Block planning: Prout in dialogue with venezuelan Popular Power

Abstract

This research establishes a dialogue between the Progressive Utilization Theory (PRUT) (formulated by the Indian philosopher Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar) and the praxis of People's Power in Venezuela, focusing on territorial and economic planning for a powerful Venezuela. It is an approach from PRUT—a still relatively unknown theory from the Global South—to the construction of the Venezuelan Communal State. Given the context of multifaceted warfare and economic blockade, the need arises to redefine planning towards the formation of self-sufficient regions. Through a qualitative methodology of documentary review of the Venezuelan legal framework and methodological materials such as the Concrete Action Agenda (CAA), complemented by interviews with specialists in Communal State and communal activists, the concept of the block as a scientific unit of decentralized planning proposed by PRUT is analyzed. Profound convergences are identified between Prout and Venezuelan People's Power: the three levels of economic enterprises, the ascending order of planning, territorial demarcation, and the prioritization of minimum living requirements. Prout is identified as contributing substantive elements: the scientific calculation of costs that treats agriculture as an organized industry, the purchasing power indicator as a measure of economic success, and block-scale industrialization to promote local employment and production. It is concluded that the integration of the block planning model allows for overcoming the fragmented localism present in Venezuelan communes, with great potential to transform them into centers of organized agro-industry, within the framework of the 7T (Seven Transformations) Homeland Plan.