Act Now To Seize the Opportunity
Created by This Election!
EIR’s Tony Papert interviewed Helga Zepp-LaRouche on Nov. 13.
[Print version of this interview]
EIR: Helga Zepp-LaRouche has long been on the international stage. She’s the founder of the international Schiller Institute, a prestigious and influential international think tank. She’s the leader of a German political party called Civil Rights Movement Solidarity. And she’s known in China as the “Silk Road Lady” as an outcome of her and her husband Lyndon LaRouche’s pioneering back in the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, of the concept of the Eurasian Land-Bridge, which is now embodied in the Chinese government’s policy called “One Belt, One Road,” involving more than 100 countries internationally.
 Helga Zepp-LaRouche
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Helga, as a leader of Germany and also an international leader, what does Donald Trump’s election last Tuesday mean for the world?
Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Well, I think the single most important effect is that it interrupted a very dangerously advanced drive towards World War III. If Hillary had been elected and become the new President, and followed through on what she said her policy on Syria would be—the no-fly zone, the anti-Russia, anti-China positions—an escalation to global thermonuclear war would have been almost certain. And that has been absolutely interrupted—not completely eliminated, because now the changes which have been created through this interruption have to be used. But look at the reactions of President Putin and many other influential people in Russia who all have expressed great hope that a real reset of Russian-U.S. relations would be possible. Putin stressed that he doesn’t think it will be an easy task, given the fact that the U.S.-Russian relations have reached such an absolute low-point, but that it can be done. Without the restoration of the relationship between the United States and Russia and the United States and China, no other policy around the globe can function.
Therefore, I think that is the single most important outcome of this election. I think what has to occur now, is that all of the axioms associated with globalization, such as the new liberal monetary policies; the “right to protect,” i.e. interference under the pretext of humanitarian interventions around the globe; the export of “democracy,” and similar things; all of that has to stop. It has to be replaced by a completely new set of international relations. Models for that already exist in approximation. For example, China’s President Xi Jinping has proposed for the past three years, especially to the United States, a new model for the relations among great powers, based on total respect for the sovereignty of the other nation; non-interference; respect for the different social system of the other country; and “win-win” cooperation for the mutual benefit of all. So, that is one starting point; and I think the principles of the UN Charter also have to be completely reinstated and revived.
EIR: It’s been remarkable to me, how some of the German responses to this election have been very unique and far-sighted; at least compared to anything else I’ve heard from the U.S. or from elsewhere in the world. I know you’ve discussed the same thing in more depth. Would you like to say anything about it?
Zepp-LaRouche: Unfortunately, that has not been the reaction of all Germans. You had, for example, the noteworthy reaction of German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen, who the morning after the election said she was totally shocked about the outcome—and this is the typical reaction for those people belonging to the establishment who have completely missed the significance of an earlier anti-establishment vote in the form of the Brexit in Great Britain, and now in the form of the Trump victory in the United States,—who have completely missed the point. Who are both completely out of reality and have no empathy for the victims of their own neo-liberal imperial policies. But as you said, that was not the only reaction in Germany, but I just want to state for the record that that reaction is also there.
However, there were many other people, like the former chief of the Bundeswehr and high-ranking NATO official Harald Kujat, who stressed the absolute importance of restoring the U.S.-Russia relations. Then you have, remarkably, even in Spiegel which is a mainstream media,—but even there, you had a remarkable article saying that the only possible reaction in Germany and in Europe should be—in order not to repeat the mistakes of the 1930s, which led to the rise of Hitler, Mussolini, and so forth—would be that Germany at this point, and Europe, should go for an FDR solution, a New Deal. Then he elaborated the three phases of the New Deal—how Roosevelt got the United States out of the Depression. Now, that is excellent and that is exactly what should be done. I think that is the kind of discussion which is also very productive for the United States.
 Library of Congress
Construction work at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Douglas Dam, 1942.
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EIR: Since the election, your husband Lyndon LaRouche has referred several times to Germany’s essential role in the new international system which has to be created, encompassing the World Land-Bridge program of China, also joined by Russia and India and major countries in Eurasia. I wondered if you could talk to us about the role of Germany in the new world system which has to be created in the present and the future.
Zepp-LaRouche: Well, the fortunate news is that this new world system is already in existence; even if it has not been covered by the mainstream media. In the last three years, since President Xi Jinping announced the New Silk Road and Maritime Silk Road of the 21st Century, the largest infrastructure program in the history of the world has already become a reality. It is already 12 times bigger in today’s buying power than the Marshall Plan was. Already it involves 4.4 billion people; it involves 100 nations and large organizations; it involves huge corridors, power grids, nuclear cooperation, high-tech cooperation, among all of these nations. It involves a whole, completely new parallel financial system, which is completely devoted to investment in the real economy and not to casino speculation.
 German high-speed rail: The first generation Intercity Express trains criss-cross the country, much like the TGV in France.
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So that system is already a reality; and Germany, obviously, with its specific characteristics of having a very highly developed Mittelstand (medium and small industry), where 85% of the patents are still being generated, has exactly the kind of machine-tool design capability and scientific and engineering knowledge, which is exactly what is needed for the reconstruction of the world economy. The German Development Minister, Gerd Müller, just announced that in the coming weeks, Germany will announce a Marshall Plan for Africa,— although the sum of 1 billion euro being mentioned is actually much to small. But I have proposed for a very long time that Germany and China should work together in the development of the African continent. Extend the Silk Road to Africa; and in that way create the only solution for the still-horrendous refugee crisis. I think if Mr. Trump really wants to quiet all the critics of his policy, the best way would be if he embarked—together with Russia and China, and Germany and other European countries—to reconstruct the war-torn regions of the Middle East. I think that that would really put the world on a completely different trajectory, and would really change the world for the better right away.
 YouTube/DW
German Development Minister Gerd Müller at South Sudan refugee camp.
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EIR: Lyndon LaRouche has recently insisted on what he calls the increase of physical productivity as the touchstone for world and U.S. policy, and he’s also said it’s a difficult issue for many to understand. For instance, he said it’s a difficult concept for U.S. Congressmen to understand. In the context of our discussion, I wonder if you could help our readers increase their understanding of the concept of the increase of physical productivity as the required direction of the economy?
Zepp-LaRouche: Fortunately, the free-trade agreements, the TPP and TTIP, are completely dead; and that’s a good thing, because free trade does absolutely nothing to increase the productivity of the labor force. It’s based on the monetarist conception of buying cheap and selling dear; it’s based on the out-sourcing of cheap labor to slave labor markets, and it is exactly what strangles the increase of productivity by cementing the conditions of maximum profit at the expense of the labor force. On the other side, if one looks at those models of economy which always were the basis of the increase of the wealth of the population,—what Friedrich List, the German economist, characterized as the American System of economy, which he contrasted with the English system of economy—there the correct assumption is that the only source of wealth is the creativity of the population. This creativity, which takes the form of scientific and technological discoveries, is transformed into technological progress which, if applied in the production process, then leads to an increase of productivity of both the labor force and the industrial capacity. That is the only source of true wealth.
 German-American economist Friedrich List
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 Wilhelm von Kardorff in 1903
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Now, that model of economy was the basis not only for Alexander Hamilton and the creation of the United States; it was the basis for Lincoln’s economic measures like the greenback policy; and it was exactly the policy of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal. Many people don’t know that it also was the basis of the transformation of Germany from a feudal state during the time of Bismarck into an industrial powerhouse, when that same Listian system was applied, and also the ideas of the economic advisor of Lincoln—Henry C. Carey—were made known in Germany, and caused Bismarck to change to go in this direction. There is a beautiful little book which I want to emphasize, which was written by a friend of Bismarck, Wilhelm von Kardorff. The title is Against the Stream—Gegen den Strom, where he describes in the clearest terms the difference between the non-functioning free-market/free-trade model, and the model of the American System of economy. I would really advise people to re-read these basic writings.
EIR: And my final question is—it seems to me, and you have more in-depth knowledge of it—that the history of German culture in the broad sense from Nicholas of Cusa and J.S. Bach, is central to Germany’s role in solving the problems of humanity as a whole. It’s something you’ve been occupied with for decades—I wonder if it’s something you want to address in conclusion?
Zepp-LaRouche: Germany used to be called in the past the country of poets, philosophers, and inventors. Unfortunately, that very rich tradition has been replaced for the most part by the axioms of globalization and every distortion of knowledge which goes along with that. But fortunately, this tradition can be rediscovered; there can be a renaissance of the ideas associated in science with Nicholas of Cusa, Kepler, Leibniz, Riemann, and Einstein. In music, the Classical tradition of Bach, Beethoven, Schumann, and if I may include the Austrian composers Mozart and Schubert, and also naturally Brahms, who have long ceased to be German, but have become part of world Classical music. And in poetry and drama, the tradition of Lessing, Mendelssohn, Schiller,—and I would like to add the brothers Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt, who had an image of man which was really the most noble humanist conception. The idea that every human being can become and develop a beautiful character. Schiller said that every human being can become a beautiful soul; and he defined only the person who has that characteristic to be a genius. So, with the Wilhelm von Humboldt education system, the idea that every human being can become a genius is exactly what is in reach if we reach this new epoch of mankind, which is already on the horizon.
EIR: Terrific, wonderful! Great talking to you.
