take effect until 2014.

In 2014 the bill allows health insurance “exchanges” to be set up, which will allow for private insurance companies to compete under close government regulation. Currently, there are no standards in health insurance so when shopping for health insurance plans it is impossible to compare them. The exchanges, when they go into effect, will require plans to conform to government guidelines while still allowing insurance companies to offer less regulated plans in the private market.

There will be a phased in penalty for those individuals who don’t buy the insurance. Small businesses will get a temporary rebate to help pay for the coverage they will be required to provide. However, part-time employees will still not be covered.

Health care also requires people to purchase health insurance from private insurers but doesn’t provide any control on prices. In the past, private health insurance companies have had an exemption from anti-trust laws that has allowed them to share information and fix prices, but the new law does not remove the exemption.

People who have no money to buy insurance will see this new bill as a tax, though the bill provides subsidies for low income people and small businesses to help pay for their insurance.

The bill raises many objections regarding cutting costs to Americans for health insurance. The bill’s supporters acknowledge that the main purpose of the bill is to make health insurance available to many more people.  But the controversial measures needed to curb costs to consumers were not included in the bill.  In fact, after the deregulation frenzy of the Reagan administration, it has been a rare occasion that congress has placed restraints on the operations of major corporations.

The one major step forward in the health care debate is that it has been finally acknowledged that the goal is to provide affordable health care to all.  We aren’t there yet, but maybe this is just a small step in that direction.

Basic necessities guaranteed to all :  People cannot strive towards their highest human aspirations if they
are lacking the basic requirements of life. PROUT believes that access to food, shelter, clothing, education
and medical care are fundamental human rights which must be guaranteed to all.

Balanced economy: Prout advocates regional self-reliance, cooperatively owned and managed business, local
control of large scale key industries, and limits on the individual accumulation of excessive wealth.

Women’s Right: PROUT encourages the struggle against all forms of violence and exploitation used to suppress
women. PROUTs goal is coordinated cooperation, with equal rights between men and women.

Cultural Diversity: In the spirit of universal fellowship PROUT encourages the protection and cultivation of
local culture, language, history and tradition.

PROUT JOURNAL Fall 2009 Issue

Small Business Affected by Current Economic Crisis

Social Entrepreneurs: Transformers of Business and Society

Students Aren’t Customers; Education Is Not a Commodity

Casino Capitalism and Collapse of the American Economy

Share Card – A Bridge from Capitalism to Prout

Prophet of Boom (and Bust)

By only viewing education as a way to a higher-paying job we’re giving a free pass to the prevailing machinery of power.

Hardly a week goes by without dire headlines about the failure of the American education system. Our students don’t perform well in math and science. The high-school dropout rate is too high. Minority students are falling behind. Teachers are depicted as either overpaid drones protected by tenure or underpaid saints at the mercy of deskbound administrators and pushy parents.
Unfortunately, all such headlines collectively fail to address a fundamental question: What is education for? At so many of today’s so-called institutions of higher learning, students are offered a straightforward answer: For a better job, higher salary, more marketable skills, and more impressive credentials. All the more so in today’s collapsing job market.
Based on a decidedly non-bohemian life — 20 years’ service in the military and 10 years teaching at the college level — I’m convinced that American education, even in the worst of times, even recognizing the desperate need of most college students to land jobs, is far too utilitarian, vocational, and narrow. It’s simply not enough to prepare students for a job: We need to prepare them for life, while challenging them to think beyond the confines of their often parochial and provincial upbringings. (As a child of the working class from a provincial background, I speak from experience.)
And here’s one compelling lesson all of us, students and teachers alike, need to relearn constantly: If you view education in purely instrumental terms as a way to a higher-paying job — if it’s merely a mechanism for mass customization within a marketplace of ephemeral consumer goods — you’ve effectively given a free pass to the prevailing machinery of power and those who run it.

Three Myths of Higher Ed
Three myths serve to restrict our education to the narrowly utilitarian and practical. The first, particularly pervasive among conservative-minded critics, is that our system of higher education is way too liberal, as well as thoroughly dominated by anti-free-market radicals and refugee Marxists from the 1960s who, like so many Ward Churchills, are indoctrinating our youth in how to hate America.
Nonsense.
Today’s college students are being indoctrinated in the idea that they need to earn “degrees that work” (the official motto of the technically-oriented college where I teach). They’re being taught to measure their self-worth by their post-college paycheck. They’re being urged to be lifelong learners, not because learning is transformative or even enjoyable, but because to “keep current” is to “stay competitive in the global marketplace.” (Never mind that keeping current is hardly a guarantee that your job won’t be outsourced to the lowest bidder.)
And here’s a second, more pervasive myth from the world of technology: technical skills are the key to success as well as life itself, and those who find themselves on the wrong side of the digital divide are doomed to lives of misery. From this it necessarily follows that computers are a panacea, that putting the right technology into the classroom and into the hands of students and faculty solves all problems. The keys to success, in other words, are interactive SMART boards, not smart teachers interacting with curious students. Instead, canned lessons are offered with PowerPoint efficiency, and students respond robotically, trying to copy everything on the slides, or clamoring for all presentations to be posted on the local server.
One “bonus” from this approach is that colleges can more easily measure (or “assess,” as they like to say) how many networked classrooms they have, how many on-line classes they teach, even how much money their professors bring in for their institutions. With these and similar metrics in hand, parents and students can be recruited or retained with authoritative-looking data: job placement rates, average starting salaries of graduates, even alumni satisfaction rates (usually best measured when the football team is winning).
A third pervasive myth — one that’s found its way from the military and business worlds into higher education — is: If it’s not quantifiable, it’s not important. With this mindset, the old-fashioned idea that education is about molding character, forming a moral and ethical identity, or even becoming a more self-aware person, heads down the drain. After all, how could you quantify such elusive traits as assessable goals, or showcase such non-measurements in the glossy marketing brochures, glowing press releases, and gushing DVDs that compete to entice prospective students and their anxiety-ridden parents to hand over ever larger sums of money to ensure a lucrative future?

Three Realities of Higher Ed
What do torture, a major recession, and two debilitating wars have to do with our educational system? My guess: plenty. These are the three most immediate realities of a system that fails to challenge, or even critique, authority in any meaningful way. They are bills that are now long overdue thanks, in part, to that system’s technocratic bias and pedagogical shortfalls — thanks, that is, to what we are taught to see and not see, regard and disregard, value and dismiss.
Over the last two decades, higher education, like the housing market, enjoyed its own growth bubble, characterized by rising enrollments, fancier high-tech facilities, and ballooning endowments. Americans invested heavily in these derivative products as part of an educational surge that may prove at least as expensive and one-dimensional as our military surges in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As usual, the humanities were allowed to wither. Don’t know much about history? Go ahead and authorize waterboarding, even though the U.S. prosecuted it as a war crime after World War II. Don’t know much about geography? Go ahead and send our troops into mountainous Afghanistan, that “graveyard of empires,” and allow them to be swallowed up by the terrain as they fight a seemingly endless war.
Perhaps I’m biased because I teach history, but here’s a fact to consider: Unless a cadet at the Air Force Academy (where I once taught) decides to major in the subject, he or she is never required to take a U.S. history course. Cadets are, however, required to take a mind-boggling array of required courses in various engineering and scientific disciplines as well as calculus. Or civilians, chew on this: At the Pennsylvania College of Technology, where I currently teach, of the roughly 6,600 students currently enrolled, only 30 took a course this semester on U.S. history since the Civil War, and only three were programmatically required to do so.
We don’t have to worry about our college graduates forgetting the lessons of history — not when they never learned them to begin with.

Donning New Sunglasses
One attitude pervading higher education today is: students are customers who need to be kept happy by service-oriented professors and administrators. That’s a big reason why, at my college at least, the hottest topics debated by the Student Council are not government wars, torture, or bail-outs but a lack of parking and the quality of cafeteria food.
It’s a large claim to make, but as long as we continue to treat students as customers and education as a commodity, our hopes for truly substantive changes in our country’s direction are likely to be dashed. As long as education is driven by technocratic imperatives and the tyranny of the practical, our students will fail to acknowledge that precious goal of Socrates: To know thyself — and so your own limits and those of your country as well.
To know how to get by or get ahead is one thing, but to know yourself is to struggle to recognize your own limitations as well as illusions. Such knowledge is disorienting, even dangerous — kind of like those sunglasses donned by Roddy Piper in the slyly subversive “B” movie They Live (1988). In Piper’s case, they revealed a black-and-white nightmare, a world in which a rapacious alien elite pulls the levers of power while sheep-like humans graze passively, shackled by slogans to conform, consume, watch, marry, and reproduce.
Like those sunglasses, education should help us to see ourselves and our world in fresh, even disturbing, ways. If we were properly educated as a nation, the only torturing going on might be in our own hearts and minds — a struggle against accepting the world as it’s being packaged and sold to us by the pragmatists, the technocrats, and those who think education is nothing but a potential passport to material success.

William J. Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF), now teaches at the Pennsylvania College of Technology. His books and articles focus primarily on military history and include Hindenburg: Icon of German Militarism (Potomac Press, 2005). He may be reached at wastore@pct.edu

The progressive orientation of society is maintained by making continual adjustments in the use of physical
resources and mental potentialities in accordance with spiritual and Neo-humanistic values. Human beings are
encouraged to construct economic and social institutions to facilitate the attainment of our highest
potentialities.

The meet hosted by Ana’nda Ma’rga Pracarak Sam’gha is to commemorate the golden jubilee of the PROUT
which was first published in 1959. Participants from Karnataka and Goa are in the city to attend the
meeting.
 
According to Proutist leader Acarya Siddhayogananda, capitalism and communism lead to concentration of
wealth, which result in economic depression. The PROUT philosophy argues for decentralization of economy
and people’s empowerment. It advocates guarantee of basic requirements of life like food, clothing and
housing needs, maximum utilization and rational distribution of resources and increase in buying capacity,
he stated.

He said PROUT offers valuable guidance and suggestion to address the global economic crisis which is
debated at the three-day meet.

Reprinted form Times of India

What Is a Cooperative?
Cooperatives are formed when a group of like-minded individuals join together to accomplish something that
each acting alone would never be able to achieve.

Successful coops are always born out of need. They cannot be imposed on a community — they have to grow
from the energy and commitment of the local people themselves.

Coops are different to traditional private and public sector enterprises. They represent a third way that
integrates economic and social objectives. Unlike the private sector, which tends to concentrate wealth
and power in the hands of a few, coops spread wealth and power to each member equally. Unlike government,
which tends to be remote and unresponsive to the communities it is supposed to serve, coops are driven by
their members and reflect their needs.

Cooperatives have a tremendous competitive advantage over both private enterprises and public enterprises:
coop members have a personal interest in their coop’s success. The members own the coop, so they are more
likely to buy the coop’s goods or use its services. Shares in cooperatives are not publically traded because
the shares are owned by the members. The members themselves decide how to spend the coop’s profits.

Maple Street Cooperative
Maple Street Cooperative opened its doors on January 14th 1980, nearly a year after a small group of people
met to discuss how to satisfy their need for whole-foods. The coop started by selling both wholefoods and
produce grown by local farmers. Today Maleny Street Coop operates an organic health food retail outlet in the
main street of Maleny, is open 7 days a week, and has 450 active members. Although it functions as a
consumers’ cooperative, it still sells to the public. The coop’s policy is organic first, then local, then
Australian. It does not stock any products that contain genetically modified material, nor does it stock
products from companies that are regarded as exploiting people or the environment. It operates on the
principle of consensus decision making.

For the last 6 years, the coop has made a profit. However, the coop is structured as a non-profit enterprise,
meaning that the profits go back into the coop, to expand its services and develop its infrastructure, or into
community activities.

At first labour in the coop was voluntary, but as the coop prospered, the number of paid workers slowly
increased. Today the coop employs 11 part time staff and one full time manager. In the near future it
will have paid off all its loans and own the coop premises. The coop publishes a 16 page bimonthly
newsletter that outlines current activities and brings information to members on subjects that are of
special interest, such as the irradiation of food, genetic engineering, and microwave emissions. It
produces 1,400 copies. The coop is registered as a trading coop. Active members are required to pay an
annual membership fee of $11 and to spend at least $20 per year in the coop to retain their active
membership status. Active members get a 5% discount off all purchases. During its 22 years of operation,
it has overcome several major hurdles. On occasions in the past, it had no business plan, operated at a
loss, made poor investment decisions, lacked experienced financial management, and had to spend a lot of
time resolving differences of opinion among the members.

Learning from experience, the coop gradually evolved a formulae for success. It now has a sound strategic
and financial plan, regularly makes a profit, cultivates the support of both the members and the community
at large, and ensures that the staff and management are honest, dedicated and competent.

Maleny Credit Union
The Maleny Credit Union was started in 1984 by several local people with the idea of setting up an ethical
financial institution to foster regional financial autonomy. Initially the Credit Union was staffed by
volunteers, worked from rented rooms, and entered deposits manually into a journal. On the first day of
operations, local people deposited more than $50,000.

Today the Credit Union has grown to have more than 6000 members, 14 paid staff, and $15 million in assets,
and has purchased its own premises. People from all over Australia invest their money with the Credit Union,
and about half the Credit Union’s deposits come from outside Maleny. It is one of only a handful of
financial institutions in the country that operate according to cooperative principles. The Credit Union
offers savings, cheque, loans, and term deposit accounts, as well as credit card facilities, and can arrange
superannuation and various types of insurance for members. In addition, the Credit Union contributes
substantially to the local community and leads its development.

Over the years the Credit Union has given out many small loans to local people who would not be eligible for
loans from the major banks. This has helped many people buy land, build their own home, and start their own
business. In dollar terms, 80% of the Credit Union’s loans are housing loans.
The Credit Union’s ethical activities include:
* allocating 10% of its profits to its Community Grants Scheme,
* establishing a tax-deductible Charitable Fund,
* paying an eco-tax to Barung Landcare based on every ream of paper used,
* offering low fees to members and special arrangements to cooperatives and community groups,
* lending only to local people and projects to keep money circulating within the region,
* purchasing locally wherever possible,
* providing loans for environmentally and socially beneficial projects,
* creating a democratic workplace, and
* conducting an annual social, environmental and financial audit of the coops operations and accounting in
the annual report.

During the course of the last year, grants from the Credit Union’s Community Grants Scheme went to the
Maleny Swimming Club, River School, Altair Youth Crisis Centre, Maleny High School, Sunshine Coast
Environment Council, Maleny Community Centre, Booroobin School, and the Rural Fire Brigade.

By the end of 2001, the Credit Union had provided finance for over 180 new jobs in 78 new businesses. Since
its was established, it has reinvested over $50 million back into the local community. Like the Maple
Street Coop, in its early years the Credit Union went through periods of difficulty. However, improved
planning and financial management overcame these problems. Today the Credit Union is extremely successful,
principally because it developed the right balance of financial expertise and cooperative spirit.

The Up Front Club
Late in 1993, a diverse group of Maleny residents got together to form a cooperative club. The aim was to
establish a licensed venue to eat, drink, relax and socialize. Today it is a place where the food is
wholesome and inexpensive, the coffee is great, and local musicians and entertainers can gain exposure.

When the Club first started, instead of relying on voluntary labour it took on the financial challenge of
paying wages to all its workers. But because it was under-capitalized, it was forced to take out a loan
to pay for the lease. Although it had over 1,000 members, each year it sustained a loss. At the beginning
of 2000, three directors took over the voluntary management of the Club, enabling it to remain in existence.
Then, on the 15th January 2000, the Club turned a corner. Over 100 members attended a special general
meeting, talked of what the Club meant to them, and committed to regular voluntary work so that it could
stay open. Since then, members and visitors alike have commented on the changed atmosphere in the Club.
The financial position has improved markedly, and for the first time the Club has posted an operating profit.

Thanks to the support of the members, the Club continues to provide services to its members, their families
and guests. It is open six days a week, providing healthy meals at reasonable prices. Members get a 10%
discount. The Club also publishes a quarterly newsletter. A share in the coop costs $10 and shareholders
pay an annual membership fee of $30 per person or $45 per family. Members are encouraged to volunteer their
time and support Club activities. Over the years the Club has showcased a wide range of local talent,
hosting everything from classical evenings to CD nights for teenagers. For many, it is the cultural centre
of the Maleny community. Local Economic and Enterprise Development Cooperative LEED is one of the most
recent coops established in Maleny. It is registered as a workers’ cooperative, and is dedicated to
creating new businesses and jobs on the Sunshine Coast Hinterland. It employs 6 people.

LEED recognizes that most investment, jobs and economic development in the Sunshine Coast Region occur on
the coastal strip. It believes that it is vital for the hinterland to develop its own jobs by creating
viable small-scale businesses. The seeds of LEED were sown in early 1997 after a local economic development
forum. A group of local people came together to help people on the hinterland start their own businesses.
The group organized forums on topics such as product development, marketing, financial management, and
other business skills. In July 1999, LEED and Maleny Credit Union entered into a partnership to develop a
Peer Support Lending Scheme. Under the scheme, the Credit Union provides small unsecured loans for start-up
businesses and LEED members mentor the new business people for the first 12 months of their operation.
The Scheme is supported by a grant from the Department of Family and Community Services. 14 new small-scale
businesses participated in the Scheme, with 12 continuing to operate successfully after a year. As a result
of this initial success, 13 new loans were given out in the second year of operation. So far the Scheme has
provided a total of 27 loans to new small businesses; 23 businesses are continuing to operate successfully.

Local Energy Transfer System
Maleny has one of Australia’s most successful LETS schemes. LETS began in Canada in 1982, and was
launched  in Maleny in October 1987. There are now over 200 LETS schemes in Australia. LETS functions
as a cashless  trading coop. LETS members trade their skills and provide services to each other without
the use of money. In Maleny members trade their products and services in the local currency, the Bunya,
named after the  local native pine nut, allowing people with little or no cash to participate in the
local economy.

Environmental Cooperatives
Maleny has 4 environmental coops: Maleny Wastebusters, Barung Landcare, Booroobin Bush Magic, and
Green Hills Fund. Maleny Wastebusters is a community based recycling coop which encourages people to
reduce, reuse and recycle; to sort their rubbish; and to avoid buying poor quality and over packaged items.
It employs 20 local people, and its slogan is: “Waste not, want not”. Barung Landcare is one of several
hundred community based landcare groups throughout Australia. It is dedicated to empowering landholders
in the local area to take ownership of environmental problems and their solutions. It provides a range of
environmental services, publishes a bimonthly newsletter, and participates in the LETS scheme by accepting
Banyas as part payment for the trees it sells. It hosts the annual From Chainsaw to Fine Furniture Wood Expo
which promotes the sustainable harvesting of native timber. It also runs a successful nursery which
propagates local native plant species which have not been genetically modified.

Booroobin Bush Magic runs a rainforest nursery, while the Green Hills Fund works to reafforest the Maleny
hinterland.

Community Settlement Cooperatives
The settlement coops around Maleny include: Crystal Waters Permaculture Village, Manduka Community
Settlement Coop, Prout Community Settlement Coop, and Cedarton Foresters. Crystal Waters is situated on
640 acres of land, and is the first Permaculture village in Australia. It incorporates 83 private
residential lots, a village commercial centre, visitors accomodation area, and over 500 acreas of common
land.

Manduka is situated on over 150 acres of land 6 kilometres outside Maleny. It is home to 18 adults and 6
children. The residents believe in living simply, sharing resources, reaching agreement through consensus,
and managing their land in an ecologically sustainable way. Prout Community is situated on over 50 acres
of land, and is home to 3 families and a primary school run by the Ananda Marga spiritual movement. The
Ananda Marga River School has over 100 students, ranging from kindergarten to grade seven. It employs 7
full time and 8 part time teachers, and 2 administrators. The curriculum emphasizes experential and whole
brain learning, creativity, ecology, arts and music, all with a child centred approach.

Cedarton Foresters is situated on 200 acres of land 19 kilometres from Maleny. It contains 22 private
residential lots and is home to 40 people. The community’s main aim is the rehabilitation of the land.
Although Booroobin Bush Magic is part of Cedarton Foresters, it is structured as an independently
registered enviromental cooperative.

Other Cooperatives in Maleny
Other cooperatives in Maleny include: Maleny Film Society (MFS); Family and Community Empowerment (FACE);
Maleny Neighbourhood Centre; and Hinterland Community Radio, a cooperative radio station.
Building Successful Cooperatives
The experience of the Maleny cooperatives shows that building successful cooperative enterprises involves
several steps.
1. Fulfil a need. People have to come together in order to fulfil a need in the community. No matter how
good the idea, if there is not a community need, the enterprise will not succeed.
2. Establish a founding group. A few committed people have to take on the responsibility of developing
the initial idea through to inception. However, one person will have to provide the leadership.
3. Commit to a vision. Commit to the ideals and values implicit in cooperative enterprises, and try to
ensure that both the members and the management are honest, dedicated and competent.
4. Conduct a feasibility study. To evaluate whether or not the perceived need is feasible, conduct a
feasibility study.
5. Set out clear aims and objectives. Each enterprise must have clear aims and objectives. This will help
direct everything from the founding group’s initial focus to promotional strategies and budgetary
processes in the years to come.
6. Develop a sound business plan. The enterprise will require capital, have to manage its finances
efficiently, and at some point have to make decisions about loan repayments and profit allocation.
7. Ensure the support and involvement of the members. The members own the enterprise; at every step, their
support and involvement is essential.
8. Establish a location. Establish a physical location for the operation of the enterprise, preferably in
the centre of the community.
9. Get skilled management. From within the community, bring in to the enterprise people who have the
necessary management, business, financial, legal and accounting skills.
10. Continue education and training. Ideally, the members will have the skills, particularly the
communication and interpersonal skills, necessary to run the enterprise successfully. If not, they will
either have to develop such skills themselves or bring in new members who have them. The golden rules for
beginning a community economic strategy are clear:
* start small, with the skills and resources available within the community;
* make use of role models, those with experience in community development, wherever possible; and
* make sure the enterprise involves as many people as possible.

Community Benefits Cooperative enterprises benefit a community in many ways.Socially, they bring people
together, encourage them to use their diverse skills and talents, and often provide them with the
opportunity to develop new capabilities. They create a sense of belonging, build close relationships
among different types of people, and empower them to make decisions to develop their community. All this
fosters community spirit. Working together, a community is able to accomplish much more than if the
various individuals go their separate ways.

Economically, cooperatives produce various types of goods locally, provide a range of local services,
create employment, circulate money within the community, and make the community economically selfreliant.
Because cooperative enterprises are owned by the members themselves, the profits they generate stay in
the local area. Cooperatives thus build the wealth of the community. In essence, successful cooperative
enterprises transform a community by establishing economic democracy. Cooperative enterprise is the
socio-economic system of the future. In Maleny, that future is unfolding before us right now.

*********
The Maleny Cooperatives:
* Maple Street Cooperative
* Maleny and District Credit Union (MCU) – www.malenycu.com.au
* The Up Front Club
* Local Economic and Enterprise Development Cooperative (LEED)
* Local Energy Transfer System (LETS) – www.lets.org.au
* Maleny Wastebusters
* Barung Landcare
* Crystal Waters Permaculture Village – www.ecovillages.org/australia/crystalwaters
* Manduka Community Settlement Cooperative
* Prout Community Settlement Cooperative – www.amriverschool.org
* Cedarton Foresters
* Booroobin Bush Magic (BBM)
* Maleny Film Society (MFS)
* Green Hills Fund
* Family and Community Empowerment (FACE)
* Maleny Neighbourhood Centre
* Hinterland Community Radio
Published by:
Prout Community Settlement Cooperative, January 2002
PO Box 177, Maleny, 4552
References:
Maleny Coops Work, published by the Maleny Credit Union, 2001
Maleny Credit Union Social, Environmental and Financial Annual
Report 2001, published by the Maleny Credit Union
Community and Economic Development: Towns Shaping Their Destiny,
by Jill Jordan, March 2001
Chronological List of Historical Events for Maleny and Districts,
compiled by Amanda Wilson, July 2001

Buy the book through your local bookstore or online from Amazon.com. Comments on Understanding Sarkar

“The next generation of South Asians will consider themselves fortunate that scholars like Sohail
Inayatullah have helped to keep open a humane and plural vision of the future for them”.
–Dr. Ashis Nandy, Director, Center of the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi. Author of The Intimate
Enemy and Traditions, Tyranny and Utopias.

“A superb book. Deeply inspiring and provocative. The Sarkar-Inayatullah combination makes very good
reading indeed. Inayatullah introduces the fascinating world – in time, in space, and in social space
–of P.R. Sarkar”.
–Johan Galtung, President of Transcend: A Peace and Development Network and author of over seventy
books on peace tudies, futures studies, international relations, Gandhi, and social theory. Formerly,
Professor of Peace, Political Science and Sociology at the Universities of Bern, Saarland, Hawaii and
Witten-Herdecke.

“Dr. Sohail Inayatullah is the leading example of a new generation of global thinkers, actors and
visionaries. While firmly attached to and informed by the culture into which he was born, and
passionately and yet rationally committed to facilitating the future of South Asia, Sohail Inayatullah
is also a global — it is not too much to say, cosmic — figure as well, carrying in his very person the
tensions and hopes of a future which is at the same time both local and global.
–James Dator, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Hawaii Research Center for Futures
Studies, University of Hawaii. Secretary-General and President of the World Futures Studies Federation,
1982-1990.

“In addition to the service he is rendering by bringing to a wider audience the thoughts of a very
important thinker, Sohail Inayatullah provides an extraordinary contribution to social theory with an
unusual combination of analytic rigor and boundary challenging imagination”.
–Professor Michael Shapiro, University of Hawaii is the author of numerous books onpolitical and
social theory including, Reading the Postmodern Polity, Reading ‘Adam Smith’, Violent Cartographies and
Cinematic Political Thought, For Moral Ambiguity: National Culture and the Politics of the Family 2001.

“In this scholarly and inspiring work, Sohail Inayatullah brings to life the contributions of the
remarkable Indian visionary, theorist, and social activist Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar. Skillfully blending
his understanding of both Eastern and Western scholarly traditions, Inayatullah looks at history from
a non-eurocentric perspective that also takes into account the thinking of some of the best known
Western macrohistorians. This book is not only highly instructive; it also never loses sight of what
Sarkar called neo-humanism – the consciousness that we are part of an interconnected whole and that
a good society is one that manages to represent harmoniously the spiritual needs of its individuals”.
–Riane Eisler, author of The Chalice & The Blade, Sacred Pleasure, and Tomorrow’s Children.

“Sarkar’s writings on historical processes offer a refreshing alternative to the orthodox interpretations
of Toynbee, Hegel and Marx. He makes Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations seem parochial in
comparison. Dr.Inayatullah skillfully weaves Sarkar’s comprehensive overview of cultural life-cycles into
a coherent whole, through which the full sweep and scope of the fundamental forces that shape history can
be rendered. Despite the magnitude of the canvas upon he paints, his is a work of systematic and focused
scholarship. This book should be required reading for anyone looking to understand macrotheories of social
change from an non-eurocentric, holistic, and synergistic perspective”.
–Dr. Tim Dolan, Associate Professor of Political Science at Southern Oregon University and Director of
the Master in Management Program.

“Sohail Inayatullah is the world’s leading scholar of Sarkar’s thought. His latest book, Understanding
Sarkar, is sweeping in scope – quite literally a philosophical tour de force. By contrasting Sarkar’s
ideas to some of the greatest minds in human history, Inayatullah has achieved a remarkable philosophical
integration that is both breathtaking in its vision and relevant in its possibilities for creating
societal change. Indeed, if you want a better grasp of Sarkar’s comprehensive worldview, I can think of
no better source than Inayatullah. Brilliant”.
–Roar Bjonnes, co-founder of Center for Sustainable Villages, writer, editor of Prout Journal, and
contributing editor of New Renaissance

“Dr.Sohail Inayatullah’s book offers an excellent entry point for those wanting to explore the fascinating
and challenging ideas of P. R. Sarkar. At the same time Understanding Sarkar provides those who have
studied Sarkar with wonderful new ways of seeing and connecting the vast expanses of his works. We owe
much to Dr. Inayatullah for this splendid effort”.
–Craig Runde, Director of New Program Development, Eckerd College, St.Petersburg, Florida

“In a time when “global” is equated with “western”, Sohail Inayatullah takes us through the door of Indian
thinking to a world view that is global in thetrue sense of the word. Going beyond naive Western idolization
of Asian philosophies and avoiding the pitfalls of dogmatic, sometimes fanatic, adherence to tradition faith
characteristic to many Eastern mentalities Inayatullah examines P.R. Sarkar’s world in pursuit of a
universality that is yet to be realized within the potential of human civilization. Those, wishing freedom
from culturally ingrained mental habits, should consider this work as essential reading”.
–Dr. Partow Izadi, senior scientist in evolutionary futures, global education and systems theory,
University of Lapland, Finland.

“This is a companion volume to Inayatullah and Galtung’s masterly synthesis of macrohistory and
macrohistorians, that includes P R Sarkar. Here the practice as well as the theory of Sarkar enters the
grand sweep, enriching and legitimating the story. Their respective models have elements in common but
few contain all Sarkar’s elements of spiritual practice, humanity, and humility – even if potentially
ferocious. He lived, fought and spread his theory into a movement. Isolated perhaps from the writings of
the other great minds, Sarkar seems to have an uncanny understanding of the emerging insights of genetics
on our social behavior (evolutionary psychology or neo-Darwinism) and of social construction”.
–Alan Fricker, President, Sustainable Futures Trust, Wellington, New Zealand