Talk:Progressive utilization theory

So what needs to be improved first?
Please be specific. Here's mine:

1) There were a couple of independent, reliable sources unearthed after the current text was proposed.  There are two in particular I can get out of UC Berkeley later this week.

2) Prout logo and photo of Sarkar would help the layout a lot.

3) More reliable sources.  Not sure how realistic this is, but the ceiling on the quality of this article is going to be determined by WP:RS more than anything else.

Others? Garamond Lethe t c  05:49, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Do you have a SAGE account? There's one article I saw in a SAGE journal that looks promising. Mangoe (talk) 21:29, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes. Go ahead and post the cite.  Garamond Lethe t c  21:38, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

As to additional sources, there's this. It's peer-reviewed, but I'm not sure how to describe the author. According to this he's getting around to getting his Ph.D. in economics but has taught the topic at the community college level for years. "Professor" is a bit too strong, as is "economist", but "teacher" and "instructor" are a little too weak. Suggestions? Garamond Lethe t c  04:39, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Instructor of economics. Location (talk) 05:00, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Will do. Garamond Lethe t c  05:18, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

A few other ideas on what I'd like to see added to the article: Garamond Lethe t c  22:37, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) A bit more info on the context of where these ideas came from.  (The Hindu caste comment by Sil is the only thing we have.)  I don't know that this information is available from independent sources.
 * 2) I'd like to include the fact that Proutist Universal (or whatever it was) was formed to propagate these ideas, and that it was intentionally kept separate from Ananda Marga.  (I think this is Crovetto, but I'll have to reread the article to find it.)
 * 3) Any info on whether or not Proutist is still a going concern.  The web site doesn't appear to have been updated in a long time.
 * 4) Mention of the Hilton bombing (was this Proutists, Ananda Marga, or are the two effectively synonymous)?
 * 5) Listing Sarkar's works that discuss PROUT with a small amount detail (including the fact that the books are self-published).
 * 6) A bibliography of secondary works:  there are few enough of them that we might as well list them all with a bit of commentary for each.
 * I'm at UCDavis this weekend and they have [Prout Manifesto]. Only two copies of this book known to worldcat.  It's in their Special Collection which doesn't open until 10a Monday, so I'll try to extend my trip until then.  If anyone else here is in the NorCal area and can get access to this, let me know.  Garamond Lethe t c  20:49, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

The "criticism" section isn't really about the possible downsides of prout. It should probably be called "reception" instead. Magnigornia (talk) 08:33, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Article Structure
I'm thinking of splitting the description into "PROUT as social order" and "PROUT as economic theory" with Crovetto's work in the former and Friedman in the latter. Ravi Batra may be able to make an appearance in both; I won't be able to tell until I get back to the library.

Thoughts? I'm a little be leery of giving so much weight to Friedman&mdash;the paper has only been cited once&mdash;but there's so little independent work in this area that I hate to discard anything that has been peer reviewed.

Garamond Lethe t c  17:43, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
 * It could be useful to separate the social and economic, on the other hand they may be too entwined. The article could certainly do with editing for clarity. Jonpatterns (talk) 10:46, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Conflict of interest
User appears to have ties to this article's subject as it is the only article they have edited. Jonpatterns (talk) 10:46, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

FYI: https://www.amazon.com/After-Capitalism-Prouts-Vision-World/dp/1877762067

"Not in source cited" problem
The quote was rendered correctly, but in context, Erdman's verdict seems to be on the book as a whole; it's not clear that Proutism itself involves any "voodoo historical theories." Copying here for the sake of WP:PRESERVE; maybe something can be salvaged from this source.

Part removed:


 * Economist Paul Erdman, in the Los Angeles Times, described Prout as: "a strange mixture of voodoo historical theories and sound economic analysis" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.114.154.235 (talk) 00:25, 16 April 2019 (UTC)