No citizen´s salary or social benefits without employment
The Welfare states Finland and Sweden have good social security – or at least used to be. More and more people are not getting any income or even benefits. Often the reason is simply that it is humiliating and complicated to apply benefits. While the economics is heading down more and more people are also just left out by authorities because of reduced funding and tightened system.
Sarkar said that minimum necessities of life should be guaranteed for all, but there should not be benefits for everyone without work. The old people and other incapable to work would have their social security, but he said that purchasing power should be guaranteed for all others through work organized by government.
Now as the science has advanced with big leaps and more and more products are made with less human labour, then naturally it should show up with shorter working time, but that is not the case. Most of the people work 8 hours if not 10 or 12. The working time of individuals should be reduced to 5-6 hours. Even for the reason that people should have more time to develop themselves socially, mentally and especially spiritually. We are approaching the spiritual time, time of arising consciousness; it should show up also in the time we spend for spiritual practises and learning spirituality.
Ancient times human being was struggling with survival - we developed physically: agriculture, wheel etc were invented. Next we had time of psychic and intellectual development; science, religions and art. Now we are on the era of spiritual development. We should tune into that as soon as possible to become divine beings. The psychic and physical evolution will no doubt proceed among spirituality.
By reducing working time, more people could be employed. Although that would cost a bit more to the employers, still the increased production would make it possible and it is not healthy for the bosses to get that much profit and options anyhow as they are getting now. Sarkar also said that there should be some ceiling on salaries and wealth. It is question of willingness to share the wealth and build the systems accordingly.
Why not to give benefits or citizen´s salary to all? People become lazy; they feel internally guilty if they don’t work and participate on building the society with others. Still although feeling guilty many will not take the struggle of work - especially if it is 8 hours. At the same time many who work long hours feel internally angry having to take care of lazy people. As human beings we need rules and regulations and collective decisions. Even at present in Finland while getting benefits, the people don’t seem happy while being unemployed, as well as the employed when commenting about the lazy outcastes.
With this simple way - sharing working time – it would make the working lighter and leave more time for the nearest, family and study, which would make the whole society much happier – and more spiritual. It would also lessen the burden of government and bureaucracy to run the social security system.
Why to live in the past – as physical, psychic or intellectual slaves, when that is not bringing the greatest happiness - nor does it fulfil the dharma of the human being as spiritual being. Now we have possibility for higher development.
Spiritual minded, selfless leaders with moral courage are needed to lead the society, but before we get there, the present leaders should understand the importance to reduce unemployment – at least before bringing Guggenheims etc for the amusement of the wealthy class.
Chavez was badly blamed of feeding his people with oil money - at least he was trying to fulfil the basic task of government – as arranging jobs might not happen that fast, so better first to distribute food and education at least. Since lately I can’t say has he done enough for creating jobs though.
Let’s not also forget that without purchasing power of people the need for production goes down and thus diminishing purchasing power will provide less production. We have seen also that even how much we support rich industry and corporations that will not bring much purchasing power nowadays as when the economy go down they just lay off the workers and profit maximum with those left behind.
Sarkar: No matter how much we deny the existence of the world, we cannot make it non-existent… “The world is a relative truth,” and thus your physical body which exists in this relative world is also a relative truth. To exist in this relative world one requires food, clothing, shelter, education, medical treatment and other necessities of life. One cannot completely ignore these basic necessities. Ironically, those exponents of philosophy who have declared that this world is mere illusion or Máyá….then where is the necessity of all these temples and monasteries?
Special amenities are to be guaranteed to capable people…If the maximum amenities of meritorious people become excessively high, then the minimum requirements of common people should be immediately increased. Thus, both the minimum requirements and the maximum amenities will vary from age to age, and both will be ever increasing. If this were not so, there would be no economic progress in society. Nothing is stationary; everything is moving. So the minimum requirements and special amenities will also undergo changes with the changes in time, space and person
In order that these basic necessities might be provided to all, I was forced to formulate the theory of PROUT under pressure of circumstances. Before everything else, one must first provide physical food to a hungry person.... Yes, we will certainly not provide food to antisocial people who jump from tree to tree like monkeys…
PROUT’s view is that people should be guaranteed the provision of sufficient purchasing power to meet these requirements… in exchange for their work according to their physical, psychic or spiritual capacity. Without fulfilling these basic necessities it will be impossible to promote the collective welfare of the human race.
Society had not yet realized the need or significance of beautiful collective living. It was an imperative necessity for people to feel, to realize, that they needed to build a society which guaranteed the basic necessities of food, clothing, shelter, education and medical treatment to all its members. It was essential for those advancing along the paths of their individual lives to realize that others should have equal opportunities to follow the same broad highway of morality and spirituality in collective life. Otherwise, with the degeneration of the collectivity, the degeneration of the individual is inevitable.
The rule is that if an honest person leading an honest life solves the mundane problems of procuring the basic necessities of life while moving towards the divine goal, he or she will never become downfallen. But all too often people remain enslaved to their stomachs and creature comforts. And if the social order is defective, even good people go astray and meet their demise.
Mass education is one of the basic necessities for the successful and effective running of democracy…People cast their votes at the insistence and inducement of misguided local leaders. To approach a polling booth like a herd of cattle to cast votes in ballot boxes is meaningless. Is this not a farce in the name of democracy? In my opinion, real education means proper, adequate knowledge and the power of understanding. In other words, education should impart an awareness of who I am and what I ought to do.
All natural resources are meant to be used for collective welfare. No one has a monopoly over these resources… I will only say that by dint of intellect you may acquire as much of the boundless wealth in the intellectual or psychic realms as you like. Nobody can object to this. But if the intellect is used to appropriate limited mundane resources…will this not deprive hundreds of thousands of people of their basic necessities?
In the physical sphere, the rights of all should be protected…“I won’t exploit anyone, and I won’t allow others to exploit me.” This is the spirit of proper objective adjustment…To the extent that you keep money idle and valueless, you become responsible for the injustices done to ragged, hungry people… The desire to accumulate money is actually a mental disease.
The availability of the minimum essentials of life plays a vital part not only in achieving a world family but also in the development of the personality… If there is lack of physical necessities... a person’s discrimination is easily disturbed - with a little anger - even an intellectual utters crude words…people become restless, lose their discrimination, and become brutal. It is because of this that communism has tended toward brutality.
This problem should be tackled on a world-wide basis. Every human being must be guaranteed certain minimum requirements….so that human beings may be able to utilize their surplus energy in subtler pursuits – energy which until now has been engaged in procuring the essentials of life.
When the people who are responsible for the fulfilment of mundane needs are not moralists…
Selfish thoughts will certainly hover in their minds, and they will live in constant fear that others might snatch power from their hands or take revenge for their deliberate misdeeds. Thus the materialists will not even be able to fulfil the physical necessities of the people; rather by sowing the seeds of doubt, distrust and violence in people’s minds, they will pollute the earth’s atmosphere and people will suffocate in this poisonous smoke.
Nature has been bountiful to each and every region of the world, and has endowed us with enormous wealth both on and under the surface of the earth. In fact, different areas of the world are full of agricultural, mineral, aquatic, medicinal and forest resources, yet in many economic regions of the world there is utmost poverty, a low standard of living, and cultural and industrial backwardness.
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In Proutist system the worker will not search for jobs, rather the jobs will search workers. Everyone would have the minimum necessities and nobody would suffer without food, education and shelter… and that is attainable with very little sacrifice from the minority of rich - and besides even they would be happier!
Didi Annapurna