Using the Vernadsky Principle
To Save the World Economy
by Nancy Spannaus
To those policymakers and statesmen not deluded by the self-consoling press releases and fraudulent statistical reports put out by economic "experts" in the Bush Administration, and in the main international financial institutions, the current condition of the world financial system has reached the stage of "red alert." Even public statements about the unsustainability of the United States' current account deficit and budget deficit, such as that given by former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin at a London banking conference on Feb. 4, are sufficient to push a panic button for the banking community. Under these conditions, discussion of abandoning the floating-exchange-rate system which replaced the Bretton Woods arrangement back in 1971, has begun to surface.
Such recognition of the bankruptcy of the financial system, not to mention the horrendous real conditions of life for a vast majority of the world's population, clearly puts on the table the proposals for global financial reorganization, bankruptcy reorganization, which have been put forward by economist Lyndon LaRouche under the name "A New Bretton Woods." Global fascist alternatives, such as synarchist banker Robert Mundell's proposal for a new global currency, are also getting increased attention.
But, as Lyndon LaRouche pointed out at the Jan. 12-13, 2005 seminar sponsored by EIR in Berlin, there is no way in which the programs necessary for reviving the world economy and financial system can be put into effect, unless there is a breakthrough on the question of what he called the Vernadsky principle, which principle forms a crucial component of LaRouche's own approach to saving the world's population from a collapse that will lead into a New Dark Age.
An Economy Based on Ideas
LaRouche's own unique discoveries in the science of physical economy have built upon a succession of scientific breakthroughs by geniuses such as Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Bernhard Riemann, and have been further enriched by his study of the work of biogeochemist Vladimir Vernadsky. Over the last decade, in particular, LaRouche has emphasized the importance of Vernadsky's work, especially as it bears on the questions of man's relationship to nature, and the management/creation of raw materials for human sustenance, and the crucial role which Russian scientists trained in the Vernadsky method have to play in solving problems with raw materials.
One of the key Vernadskyian concepts LaRouche has stressed is that of noösphere, which can be roughly defined as the biosphere as improved and developed by human cognition. Vernadsky defines the Earth, in which living processes transform non-living ones, and cognitive processes transform living processes, as an envelope (sphere) dominated by nous (mind).
As LaRouche put it in Berlin, "We must take the fact, that we're at a boundary condition: The planet is being strained by a lack of development. We have population growing, but a lack of development. Our friends in Russia, from institutions such as the Academy, the Geological Museum, Vernadsky Museum, represent a repository of people, who have experience with the Asian aspect, and other aspects, of the problem of managing raw materials, mineral raw materials, for the future of this planet. Russia is a key part of the Russia-India-China partnership for Asia. Russia is a partner, with Western Europe, in these enterprises."
Yet, as LaRouche developed the point in discussion later, while Russian scientists have grounding in the Vernadsky method, which is an anti-reductionist method, they have also been subjected to the severely empiricist Communist regime, which often makes them not realize what they know. These scientists have to go back and look at Vernadsky, from the standpoint of LaRouche. To quote LaRouche:
"So, the key thing here, we need a society which is based on ideas. We have to use the challenges, such as China's challenge to the world by its development; the challenge to Russia, of finding the role to play in respect to China and other countries, on this issue, which is a global issue. And realize, that in all these areas, we're talking about a revolution in the physical composition of the planet. We're talking about developing what is possible: systemic transmutation of material; inventing new kinds of materials, which are not used now, so that we can guarantee to the entire human race in the future, that whatever they need, we will be able to provide."
The Principles To Be Applied
In the following pages, we provide our readers two crucial discussions of the relevance of the Vernadskyian principle to urgently required economic measures. The first is a document written by LaRouche in 2001, which was published in the May 4, 2001 edition of EIR. The second is a speech given by Schiller Institute science advisor Jonathan Tennenbaum in Russia in November of 2001, directly on the subject of the relationship between LaRouche's economic proposals, and the Vernadskyian approach.
The Appendix contains two small samples of Vernadsky's work, along with an introduction by Dr. Tennenbaum, which locates them in the context of LaRouche's own contributions. Further material is available in 21st Century Science & Technology magazine, and the book The Economics of the Noösphere, by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. (Washington, D.C.: Executive Intelligence Review, 2001).
