LAROUCHE IN MONTERREY, MEXICO
Out with Malthusian Ideas;
Let's Develop the Planet!
by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.
[PDF version of this presentation and dialogue which followed]
On April 18, U.S. statesman Lyndon LaRouche returned to Monterrey, Mexico, where he addressed 240 people, among them, 200 students, at one of the country's most elite universities, the Monterrey Institute for Technological and Higher Studies (ITESM), where he has spoken twice before. He was hosted by the student associations of both the International Relations and the Economics Departments.
Here is the transcript of LaRouche's opening remarks followed by a question-and-answer session. The Spanish-language questions are paraphrased. Subheads have been added.
Thank you all for this kind reception. On the 25th of this past year's July, I presented an international webcast from Washington, D.C., announcing the impending—within a matter of days—breakdown of the international financial system, which would continue to worsen, until either a remedy had been supplied, or the system would disintegrate. At that time, when I gave the presentation, I had already engaged in a discussion with certain relevant leading circles inside the United States, as elsewhere, and I had presented the first of my three steps of action, required to deal with managing this crisis.
The first one was a very simple proposal, but it's one which every competent economist should recognize, though many politicians would be unwilling to do it. Because in economics, many times you have to make a decision which politicians are afraid to take on. And I specialize in that kind of activity, of doing things that politicians shudder at, because it's necessary.
What I proposed is simply that the effect of the crash would hit hard in the real estate mortgage area, and it would be general and international. Therefore, we had two things to worry about: a general breakdown of the financial system based on a collapse of mortgages; and secondly, a collapse of the banking system, particularly one section of the banking system, the most important section, which is what we call in the United States, the chartered banking system—chartered by the Federal government or by state governments. These are the types of banks which are not speculative banks as such, but engage in deposits and in loans; and which are an essential vehicle for the Federal government in conduiting Federal issue of currency, as credit, through the banking system for governmental and private use.
And therefore, my first concern was that the system not be allowed to disintegrate. And the first thing to do is to make sure the citizens stayed in their homes, even if the mortgage was technically in default; and that the banks which were in the same communities, the chartered banks, should continue to function in a more or less normal way, in all ordinary kinds of business. Now, that doesn't solve the problem, but that's a measure which we call a "firewall," the type of firewall you create to stop a forest fire from spreading. The main thing is to prevent a chain-reaction, in which the essential normal functions of society are not disrupted by a financial crisis. That means people stay in their homes, communities continue to function, and the banking systems which are essential to the function of these communities continue to conduct their regular business in a normal way. Abnormal business may be suspended, but the normal functions must continue.
This proposal became my draft legislation for Federal legislation in the year 2007. And it was called the Homeowners and Bank Protection Act of 2007. Since that time, this legislation, which was approved of by many of my friends in the financial community, banking community, and so forth, has been resisted by the Bush government and by other circles internationally. It still remains necessary. In the recent period, we have 80 cases, and probably going to 100 very rapidly, of local parts of the United States electorate which have voted locally for the Federal government to adopt this legislation, which would mean: The Federal government puts the entire system, the mortgage system and the chartered banking system, under Federal bankruptcy protection, so that it is able to perform all essential, normal functions, during the period we're working out the mess, and getting rid of it.
The second measure, which I proposed later, because I thought the first measure was the most urgent to be put into effect, because social stability, and stability of local banking functions, is the most essential part in any economy in a crisis: Can people live more or less normal lives, with a sense of security, despite the fact that a terrible crisis has struck? The first obligation, and the power of government, the power of bankruptcy, that is, protective bankruptcy—is to put something under bankruptcy protection, where the creditors can not foreclose; that's the first step for social stability and economic stability.
Now, the second step is a little more complicated, and therefore, I put it in a little bit later, because I was concerned with the first step, first. The second one, was a regulation of interest rates. Now, contrary to what's being done now in various parts of the world, which I consider insane, what you do, is, you want to fix the interest rates, such that you keep the basic interest rate on certain kinds of transactions, of creation of credit, to between 1 and 2% rate of interest, simple interest. Because you want to keep the rate of creating wealth, capital, for circulation in the economy—you want to keep it within a range which is not inflationary, under which the people who need to borrow, can afford to borrow. At 1-2% simple interest, you have a large category of people. During the 1930s, for example, the United States was operating largely on the acceptance of 1-2% Federal rate, discount rate. And you want a discount rate, which means that you can generally provide stimulus to useful parts of the economy, to begin to get some growth, as well as maintaining essential structure.
But, on the other hand, I said, for the other things which are not worthy of protection, let the interest rate float as high as it has to do so.
Because, the character of a bankruptcy of the type we face today, is that the obligations which are outstanding far exceed the value of assets. There is no way that you could pay off the debts at such levels, at full value, or even try to do so. A lot of things are going to have to die, and be wiped out, financially. Like parasitical things that are going on now, internationally. You must protect essential industry, essential production, essential functions in society. And you must rebuild, and you must create a solid foundation on which to rebuild.
So that means, an interest rate between 1 and 2%, under Federal, protected categories of credit generation, available for all legally indicated priorities. You manage it, for example—under this system, you would put the Federal Reserve System of the United States into receivership, as a bankrupt, private institution created by the Federal government. The Federal Reserve System would still function, and stand there, but it would be under direction of the U.S. Treasury Department. And credit would be created not by the Federal Reserve System; it would be created by the Federal government through an act of Congress. And this credit, thus created, would go through the so-called Federal Reserve channels, to purposes and places indicated by legislation or by government regulation.
And that's what's required in such a situation.
Shut Down the WTO!
Now: We have not a U.S. crisis. We never had a U.S. crisis as such. What blew up, in the Summer of 2007, was the entire international financial-monetary system. The system is now dead—or should be dead.
Now, that does not mean you're going to collapse everything. That means, that if you don't take action of the appropriate kind, everything will collapse anyway! So therefore, you take action to prevent collapse, and therefore, you have to create credit, to stimulate those aspects of the economy and social life, which are essential to stability and growth, and you let a lot of other things which are wasteful die, because you can't afford to pay for them.
That's what you do in any bankruptcy. If a firm goes bankrupt, and it's a firm you need to keep alive, what do you do? That firm is important to the community, it performs an essential function; you can't let it die. So you put it in bankruptcy reorganization. You determine which elements of the entity are viable and necessary, which must be protected, and you define the things that are not worth being protected—and you make a distinction. And you go through a process of securing that which is essential, for continued operations, and you freeze or cancel obligations which are not worth defending. Then you have the hulk left, which is functional, and you try to rebuild.
This is what you do in a private bankruptcy, in general. Put it through bankruptcy reorganization: You must save the valuable part of the entity, for the public benefit. You're not just talking about the individual benefit. You're talking about public benefit: the benefit of society, the benefit of social stability, the benefit of growth, the benefit of essential functions provided, for example, by a private entrepreneur. You must protect those: without them, your society will suffer.
So therefore, the Federal government in the case of the United States intervenes, through various channels and mechanisms, to ensure the things that are essential, essential firms, essential functions, continue to perform those functions. And you stick to that.
The whole system is bankrupt now. You will see a phase at present: The current phase has been going through a collapse phase, ever since the collapse actually started in the mortgage sector in England and in the United States, started at the end of July 2007, a few days after I delivered my message, hmm? What has gone, and what is going, is the entire international financial-monetary system of the world! And more and more, as the months have passed, you see more and more evidence of precisely that.
You see the most recent step is the food crisis. Because of policies of organizations, such as the WTO [World Trade Organization], which I would recommend be buried as soon as possible. Because of the WTO policies on food, for example, we now have a food crisis. It is a threat of mass death, through starvation, through lack of food: because somebody had the smart idea of having a free-trade market for the world in food, and prohibiting certain countries from developing their food production potential, shutting them down, in order to have what was considered "a manageable system." This became known as the World Trade Organization, which is a kind of cancer, which I suggest be excised, as soon as possible—and is in the process of being excised.
What's happened in the most recent period, is you've seen a number of governments, including India and other governments, have taken actions, because of a food shortage, to protect their people and their food supply, against a collapse—worldwide, inflationary collapse of food supplies. Inflationary in the sense that the price of food is soaring. You may have noticed this in various localities.
Each day, each week, whole strata of the world's population, especially in certain countries, are going into a starvation mode, because their income does not permit them to buy food at rising prices, or, in some cases, the supply of food does not exist at any price. So therefore, countries have taken actions to destroy the WTO. There has been no standard procedure, for shutting down the WTO, the World Trade Organization, but there is step-by-step action by countries, which amounts to the same thing.
It also means, the World Wildlife Fund is going to be shut down, sooner or later. Because its policies are those which require—if carried out—an increase in starvation and mass death, especially in the poorest countries in the world, but in many others as well.
So therefore, we need to create a stabilization against a galloping rate of increase of price inflation, not only in food commodities, but in other essential commodities worldwide. The rate of inflation is going to accelerate. It is not going to increase, it's going to accelerate. And countries are already taking measures, desperate measures, to protect their food supply against the shortage of food, and against this crisis.
So, how do we deal with this kind of problem? First of all, there's a shortage of production, there's a shortage of production of food, largely because of WTO and related policies—that's the immediate cause. Therefore, what are we going to do? We've got to get production increased, we must increase production of food. We must ensure there are reliable and stable food supplies in various countries which are now endangered. We can not have food wars.
We Need a New Bretton Woods
We must act: We have to create a new international financial-monetary system. We have to get back to something which was like that which was destroyed in 1971-72, under the U.S. Nixon Administration. Now, there were two things that happened in the early 1970s, which are largely responsible for the greatest amount of the chaos which is developing in the world today, economic and financial chaos. Number 1: Richard Nixon, the President of the United States, under pressure from the same George Shultz whose wisdom put Pinochet in power in Chile—that this President, one day, on a Sunday, cancelled, at the urging of George Shultz—the Roosevelt-created Bretton Woods system.
Now, this was something I had forecast, because I saw it coming. It was a matter of choice, but I saw the choice coming. I saw it coming from about a decade before then. It was inevitable: We were moving in a direction, particularly after the assassination of John Kennedy—we were moving in a direction, accelerated by the war in Vietnam—toward exactly that kind of a decision. That is, the people in power would make that kind of decision, because their perception of policy-interest would impel them to do so. It was not necessary to do that, but their perception of policy interest said, "We're going to do it." And they did it!
Now this was followed by a breakdown of the Bretton Woods system internationally, in a conference the following year, beginning January. This was led, on the United States' side, by George Shultz.
But then, a second thing happened: You had, in the early 1970s, a great artificial petroleum shortage—at a point that the oceans and the port areas of the world were flooded with tankers which were glutted with oil—there was a declared oil shortage. The great oil shortage of the early 1970s.
There was no reason for it! There was no oil shortage! The world was flooded with tankers with oil, which were sitting just offshore, ready to be delivered, but not being unloaded! What this did, and it was an operation between the United Kingdom and the Saudi Arabian Kingdom, which led to the formation of an organization later called BAE; this organization, by creating an artificial oil shortage, created a phenomenon which is called the spot market, the international spot market. This placed the power over a great part of the petroleum production marketed on a world scale, in the hands of a group based in Amsterdam, financially: the spot market.
As a result of this combination, the floating of the U.S. dollar, by President Nixon, and the spot market, the security of the U.S. dollar was no longer based on the value of the U.S. dollar, but it was based on the fluctuating value of petroleum. Because we had created an economy which was dependent upon petroleum, integrally. We had destroyed, for example, the rail system in the United States, and things like that, pretty much. So we had destroyed things. We now became more and more dependent upon the automobiles. We began to destroy communities in order to have automobiles. You would fill up areas with highways, loaded with trucks and cars, with high travel times, and you destroyed the rail system.
For example, in Mexico, there's no rail system, that should exist between the U.S. border and Mexico City—none! And that's essential! Why not? Because world policy said, Mexico should not be allowed to have a rail system. And every time Mexico would threaten to do something like that, some strange intervention would occur, and it wouldn't be done.
Maritime Cultures and the Emergence of Science
Let me take it back, on history, a bit: The history of European civilization and beyond, since before the Roman times, since about the 7th Century B.C., has been based on the role of international maritime transport as the basis for the development of civilization. First of all, you could move all over the world, because we had fairly good maritime systems in those times. Our calendars came from maritime systems: How do you get around the world long distance, when there's ice sitting on top of the Northern Hemisphere? Hundreds of feet of ice? How do you travel? Well, you go from one part of the world to the other by maritime transoceanic navigation. And you go, in one season to another season, and you go up to thousands of miles. And that was being done, not by individual ships, but by flotillas of ships, which were migrating over hundreds of thousands of miles of this kind of thing.
So the development of civilization, that we call "modern civilization," or its ancient expression, as in the times of the ancient Greeks, we developed, out of these large-scale maritime navigations, which found their way by celestial navigation. And studied things, such as the changes in the characteristics of certain planetary actions, and so forth, and thus developed what became modern astronomy. And this was the basis for producing calendars, which are based on the study of the characteristic changes in the stellar system, as a result of this evolution of the stellar system over all these years, as these maritime cultures were, during the Ice Age, migrating back and forth from one place to the other.
So out of this came the idea of science. Because, the idea of science comes from the sky; it comes from mankind's observation of stellar changes, which in those days were relevant, particularly, to seasonal changes, and also to changes in the stellar configuration of those periods.
So then, civilization as we know it, or European civilization, developed out of maritime cultures. You had much migration between Europe and the Caribbean, during that period, from Mexico, back and forth, as you find evidence in certain places in Mexico that this kind of civilization existed, a maritime culture. And in those times, people could travel by the kind of boats which were used between Europe and the Caribbean, in about the same time it took Columbus to make his first voyage, to the Caribbean area.
So, in ancient times, there were large maritime cultures.
Now, as the glaciers melted, especially from about the time the seawater got into the Black Sea, from that time, you had the emergence of more and more landed areas. The settling was largely on coastal areas, or up large rivers, and some distance up the large rivers. But the dominant culture, the highest level of cultural development, was located in maritime culture. In about the 7th Century B.C., you had the Etruscans and the Egyptians, and the Ionians, formed an alliance against the Tyre which was dominating the Mediterranean, and out of this came the emergence of European civilization, out of what we sometimes call "Ancient Greek culture," but it's much more complicated than that.
So now, we began to move inland, gradually, as the glaciers melted. But over the long periods of time, the inland area was less developed, because it was less accessible, less efficiently accessible, than by maritime, by ship.
So we moved inland.
Opening Up the Inland Areas
Now, the great advancement on this came with Charlemagne. Charlemagne developed a system of inland waterways, which was finally completed (but designed already by Charlemagne) just a couple of decades ago, in linking the Danube with the Rhine, for the first time, in a direct communication way.
But this idea of the inland waterway, which we associate with Charlemagne and his program, had a sequel: The sequel is called the transcontinental railway system, which became first effective in the United States, under the influence of people like Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, who founded this process. The idea for the United States was to have a continental nation: That is, as Quincy Adams defined it when he was Secretary of State, between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, between the Canadian border and the Mexican border. And that this territory, from Atlantic to Pacific, reaching out toward solidarity with people on the other side of the Pacific, was to be the intended long-term policy of the United States.
As a result of this—and this coincided with the first development of significant railroads in the United States and in the state of Pennsylvania—this corresponded to the later development in the time of Abraham Lincoln, of the transcontinental railway system. And the power of the United States was based on this transcontinental railway system. We developed the entire territory, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Canadian to the Mexican border, and across into the Pacific. And in the time of Lincoln, and following Lincoln, by about 1876, we had developed the United States as the most powerful single national economy in the world.
This was then imitated in Europe. It was imitated, for example, in Bismarck's Germany. It was imitated in Russia, under Mendeleyev. And so, now you had the great so-called geopolitical war, between the British Empire, and the landed nations of Europe and North America. You had the attempt to destroy China, which had the same—Sun Yat-sen had the same policy for China, a railroad connection to develop China as a total territory—which has not been done to the present day, even though the present Chinese government has been moving in that direction.
So therefore, the problem we face here, is, we've developed a conflict around what became the British Empire, and the chief opponent to the British Empire, which is also an English-speaking nation, the United States. And the great conflict on this planet, since the formation of the United States, but especially since 1876, since the Lincoln victory over the Confederacy, has been two English-speaking powers: The continental United States and the British Empire have been in conflict over this; and this is what's called "geopolitics," or the geopolitical wars, which were launched, actually from the time that Bismarck was kicked out as Chancellor of Germany, by the nephew of Kaiser Wilhelm II.
And since that time, we've been engaged in wars, wars over development: Shall the inland areas be developed, or shall only the maritime powers dominate the world, through control over the oceans and seas?
There Is No Need for This Depression
So you have a problem: the tendency of those who try to dominate the planet, rely upon trying to stupefy the majority of the population, in the way which you can read in, for example, in the middle section of Aeschylus' Prometheus Trilogy, the Prometheus Bound. The policy has been to have most people become stupefied, to imitate monkeys in a sense, or baboons, or chimpanzees. That people should do work, for a ruling oligarchy, which preferably bases itself on maritime power, control of the oceans. And that people should not develop scientific knowledge, nor apply it. They should stick to what are called "traditional ways," and be stupefied, and not change too much from generation to generation. That was a characteristic of the Roman Empire. That was the characteristic of most empires, to keep the majority of most people stupid, to keep the economies backward.
So therefore, we get into a system, where there is no good reason why mankind should have great depressions, or wars of the type we've had since 1890—no need for this: except the desire to suppress development in various parts of the world, to the advantage of one particular or another oligarchical interest.
And that's the reason why we have this financial crisis, today. There was no need for this depression. There was no need for this crisis. The policy which the United States established, as of the time of the death of Franklin Roosevelt, was the following—and go back to 1944 to get to the root of this: In 1944, Franklin Roosevelt, as President of the United States, organized what became known as the Bretton Woods conference. He did not actually attend the conference, but he organized it. This conference had a great conflict between Roosevelt and Churchill's Britain. The British policy was defined by John Maynard Keynes. Roosevelt's policy was, that never again shall this planet be dominated by an imperial power. The policy of the United States would be, at the end of the war, to free those nations which had been colonized or semi-colonized, and to promote their development. Because we had developed during the wartime—we had developed a powerful military-industrial complex. It was this military-industrial complex of the United States which enabled the victory over Hitler and company.
Roosevelt's policy was, "Let's take this great industrial potential, this great agro-industrial potential. Let's mobilize this, convert it to peaceful uses, and let us liberate the colonial peoples of the world, and similarly oppressed people, and develop a system of nation-states, free of empires or colonial systems, with the sponsorship of the United States." For this Roosevelt made certain alliances at the end of the war, and the United Nations Organization was created with the intention of freeing nations which had been colonized, for freedom. Using U.S. technology, the conversion of the war matériel potential, to a peaceful use for the development of these nations of people who had been poor. And you see what has happened since.
Truman had the opposite policy. Truman was the enemy of Roosevelt, actually. Because there was a right-wing turn after the breakthrough at Normandy in the war there. And at that point, people who had supported Roosevelt in the common warfare against Hitler, suddenly became right-wingers again. And the right-winger in the United States, Sen. Harry Truman, was forced upon Roosevelt as the Vice Presidential nominee. And then Franklin Roosevelt up and died on us, in the Spring of that year. And therefore, at that point, Truman came in and ganged up with Churchill and company, to defend the colonial system. And the world has been corrupted by the defense of colonial systems and semi-colonial systems throughout the world since. There was no need for any of this.
So the crisis we face today, the economic crisis, is the result of the effects of the continuation of the pro-colonial policy which was embedded in the policy of John Maynard Keynes, against whom Roosevelt fought, in the Bretton Woods conference.
The Policy for Africa Is Genocide
Now, what this means, in talking about answers to questions, is that our job should be, today, recognizing that we have a world crisis, a world crisis largely based on underdevelopment and anti-development: the Malthusian policy of suppressing technological progress; the Malthusian policy of preventing nuclear power from being developed and applied.
These policies and similar policies, like the policy for Africa: The U.S. and British policy for Africa is genocide, since 1974: The policy is, stated: "One of the largest sources of raw materials in the world today is Africa. Now, if the African people develop as free nations, if they develop technology, they're going to use up some of these raw materials! Which we have reserved for our future consumption! Therefore, according to NSSM-200, of 1974, U.S. and British policy was to suppress actual development of Africa, in order to make sure that the raw materials of Africa, which are considerable, are not consumed by the natives of Africa! And therefore, we'll keep them down on the farm, and dumb and starving, and not to grow too much in population.
The problems that we have in South America, the problems, the pressures on Mexico, are of the same nature. Mexico had, for example, in 1975, and on into 1982, Mexico had a potential for great development! There was a plan for ten nuclear power plants! There was a plan to open up the coastal areas of Mexico, which are not too habitable, because of temperature problems. And if you could develop air conditioning and artificial development, you could use that territory. You could build railroads from the U.S. border, down to Mexico City, and the whole area, like the area between the two Sierra Madres, would open up for development. Wasn't done! Because of U.S. and other pressure: To tell Mexico to "stay in its place" and be a poor man's country.
And you see what's happened to the Mexican population, as a result of these kinds of policy. You can find similar things throughout South America, as well as Africa. This is the problem.
So, what we have done, is by destroying the growth of the potential productive powers of labor, per capita and per square kilometer, and by depleting—as we normally deplete in a technologically stagnant economy—by depleting the resources that exist, we create the physical conditions for a financial collapse. And that's what we're in today.
Go Back to Roosevelt
So therefore, my policy is, go back to Roosevelt. Because Roosevelt's intention was not peculiar to him: Roosevelt's intention was a calculated application of an understanding of the crisis of civilization. We have a planet, which does not actually believe in practice, in the equality of human beings. It does not believe in the right of human beings to develop, the right to scientific and technological progress, the right to health care, all these kinds of things. And that's the problem.
If we promote scientific progress, as we could, and some of us try to do all the time, there would be no need for this problem. This problem is the attempt to maintain a certain kind of imperial system, in which certain financier forces control the entire planet. And the planet is not developed, so raw materials are conserved for future use by a privileged few. And the population of the planet is not allowed to get too large. As a matter of fact, it will be reduced.
Now, this is the problem. And this is what I've been fighting about for a long time, after all, I'm a World War II veteran; I've been a follower, in a sense, of Franklin Roosevelt, ever since my military service. Many of us in the United States, unfortunately not too many, have understood that: We are Americans. And that means not only in the United States, that means that we are concerned about the entire Hemisphere. That all of the nations on this planet, the nations particularly that we share in the Americas, have a common destiny and a common interest. And that is not merely to be at peace with one another, but to have the kind of development which promotes peace and well-being in cooperation.
And that, we have violated.
The time has come, that we must change. We must respond to a certain understanding—just let me indicate from a scientific standpoint what some of those problems are.
Vernadsky: The Principle of Life
Since early in this century, the past century—I keep forgetting, I was born in the last century, and here I am in this one—that since that time, we've understood that the nature of the universe is somewhat different than we thought it was during the 19th Century. This understanding came largely from the work of especially one person, V.I. Vernadsky, the great Russian biochemist, who established the existence, for the first time, of two concepts in the universe, which had not been understood until that time. This discovery was sort of completed about the 1930s, by him, about 1936.
He demonstrated that we have three layers: the outer layer of the planet Earth; we have an underlying layer associated with the Periodic Table, which are what we call the elements and isotopes of the Periodic Table. We think of those things as being the building blocks of everything on the planet, but they're not. Because you have, in addition to the so-called non-living processes on the planet, you have a growing mass, relatively speaking, of products of living processes. Living processes and their products.
Now, the weight of living processes and their products is constantly increasing, such that we find there's another principle: That life itself does not come from non-living material. Life itself is a principle. And this life takes over the planet, more and more, so that living processes, and their products and byproducts, become an increasing part of the total mass of our planet.
And then, Vernadsky made another discovery, which is sometimes wrongly understood. But, in addition to that, he adopted a term from France, called the "Noösphere": That in addition to that, we find that the mass of the planet is also increasing, on the surface, is increasing as a result of human life and human mental activity, in a way which is beyond the activity of merely living processes. It's called the Noösphere. This is getting bigger all the time.
Now, what this demonstrates is that, in addition to the so-called "normal" physical conception, physical-chemical conception of the universe, you have two other principles in the universe, apart from the abiotic principle. One, is life as such. Another principle, which is efficient physically, in changing the composition of our planet, is not just life, but it's human life. The creative powers of the human mind are absolutely distinct from those of any other form of life. Human creativity is not simply a biological product: It's something higher. Mankind is not an animal. Mankind has an animal body, which doesn't stay around too long. But the mind of mankind, mankind's discoveries, improvements in mankind's mastery of the universe, live on. The great scientists, the great artists of humanity, tend to live on through their ideas, as being replicated by those who follow them. The idea lives on. The animal body dies. The soul lives on, the mind lives on, as expressed in the products of its work of the living human being.
And thus, when we plan society, we have to get rid of all Malthusian and similar ideas. Yes, mankind as we live, we use up certain resources. Ah! But with the mind of man, and discoveries, and through technological and similar breakthroughs, we're able to increase man's power, so that this growth does not result in a necessary decline in society. In other words: The Malthusians are wrong. The Malthusians are the curse of society.
Through scientific and technological progress, through discoveries of principle and their application, we increase man's power to live in this universe. Not only on this planet, but we're destined to reach out to other parts of the universe, as we develop.
And therefore, there is no reason to ever have an economic depression, a physical economic depression—none! If we develop the minds of our people, especially the creative powers of our people, and if we utilize their creative contributions, and stimulate those contributions, there's never a reason to have a physical depression on this planet. And that's what we have to come to understand.
We're now at a point, that I can guarantee you—and some people will argue against it, but they just don't know the problem: If we do not make the changes, of the type I've indicated, with the three steps I indicated as remedies, this planet is now doomed, to plunge into a prolonged dark age, in which, within some reasonable period of time, the total population of the planet will be reduced from over 6@c4 billion people to less than 1 billion, in which many languages, many cultures, will die out.
So, we have a choice: Either we say, "to end with Malthusianism, to end with these kinds of policies which have governed us too long; to go back to Roosevelt and forget Keynes and forget Truman. And develop the planet so we can handle the problems of humanity, there is no reason for any Malthusian ideas. There is no necessary reason to have the kind of Great Depression which is hitting the planet today. And if we do not change our policy, this planet will not be fit to live on."
And therefore you who are younger, those of you who are about to take over the next 50 years of this planet, because you are younger—at university age, you've got 50 years before you, approximately, today; 50 years in which to change the planet, through the use of the creative powers of your mind. You can change the planet, not merely to make it better, but to make it more habitable, to make it a place where more people can live, and where the beauties of the accomplishments in art and so forth of mankind of the past, are not lost. Where we affirm the immortality of the human soul, as distinct from that of the beast, and act accordingly.
Thank you.
