How America's economy can win again

Lyndon LaRouche explains how America's economy can win again

The Conscience of a Realist by Joseph Cotto

Florida, December 28, 2012 — Lyndon LaRouche was a lightning rod of controversy 20 years ago. A perennial Democratic candidate for the presidency, LaRouche's economic and political views were intertwined in a philosophy that other Democrats derided as "fringe."

A stint in federal prison took him out of the national eye, but LaRouche continues to share his views. Over the last several decades he has played an active role in forecasting financial trends, promoting the use of manufacturing technology, and emphasizing space exploration, among other things.  

In this first part of a candid interview, LaRouche explains how America can reclaim its economic vitality, discusses the limits of free trade, describes what might be done to reinvigorate the manufacturing sector, and much more.  

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Joseph F. Cotto: America remains mired in the sluggish aftermath of the Great Recession. How do you think that our country can reclaim its economic vitality?

Lyndon LaRouche: To be both specific and brief: I have set forth a specific set of measures of reform which would meet the requirements of a most urgently needed combination of three elements of national economic policy: 

1. A most urgently needed return to a Glass-Steagall policy as such. While Glass-Steagall would end the hyper-inflationary drive which had been officially launched at the close of the Clinton Presidency, [it] must be recognized as being only an indispensable "platform," as for President Franklin Roosevelt, for eliminating the roots of the present hyper-inflationary spin which took over the control of the trans-Atlantic economies since about September 2007 in the U.S.A. itself.

2. We must return to the national banking policies which had been in force prior to the launching of the Andrew Jackson Administration, including the precedent of a Federal Credit System in force under President John Quincy Adams, a Federal Credit system which would be typified by the form of national banking credit for achievement of predetermined goals for specified future dates. This is the only basis for a present, actually physical-economic recovery of the United States presently.

3. There must also be special national projects typified by the fulfillment of the goals of NAWAPA, with the same general objectives of the NAWAPA of the late 1960s, but with adjustments for advances in technologies suited to the presently available technologies; that must be supplemented by special machine-tool design programs now urgently needed to bring the destructive rampage of the "68er" cultural trends under control, for the sake of return to a desperately needed real economy.

Cotto: Prominent economists and politicians say that free trade will only benefit America in the long run. What are your opinions about this idea?

LaRouche: They are repeating the same arguments which have failed our nation's economy at an accelerating rate, since the "68er" rampages, especially since 2007. All successful economies depend upon superseding the depletion of what existed in the past, by progress into the urgently needed future replacements, with better methods, and with superior technologies. Otherwise, we would plunge into the attrition and related decay which has plagued us since the end of the Indo-China war of the mid-1960s.

Cotto: One of the reasons that the American economy consistently fails to emerge from the Great Recession is that it produces a decreasing number of material goods. What would you say can be done to reinvigorate our manufacturing sector? Honestly, is this even possible now?

LaRouche: As I am certain that your circles are adequately aware, our chief economic problem has been the reversal of the principle of economic progress – actually at the accelerating rates prevailing since the aftermath of the assassination of President Kennedy. Without a correction from that trend now, trans-Atlantic civilization in particular is doomed: We are at the fag-end of our recent decades of foolishness. 

The loss of much of the machine-tool design capabilities which had been represented by the legacy of the machine-tool design-driven U.S.-built automobile, aircraft, and space potentials, since the virtual collapse of "Detroit," must now be replaced by "machine-tool design" programs for reviving and improving the technological improvements, programs on which we depend, absolutely, if any recovery at all were to be made possible.  

Cotto: Libertarian economic theorists tend to believe that trade deficits are of minimal importance. Do these deficits have a great impact on America's economy?

LaRouche: What are sometimes mis-identified as being trade-deficits are actually the effect of collapse of technological progress. We need a "protectionist" policy of a certain, very specific type: scientific-technological progress, rather than the death of the former system of sovereign nations in western and central Europe. We must protect our economy's healthful scientific-technological progress. And, then we would have no continuing fear of "competition." Financial gambling will never be an actual substitute for science-driven economic progress. 

Cotto: During complicated times like these, robust national security policy is essential. While America can continue to build stronger relationships with proven allies, more should be done to prevent against domestic terrorism as well. What are your opinions on this most challenging matter?

LaRouche: Speaking in broad terms, terrorism has never changed for the better since Adolf Hitler and kindred cases, and often for the worse, or even prospectively the worst. Indeed, the contemporary variety is even more genocidal in combined depth and scale than that of the Nazi regime's effect on Eurasia in World War II. As a virtually stateless Europe under the paws of a Tony Blair, have shown, as the cases of the trends in Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece. as also elsewhere in the "Euro" region, has shown us now. It is neither unfair nor "discriminatory" to point out that a Europe continued under the "paws of Blair" is already at the brink of something hitherto beyond previous notions of a modern Europe.

Terrorism exists and spreads; who actually sponsors it? We urgently need stability in matters which Blair did much to destroy in Eurasia since his fraudulent pretext for the launching of the second Iraq war, and now threatens to bring among both the United States, and also throughout the world at large. We are presently hovering at the brink of thermonuclear warfare. Our United States, under the proper leadership, could stop this prevalence of such and related lunacy which threatens the entirety of civilization now.