Middle Class And Psycho Economics

Middle Class and Psycho-Economics The field of psycho-economics. We combine a fundamental principle of psycho-economics with Prout's concept of class to analyse the social struggle in Venezuela today. Traditional economics concentrates on the material motives for doing work. But people work hard for many reasons, including physical, mental and spiritual reasons. People's economy of Prout is designed to meet physical needs, but once physical needs are met people begin to discover that they have psychic and spiritual needs as well. Examples of the kinds of motivation that explain why people work so hard to perform are diverse and difficult task to correlate. A Nobel scientist once said that in order to do well in science, a person must have a burning in their tummy. Without a burning urge, it is unlikely that a person would put in the hard work and have the persistence to overcome all the emotional ups and downs of scientific research. The term 'psycho-economics' was invented by Sarkar and refers to one of the four sub-disciplines of economics. (The other three are people's economy, commercial economy and general economy.) Psycho-economy includes the study of the management and utilisation of psychic and spiritual resources. Perhaps you have not thought of a scientist's "burning in the tummy" as a form of wealth. But consider the tremendously valuable knowledge and technology that would be lost if a potential Nobel laureate had not been born with a burning in his/her tummy. Psycho-economics takes over when people's economy is functioning well and is comfortably supplying people with the necessities of life. It is different from traditional economics because there are no limits to growth. One person's learning and spiritual insights do not deprive others of the same. This is a new field of study but Sarkar predicts that in future psycho-economics will be the glamour field of academic economics. A fundamental concept in psycho-economics is that no person likes to feel that their life is stagnating. Every one wants to grow, expand, explore in at least one part if not several parts of their life at one time. Typically in human development, we grow physically first, then around the age of 7 or 8 our minds begin to blossom and we discover the intellectual urge. Then around 18 or so, we begin to appreciate the importance of wisdom and become attracted to it. Even in later life when our bodies begin to decline, we never loose that internal urge for continued psychic and spiritual growth. It is a powerful motivator. Since psychic and spiritual motivations are so strong in human life, how can we utilise them for the benefit of social and economic development? A Proutist economy would endeavour to discover each person's healthy motivations and utilise them for the benefit of society. One idea promoted by Sarkar is that a person's incentive income could partly be in a form that both satisfies the person's desire and at the same time stimulates their capacity to perform more valuable work. For example, a scientist who is strongly motivated for research, would like to accept new equipment and new

research facilities as part of their 'income'. An engineer would accept a trip to some of the engineering marvel's of the world as form of 'income'. The concept already exists in nascent form in modern corporations as "income packaging" and "fringe benefits". Prout would greatly expand this approach. As a generalisation, we may observe that psycho-economy is of particular importance to the middle class in any society. The physical needs of the middle class are typically taken care of and they have sufficient education so that psychic and spiritual expressions become powerful motivators. We can focus on the Venezuelan middle class and their role in the social struggles of their country. Perhaps a bold assertion that it is not possible to place the middle class "on hold" (i.e. ignore the aspirations of the middle class in Venezuela) while attempting to fight poverty. This can be amplified and there is a justification of this assertion. In order to proceed, we need some tools of social analysis. Prout has a complete theory of social classes and social dynamics but it is beyond the scope of this brief discussion. For this analysis, it is sufficient to distinguish the three traditional classes, the poor, the middle class and the upper class or elite. In addition, it is useful to distinguish three kinds of social power that can be exercised in any social conflict; people power, financial power and cultural power. We can combine these concepts into a single diagram which displays the different kinds of power exercised by the three classes. Consider people power. In this scenario, the poor are always in the majority, so typically people power expresses their concerns. People power is sometimes incredibly important in social struggle. For example, the right wing coup which briefly removed President Chavez in April 2002, was defeated when hundreds of thousands of the poor in Caracas came down from the slums and surrounded the presidential palace. People power also defeated President Marcos of the Philippines in 1986. However the primacy of people power is very rare. If it were the norm, the democracies of the world would be run in this way, but we know this is not the case. Financial power is the dominant force in the world today and of course that is exercised by the wealthy elite. Hence in the diagram, this becomes the dominant colour - colour of financial power. In Marxist analysis, social struggle boils down to a struggle between people power and financial power. People power overcomes financial power only on rare occasions leading to a proletarian revolution. However Prout considers this analysis to be inadequate because it ignores the importance of cultural power. Cultural power is exercised predominantly by the middle class, and in Prout analysis it is cultural power that is the deciding factor in social struggle. The middle class have a special relation to culture partly because of their education. But also the poor are usually too concerned about where their next meal is coming from to have the luxury of reflecting on culture. And the majority of the rich are more concerned about their overseas bank accounts and tax havens. Therefore the responsibility for preserving and reproducing culture falls to the middle class.

According to Prout, many social struggles revolve around culture, hence the importance of the middle class in social struggle. The dynamics of social struggle usually progress to a point where a community becomes polarised between those who want to embrace socio-cultural change and those who do not want change. Venezuelan society is in just such a condition. It is convenient to compare the two Venezuelan cultures, old and new, using a few key words. You can certainly think of others. - The Old Culture: Privilege & Exploitation - The New Culture: Social Equality & Cooperation We now return to the consideration of the three kinds of power currently at play in Venezuela's social struggle. Let us add a simplification. In order to accommodate the polarisation of Venezuelan society, we draw a line through the centre of the cultural rectangle. This signifies two almost equal but opposite cultural forces, the one for change, the other wishing to retain the culture (traditional for the last 30 years or more) of privilege and exploitation. This is a simplification because it is clear that not all of the poor have embraced the cause of change and perhaps there are also a few of the elite who can see the need for change. But it is a useful simplification because it contains enough truth to permit a clarity of thinking and in particular it allows one to plan appropriate social strategies. The strategy being pursued by the Venezuelan government at the present time is to increase the social and cultural awareness of the poor, for example through the establishment of the Bolivarian Circles. These are study circles and crucibles for community planning. This is a useful and a worthy strategy. It would be pursued by any progressive government. In terms of our diagram, the effect is to increase the scope of the red colour (representing the poor) in the bottom 'cultural power' rectangle and thus push the white dividing line towards the right. But it is an insufficient strategy because it ignores the great danger posed by the disaffected middle class on the right side of the dividing line. The problem is that a large portion of the Venezuelan middle class apparently do not feel that the current changes in Venezuela offer them a future. This is a difficult and complex discussion because much of middle class thinking is dominated by the media and the media is almost completely controlled by the elite who are totally committed to a culture of privilege and exploitation. The media like to create an impression that the Venezuelan middle class is opposed to the government of President Chavez. But clearly this is false. A large number of the middle class do support the cultural changes in Venezuela and for this reason it was possible for PDVSA (the Venezuelan state-owned petroleum company) to recover rapidly from the crippling management strikes of early 2003. However it is clear there exists a significant portion of the middle class opposed to the new Venezuelan agenda. The great challenge is how to convince more and more of this disaffected group that change in Venezuela is to their long term advantage. The idea offered here is that an additional component could and should be added to the government's programs - an attempt to win more of the middle class by direct participation in its programs. This strategy appears as an additional arrow in the diagram, situated on the divide within the middle class.

The psychological purpose of additional programs to involve the middle class is that the middle class must also feel the benefits of the changes in Venezuela. Better if they feel part of the exciting developments. They can be the greatest critics of capitalism and the strongest opponents of exploitation. They should share in the benefits of increasing prosperity. Here are some proposals: - Cooperatives require ethical management, sound business management and ongoing education and training. These are skills that the middle class possess in abundance. Hence the middle class has the skills to implement the cooperatives component of the Chavez agenda. When people feel they are part of a program they will support it. - Involve middle class in social and economic planning. - Free up middle class entrepreneurial activity so as to direct it into cooperatives and small business. There is a battle for the collective mind - so must get the positive message out! Counter propaganda in private media - produce grass roots media. Here the middle class has great potential. "Middle-class people, with their developed intellect excited by pecuniary troubles, take the leading part in such a mass upheaval against the reign of terror, and finally a change in the sceptre is effected by this politically conscious sector of society." - PR Sarkar