Representatives from twentynations, including signifi-

cant Asian media outlets, pluspolicy makers and politicalactivists from the United States,jammed into a meeting room inWashington, D.C. March 18, fora major presentation by econo-mist and statesman Lyndon H.LaRouche, Jr., on the prospectsfor implementing a New Bret-ton Woods System. LaRoucheled the audience through a two-hour lesson in history, econom-ics, and politics, whichconcluded with the fol-lowing assessment.

We have two alter-natives before us. If westick with the currentI.M.F. policy, we areheaded toward a NewDark Age. If we cooper-ate with Asia to build anew just world econom-ic order based on devel-opment, and bring jus-tice to Africa, theTwenty-first centurycan be the realization ofthe universal principleof building a societybased on man’s beingmade in the image ofGod. The decision is upto us in 1998—whetherwe take the leadershipto do what appearsunthinkable under cur-rent conditions, or, by minimizing risks,maximize the misery of the human racefor generations to come.

LaRouche began with a discussion ofthe financial crisis, as it is beginning tospread from Asia to Europe, and then,inevitably, on to the United States. Whatis being implemented is a Versailles-style policy that is literally destroyingthe nations of Asia.

Under these conditions, LaRoucheurged the then-upcoming meeting of theGroup of 22 nations, convened by U.S.

Treasury Secretary Rubin on April 16, toagree to deal with three crucial topics:

First, the nations, led by the U.S., mustacknowledge the global and systemicnature of the crisis, and realize that theabandonment of Bretton Woods mea-sures of stability actually caused the crisis.

Second, the nations must agree on aradical reorganization of the monetarysystem, effectively carrying out a bank-ruptcy reorganization, and re-imposingfixed exchange rates, forms of capitalcontrols, necessary protectionist mea-

sures, and the outlawing ofmarkets that speculate againstcurrencies.

Third, the representativesmust understand that the worldeconomy is currently operatingat negative growth levels, belowthe per capita physical outputlevels required to support theworld’s population, and thusthey must agree that a forced-draft physical economic recov-

ery, analogous to thatcarried out by PresidentFranklin D. Rooseveltin the U.S., must becarried out on a globalscale.

The Question ofLeadership

LaRouche moved tothe question of leader-ship, contrasting that ofFDR, to the politicalnorm today, and locat-ing FDR’s genius in thetradition of the UnitedStates’s unique com-mitment to a constitu-tional principle of gov-erning according toman’s being made inthe image of God.

The obvious objec-tion to doing whatneeds to be done, La-

Rouche said, is the argument that a sud-den change in policy is impossible. Ifthat argument is right, we’re headedtoward a New Dark Age. LaRouchedescribed the models of leadership givenby the German General von Schlieffen,and the French scientist-general LazareCarnot. These men knew that you hadto take risks (although they were wellthought-out) to win, but President Clin-ton’s plan of minimizing risk, to achieveconsensus, will maximize defeat.

There is already a shift away from

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New Dark Age, or 21st-Century Renaissance?

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Schiller Institute campaigns for a “New Bretton Woods System” at G-22Finance Ministers meeting, Washington, D.C., April 16, 1998.

LaRouche Assesses ‘New Bretton Woods’ at D.C. MeetLyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.

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Click here for Full Issue of Fidelio Volume 7, Number 2, Summer 1998

© 1998 Schiller Institute, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission strictly prohibited.

the post-industrial I.M.F. paradigm,LaRouche pointed out, and if PresidentClinton showed leadership, he could getsupport. We see the shift in the Asiannations’ rejection of the I.M.F., and in aturn by the U.S. population towardbread-and-butter issues (i.e., perfor-mance orientation). The I.M.F. is mur-dering the nations of South Asia, andthis truth must be faced.

LaRouche then pointed to two exam-ples of the institutional approach todealing with this crisis. He cited Roose-velt’s Economic Stabilization Act policy,and the example of the Listian WilhelmLautenbach, who outlined the principlesof a recovery program for Germanywhich could have stopped Hitler. Aboveall, Lautenbach said, you can not cutproduction, and credit must be mobi-lized selectively to save the productiveeconomy, not the private financial sys-tem.

The problem, LaRouche empha-sized, is that Americans have lost theirinstitutional memory of what the U.S.represents. This he returned to later, inelaborating the model which AbrahamLincoln and his economist Henry Careyestablished in the 1861-1876 period, andwhich was copied by Japan, Germany,and many other nations.

It is important to understand the dif-ference between previous cyclical eco-nomic crises, and the current systemic

crisis, LaRouche said. The cyclical criseswere the result of the conflict betweensocial forces of national economy, whosupport industrial progress, and the par-asitical financial oligarchy. When theparasite wreaked too much damage,depressions would result. But, in thepost-1962 period, we have had the con-certed destruction of the national econo-my forces, as the utopians moved todestroy the nation-state. Unless wedestroy the post-industrial paradigm,there is no way to reassert policies ofnational growth.

LaRouche presented ten colorful ani-mated graphics showing the physical-economic concomitants of the post-industrial paradigm, which contrasteddevelopments of 1946-1966, to those of1966 to the present. What was madeclear, is that the decline in physical-

goods production has created the prob-lems in increased taxation, and budgetdeficits. He concluded this section byillustrating the unpayable derivativesbubble, and elaborating how such oblig-ations, estimated at $140 trillion, willhave to be written off, in a financialreorganization.

The touchstone of policy, he empha-sized, is to use credit to keep people alive,and, while so doing, build a recovery.

The Machine-Tool Principle

LaRouche concluded his speech with adiscussion of the “machine-tool principle,”which is indispensable to a recovery pro-gram. The machine-tool principle makesscientific and technological progress possi-ble, he stressed, and such progress is thesecret of a modern economy.

The development of the machine-tooldesign industry, however, requires gov-

ernment inter-vention, both tofund the indus-try, and then tomake sure it getsinto the produc-tion process. La-Rouche concrete-ly described howit was in thestrategic econo-mic interest ofthe U.S. andJapan to provideaccess to the

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U.S. regional conferences organize for ‘New Bretton Woods System.’Schiller Institute spokesmen Lawrence Freeman (above) and HarleySchlanger (right) address meetings in Norfolk, Va. and Houston, Tx.

EIR U.S. editor Debra Freeman (left) andNew Federalist editor-in-chief NancySpannaus (below) give introductoryremarks at the March 18 seminar.

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On April 2, Lyndon LaRouche andHelga Zepp LaRouche addressed a

meeting held at Rome’s Hotel Na-zionale, a few steps from the Italian Par-liament. Their presentations wereattended by Members of Parliamentfrom both houses, economists, journal-ists, and diplomats.

Introducing the speakers, Paolo Rai-mondi, President of the Italian Solidari-

ty Movement, reminded the audiencethat one year ago, at a conference inRome, the LaRouches had warned ofthe financial crisis, and had presentedthe alternative to it, in the shape of theEurasian Land-Bridge program formassive infrastructure development.

As LaRouche explained at the outsetof his remarks, “Some years ago, I pre-sented to various places, including thegovernment of the United States, a pro-posal for a plan of action in response to acrisis of the type we experienced firstsince last October, and now we willexperience with much greater force dur-ing the second quarter of 1998.

“I propose,” LaRouche continued,“that we base our actions on an histori-cal precedent, that we take the 1950’s asa period in which the postwar recon-struction efforts had demonstrated thatthey were going to be successful, whichis under the Bretton Woods arrange-ment. It wasn’t the Bretton Woods for-mula that did it alone; it was that theBretton Woods formula was adapted, toprovide a climate favorable to plans forsuccessful physical reconstruction ofwar-torn and other economies.”

Which was more successful—thepostwar Bretton Woods system, or what

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Only a few days after the April 16monetary conference of the

Group of 22 in Washington—atwhich conference the moral and poli-cy bankruptcy of the I.M.F. waswidely acknowledged, but decisiveaction was not taken—the SchillerInstitute organized seminars in War-saw, to bring to the Polish capital andPolish government the discussion of a“New Bretton Woods” reorganiza-tion of the world financial system.

On April 21, some one hundredpeople attended the New Bretton

Woods seminar in the PolytechnicumWarschawski. Present were repre-sentatives of four of Poland’s Min-istries: the Ministries of EconomicAffairs; Transportion; Agriculture;and Education, Science, andResearch. Also attending were repre-sentatives from Polish academic insti-tutions and media, and diplomatsfrom several Eastern European andAsian nations.

Elisabeth Hellenbroich of theGerman Schiller Institute outlinedthe strategic world situation and

elaborated Lyndon LaRouche’s pro-posal for scrapping the I.M.F., andreorganizing the global financial sys-tem in a fashion modelled on the bestaspects of the postwar BrettonWoods system. The next day, theSchiller Institute representativesaddressed ninety students at theWarsaw Catholic Academy. A meet-ing also took place April 22, in thePolish Parliament, the Sejm, attend-ed by nine members of the Parlia-ment, along with other financial/eco-nomic experts.

‘New Bretton Woods’ Seminars Held in Warsaw

LaRouches Mobilize in Italy For a ‘New Bretton Woods’

machine-tool industry (including theability to develop their own), to China,India, and the rest of the South Asia. Weneed a global partnership, includingGermany and Russia, and others, todevelop the machine-tool capacity in thismost populous, Asian region of theworld.

LaRouche then described how theEurasian Land-Bridge, a concept hehelped develop, would provide the pro-jects that would revolutionize theeconomies of Asia and Africa, and cre-ate projects equivalent to a mobilizationfor general warfare, but for develop-ment instead.

European organizing for a ‘New Bretton Woods System.’ Helga Zepp LaRoucheaddresses seminar in Stuttgart, Germany, March 20, 1998.

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