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This document appears in the September 22, 2006 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
A CONCEPTUAL PROPOSAL FOR THE NDC

The Mexican Republic
Requires a Renaissance

by the LaRouche Youth Movement in Mexico

The following document was prepared by the LaRouche Youth Movement (LYM) in Mexico for the National Democratic Convention (NDC) convoked by Andrés Manuel López Obrador for Mexico's Independence Day, Sept. 16, to discuss what comes next in the battle to save Mexico from its current path towards disintegration. The document, published as a beautiful 16-page pamphlet (available at wlym.com/~spanish), was translated into English by Gabriela Arroyo and Hector Antonio Rivas, Jr. from the LYM in the United States.

There has been no period in history in which a society was so conscious of the necessity of a change in the previous form of thinking, as in the Renaissance.
La Edad de la Fe (The Age of Faith), Anne Fremantle

Let us not forget that you cannot put new wine in old bottles; the mentality of our people has now changed and that is most important, because when the mentality of the people changes, everything changes....
—Excerpt from Andrés Manuel López Obrador's response to the TRIFE ruling (Federal Electoral Tribunal) recognizing Felipe Calderón as President.

On Aug. 15, 1971, the world completely changed. That was the date that the international economic-financial system shifted in a way that affected the whole world, with a variety of repercussions felt in every corner of the planet. Today these repercussions are reflected in many different ways, and Mexico is experiencing one of them.

After this change occurred, the word "economy" ceased to have any referent in production and came to be conceived of simply as an issue of monetary profit. As a result, the entire world economic system based on free trade is now in the process of collapse, reflected in the speculative bubbles on the verge of explosion (like the real estate bubble), in financial derivatives, or the illegitimate debt of Third World nations. Humanity is now in a very dangerous period, such that if we do not change the beliefs that have governed us to date regarding those fundamental concepts with respect to man, we will plunge into a New Dark Age.

The fascist system known as globalization is controlled by the same Synarchist bankers that in the past created and financed Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco, and today seek to impose their lackey Felipe Calderón in Mexico to continue with this world policy of genocide, with more social austerity, and the so-called privatizations. For this reason, American physical economist Lyndon LaRouche has unleashed a worldwide fight, especially in the Democratic Party in the United States, to return to the tradition of Franklin D. Roosevelt and expel the Nazis from the government: the stupid and clinically insane George Bush, the sociopath Vice President Dick Cheney, and their controllers such as the banker Felix Rohatyn and the financier George Shultz, who are capable of creating a nuclear Third World War in the middle of a collapse of the international financial system. This is why it is urgent that they be removed from their positions.

But this change in economics and politics did not come about on its own. It also involved a social perspective, located in a theory called the "post-industrial society," which argues that human beings no longer needed production of technologies; that we had already reached our limits in that area, and that we would have to now build a society in which services would be the primary referent. This insanity, which first started as a social theory, became an economic theory, and is what currently prevails.

The '68er generation—also known as the Baby-Boomer generation in the United States—were the youth who were manipulated by the crises of that era: the assassination of moral leaders worldwide, the threat of nuclear war, the repression of political movements, etc. The psychological crisis thus created became the breeding ground for acceptance of these ideas, as absurd as they may have seemed. The so-called social engineering did its job.

The problem is reflected very well in the words of the stupid President of the United States, George W. Bush: Who cares what the next generation thinks of you, if you're not going to be around anyway? This way of thinking of "the here and now" is the cornerstone of the current world crisis. Very simply, youth were induced to accept a culture of sophistry, without any idea of the future, and therefore without the necessary moral courage to fight for humanity. This is primarily seen in the upper 20% of the population. What mattered was to possess things—get as much as possible, as easily as possible, and the faster the better. Their mentality was just that. That is how they grew up, and today this is what we have as the generation which governs.

This is explained more clearly in LaRouche's "Triple Curve" of today's collapse. You have exponential growth in the curve which represents financial aggregates (stockmarket, illegal debt, financial derivatives, etc.), tools used to obtain profits quickly—in themselves—without any direct reference to production.

The second curve represents merely monetary growth which, as can be observed, is insufficient for the level of looting done through financial aggregates. This level of looting is seen in the lower part of the graph, which refers to the capacity that the physical-economic process has to sustain a population. Last year, the Lower House of the Italian parliament, which approved LaRouche's proposal for a New Bretton Woods, put out the official numbers: $400 billion in financial aggregates versus $41 billion of global GDP (gross domestic product).

All the money in the world together could not sustain the growth of these financial aggregates!

With this in mind, if we now talk about the real "national problem," while at the same time failing to make changes at the international level, there will be few things, if any at all, that can be done internally. It is at this point that "the politicians of the old system" will say: "Don't talk to me about the problems in the world. Tell me how to solve my local problem! Me, Me, Me!" This "me," dear politician, is the same recurring mentality we mentioned above. But much more significant in our country is something called Caciquismo—the mentality which imprisons the cacique, as if in a fish bowl, so he cannot see the causes of the problems that reside outside his fiefdom. This is just like the people who think that the crisis in Mexico has nothing to do with collapse of the world economy.

So, if we really want to solve the problems of our country, we are going to have dump the old way of thinking—otherwise, we will never solve anything. LaRouche and his youth movement are spearheading the battle to mobilize the population and change the system. In the same way, we will have to combat that mentality which has brought us to accept this policy of the ancien regime. The youth of this generation, the so-called "no future generation," are going to have to take leadership, not just to solve our own problems, but for future generations as well. The LaRouche Youth Movement assumes that leadership as its mission, not only as nationalists, but as what the poet Friedrich Schiller called "Citizens of the World."

The objective of this document, presented in and for the National Democratic Convention, is to provide those conceptual elements needed to make a true change in our country—not only to restore our Republic, but to create a Renaissance in that which is its most important asset: its citizens.

A Repeat of the Occupation by Maximilian

During an international webcast Sept. 6 in Berlin, Germany, heard by audiences in that city, as well as in the United States, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Peru, Colombia, Argentina, Bolivia, Israel, and Iran, LaRouche commented on the Mexican Presidential crisis. In Mexico, the webcast was viewed in Sonora, Nuevo León, Guanajuato, Tamaulipas, Baja California Norte and in the Federal District (Mexico City), where it was transmitted directly to the LaRouche Youth Movement's encampment in front of the Monument to Benito Juárez (President of Mexico, 1861-1863 and 1867-1872) which is part of the permanent encampment established in the city by the non-violent resistance led by Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

To one of the questions from the Mexican encampment on how to enhance the revolution of conscience that ex-Presidential candidate López Obrador proposes, and how Mexico can undertake economic change and restructure the institutions in the sense that López Obrador is discussing, LaRouche responded:

"Part of the answer to this is often in what appears to be negatives. Look, the so-called Hispanic-origin minority in the United Staes is the largest single minority group in the United States, designated as such. It's a mixture of people who have been in the U.S. for two or three generations, down to people who are illegal immigrants today. This is mixed with people from other parts of South and Central America, of course, but it's the northern Mexico tier which is most heavily represented. Now, if there is not development in Mexico, and if the U.S. is going through an economic crisis, which would be a social crisis, then the conditions of the people on both sides of the border are such that you have an internal security risk within each nation, and across the borders. Absolutely uncontrollable risk. So anybody who is not going to do something about this, should be sent to prison, where they'll have time to think about it, eh? Because we cannot tolerate this.

"Now, what's happened—López Obrador has already said, and it's valid, because I recognized the thing immediately, even before he said it. We just happened to collide in saying the same thing. What you have in Mexico today is a replication of the occupation of Mexico by the Emperor Maximilian. That is, the same kind of forces, the same forces which were imposed on Mexico by the combined British, French, Dutch, and Spanish fleet, and with the Austrian pig stuck on the throne; that is what is happening now with the case of Calderón. To stick a Maximilian on the throne of Mexico, while you have a Benito Juárez in the form of López Obrador, associated with the people—this is an explosive situation for the entire hemisphere of the Americas. And anybody who wants to force the Calderón dictatorship, which is what it's supposed to be—whether that's Calderón's intention or not, I don't know. You want to force that on Mexico? You're going to blow up the hemisphere! And the hemisphere's ready to blow!

"The key thing is, we've got to look at the fact of the matter. What can we do about this? Well, I say we have to get both Cheney and Bush out now. The grounds for doing so—look, Bush is clinically insane. He manifests that, it's an open secret. It's not even an open secret any more, it's a sewer, it's an open sewer. Cheney is a sociopath, who's committed crimes. Why not just impeach the pair of them, and get rid of them? Send them back to Crawfish Ranch or something.

"We have to do it! You see, the times have come when you can not bargain and solve a problem within the terms that are given. You sometimes have to step outside the definition of the problem, and change the problem, rather than trying to solve the problem. In this case, if we can't solve the problem, then we're not willing to solve the problem, we can't mobilize it, we may have an absolutely hopeless situation! Civilizations have gone to Hell before, and this one can go to Hell too. We're on the edge of it. We're on the edge of it, if we don't do something about it. We've got to get Bush and Cheney out of there now! They should be impeached immediately. And any Democrat or Republican who won't do that, is an idiot."

The Role of the Nation-State in a Global Collapse

The objective of the fight within the history of mankind has been to develop the happiness of the individual, and this has required the creation of the best form of government which exists, which is the sovereign nation-state, with institutions which represent principles such as the Common Good, which encompasses ideas of economy, science, and culture for the development of the physical and creative well-being of the population, present and future.

In order to achieve a renaissance in our Republic, we require a profound comprehension of the nature of man, where the difference between man and animal is not defined as a biological issue, as if to be human means to simply be a union of molecules, and you would have to ask, "with what molecule am I speaking with right now?" The difference lies in the principle of cognition, which has allowed man to willfully increase his numbers by making discoveries of universal physical principles, applying them to the technological and artistic development of his society. Understanding developments in technologies is what permits us to increase the efficiency of the productive process in order to sustain a growing population.

Now that we see the degradation and danger in which the institutions find themselves because of the oligarchical system called "globalization," led by the Synarchist International which seeks to impose a policy of genocide through puppets such as Calderón in Mexico, there is a higher necessity to fight for a new world economic system that recognizes the sovereignty of each nation, with governments and patriotic institutions which return to the interest of the people, as López Obrador is doing. Here we should look back to history and retrace the path taken by those personalities whose motivation was to leave behind a legacy for the continuous improvement of society.

The concept which emerged in the form of the modern sovereign nation-state was an axiomatic departure from imperial forms of governments, in which the concept of Truth does not exist, but rather the idea that each people is distinguished from another by so-called "popular opinion," manipulated to accept and defend their slavery, just like those who defend free trade.

From this idea of nation arises the idea of national economy. As the German-American economist Friedrich List said: "The nation is the mediation between the individual and humanity."

The LaRouche-Riemann Method in Physical Economy

The LaRouche-Riemann method improves in an essential way the American System of Political-Economy (which will be explained later). The fundamental discovery of Lyndon LaRouche is the functional relationship between technological progress, and growth of the economy and the population. LaRouche resolved this connection with the Bernhard Riemann mathematical physics of Berhnard Riemann, treating economy as a multiply connected dynamic process (instead of the mechanistic view of statistics currently used by economists), where what defines economic growth are the technological leaps created by the application of new discoveries of physical principles in the universe. In that manner, the new economic stage is incommensurable with the previous one; that is, all the economic relations of production and social relations have changed.

The first distinction that must be recognized in the science of physical economy as established by its founder, the German scientist Gottfried Leibniz, is that human beings pursue happiness, and because of this, we are distinct from animals. Therefore, the growth of our economy, as well as that of our population, will depend on that difference, which permits us not only to utilize and distribute wealth, but also to generate it.

It is this wealth, generated by man, for which LaRouche has defined a physical metric capable of measuring the well-being of the population, and not those diseased monetary parameters that have nothing to do with reality. This is what he calls Potential Relative Population Density. This function measures population density per square kilometer relative to a geographic zone (natural resources, fertile soil, climate, etc.) and the technologies created in a beautiful culture under the nation-state, at the same time creating the necessary potential for the generation of new technologies over the long term.

For example, how many people could we sustain on Earth without the technologies that we have discovered to date? We would probably not have developed beyond the few million who lived in those civilizations that only had fire as their means of generating energy, compared to the almost 7 billion human beings living on this planet today. Have you ever asked yourself why it is that rabbits, despite their reproductive capabilities, haven't increased their numbers into the billions? The answer doesn't lie in their sexual activities, but in the unique creative qualities found only in human beings, which permit us to discover and apply the principles which lie hidden in our universe, and to use them for the benefit and progress of humanity and the universe itself (see box "Dynamics vs. Energy").

Vernadsky and the Infrastructure of the Nöosphere

One of the functions of the nation-state is to meet the physical necessities of its citizens, understanding this as infrastructure projects which guarantee transportation, energy, water, work, housing, health, education, etc. Let us focus on a national plan for agroindustial development for the following two generations. This plan would take about 25 to 50 years, including amortization. Let us remember that we have two types of infrastructure, according to Russian biogeochemist Vladimir I. Vernadsky:

  1. Maintenance of, and improvement in the way we help nature so that it can function and prosper in ways it would not have done otherwise without human intervention, such as: greening of desert areas, systems of irrigation, greenhouses, etc.

  2. Artificial infrastructure, but as an integral part of the environment, essential to insure a certain standard of living and human progress.

This is the result of what Vernadsky called the Nöophere (human cognition) as a geological force dominating living processes, in the same way that life, over many centuries, has been dominant over non-living processes. Vernadsky said that these are the three phase-spaces of which the universe is composed: the abiotic, the biosphere, and the nöosphere, where the difference between the abiotic and biotic is the principle of life, and the difference between the biotic and noetic is the principle of cognition. These principles, as economist Lyndon LaRouche has said, are invisible to our senses because they occupy the entire universe, which at the same time is self-bounded by these principles.

The action of mankind's nöosphere manifests itself in the development of projects to construct new cities, highways, hydroelectric plants, development corridors, dams, nuclear power plants, magnetically levitated rail, etc. For example, there is the PHLINO and PLHIGON project, which consists of taking water from the South, where you have flooding, to the North, where the problem is a lack of water; and in this way, be able to create productive jobs (see Box "Dynamics and Energy"). We also need to build new cities in different states of the country where no technological development exists, and yet we could have a city equipped with what is necessary to maintain its population. In principle, it is to ensure that every citizen has the means necessary for his or her physical, emotional, moral, and intellectual development. That is how the future will become the measure of the present in the economy. We need to think of aerospace projects, research in plasma physics, fusion energy; in general, those advancements which will permit us to continue to discover the laws of the universe, turning them to the benefit of our society.

Credit as the Flow of Development

All set! Now, if the mind is prepared to think in terms of physical economy, you might be thinking that these projects are possible, but that the famous "Don Dinero" ("Mr. Moneybags") isn't around to pay for them. But we can comfort ourselves with the knowledge that the economy is not money.

One of the characteristics of the sovereign nation-state is that there is a national bank owned by the state—not a private central bank—able to generate credit to finance whatever is necessary for its growth, and since we're talking about the population's wellbeing, it doesn't matter if it's something very expensive (monetarily), because the physical-economic advantages embedded in it are far greater.

We need to generate productive credit at interest rates of 1 to 2%, through our National Bank, of course, so as not to depend on loans from the International Banking cults which have sacrificed millions of human lives every year to their god, Don Dinero. That is why the State has to take control of the banking system, to regulate it. Recall the actions taken by former President José López Portillo[1] in times of crises.

As you know, the major part of our banking system today is foreign-owned. This is a key aspect of the political fight waged by Lyndon LaRouche—to clean up the institutions as López Obrador recommends so they can return to the principle of the defense of the General Welfare. This credit is not inflationary, since it is backed by infrastructure projects that will pay for themselves through the jobs created, rather than by incurring unproductive debts or phantom investments that never contribute anything to society.

This is why we need a new economic system as proposed by Lyndon LaRouche—a New Bretton Woods with fixed exchange rates in which every nation can create sovereign credit.

The American System (Protectionism) vs. the British System (Free Trade)

Before we begin this outline of modern history, we need to stop thinking of history as a collection of horror stories narrated by a villainous nanny, who conditions her victim's mind not to recognize the real actors in real history. Because of the difficulties in founding a sovereign state in Europe outside the yoke of the traditional oligarchical systems, the Americas was chosen as the site for the founding of the first modern nation-state, based on the ideas of the Renaissance. Thus the first modern republic was consolidated as the United States of America, which won its independence from the British economic system, to then fight for and establish what only a few know as the American System of Political Economy.

The key figure of the American System was Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804), who served as Treasury Secretary from 1789 to 1795 under American President George Washington. Hamilton wrote three reports dealing with economic theory (see www.larouchepub.com): "Report on Public Credit" (1790); "Report on a National Bank" (1790); "Report on the Subject of Manufactures" (1791). Under Hamilton, the Bank of the United States—the first national bank of its kind in the world—opened its doors on Dec. 12, 1791, based on the following principles:

  • Hamilton refers to the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution, that obliges the Congress and the government to "defend the General Welfare."

  • A National Bank is required to increase national wealth, which promotes "the productive powers of labor" (agriculture, manufactures, infrastructure) with credit as a governmental institution.

  • The capital base of the National Bank should not be limited to the existing volume of precious metals, but should include Treasury notes from the United States government. Thus, the issuance of credit can be extended as deemed appropriate to realize the economy's productive potential.

  • The promotion of inventions and "mechanical improvements." New plant and equipment are necessary for industry. This can be achieved through credit from the National Bank, state subsidies and contracts. These self-initiated improvements contribute to the expansion of manufactures and industry, thus creating new employment and ensuring the sale of domestic products in the internal market.

  • Protectionist measures are legitimate and necessary against cheap foreign imports, to protect domestic production, which is still in the process of growth and is not capable of competing internationally. Nonetheless, protectionist tariffs should not delay the process of development, but rather should have a stimulating effect.

These measures allowed the United States to emerge from its grave crisis.

Next in developing this system was Mathew Carey, who met in France with Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), where Carey was in exile because of Britain's occupation of Ireland. Later Carey travelled to the United States and met with Franklin again in Philadelphia. From that point on, Carey continued the tradition of Hamilton and polemicized against Adam Smith, calling him "the Oracle of Delphi of political economy." Thus against Smith, Carey developed the following maxims of political economy:

  • Industry is the only true foundation of virtue, happiness and greatness; and in all its useful forms and figures, it makes an imperious clamor for government protection.

  • No nation has ever prospered without the protection of its domestic industry.

  • Around the world, in all eras, wherever proper incentive for industry has been duly provided, humanity has been uniformly industrious.

  • Whenever nations find themselves in a situation which violates these principles, it is imperative that their governments apply such remedies, to correct the evil as the nature of the situation may require.

  • A free government is not happiness. It is only the means, when used wisely, through which, with certain resources, happiness is assured.

  • The interest of agriculture, manufactures, and commerce are inseparably connected, such that were any of them to suffer any harm, the others would be materially affected.

Following the family tradition, the son of Mathew Carey, Henry Carey (1793-1879), also represented the tradition of the American System, which became a policy of the state when Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States. Together, they developed a policy of industrialization which contained the following elements:

  • The regulation of private banking and the issuance of cheap credit and an abundant national currency, to protect the national economy from the predatory practices of private financiers.

  • High tariffs to protect growing industry and reduce imports of products made by cheap labor.

  • Government subsidies to extend the national railroad network.

  • Public schools and free university education, free land for agricultural production for farmers, and government promotion of agricultural and technological knowledge.

  • This idea of national sovereignty should be recommended to all countries as the best way of attaining and guaranteeing true independence.

In 1826, Mathew Carey co-founded the Society for the Promotion of Manufactures and Mechanical Arts in Pennsylvania, an organization which German economist Friedrich List was introduced to by General Lafayette, the French hero of the American Revolution. List met with both Careys on various occasions, and it was through these meetings that List learned of Hamilton's Reports.

In his correspondence from Reading, Pennsylvania in 1827, List stated that he would focus on "refuting the theory of Adam Smith and company, whose errors are not yet understood as clearly as they should be." In that correspondence, List differentiates between the American System and the British: "The English national economy has as its objective to manufacture for all the world, and to monopolize all manufacturing power even at the expense of its own citizens' lives, to keep the world, especially its own colonies, in a state of infancy and serfdom through political administration as well as the superiority of its capital, its ability and its navy. . . . The English national economy is predominant; the American national economy only aspires to be independent."

Adam Smith says that wealth is attained when each individual, pursuing his or her own interests, makes the nation prosper. Therefore, he argues, any attempt by the state to guarantee the prosperity of its people constitutes undue interference. List points to Smith's primary maxim, laissez faire, laissez passez (roughly, "let them do as they please"), and responds with, "a saying that is as pleasing to thieves, frauds, and robbers as it is to the merchant, is therefore very suspicious as a maxim."

List elaborated three main components of his theory on productive aptitude: the capital of nature, the capital of productive material, and the capital of the mind, which he considered the most important. After 1830, List returned to Germany to apply the American System.

The American System had an abundance of defenders throughout the world, such as in Japan, China, Russia, France, Germany, Italy, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, and of course the U.S.A.

In Mexico, this protectionist current was represented by Estevan Antuñano (1792-1846), an industrialist and defender of the Republic. He believed that the only way to make the country independent was by promoting national infrastructure financed by the sovereign nation-state.

As a few excerpts of his writings reveal, he stated that, "for our Republic the promotion of industry is not a mere calculation of convenience, but rather a point of honor and of independence."

Some of the policies he put forward are as follows:

  • The absolute relaxation of laws regarding usurious loans, to put into productive circulation the large capital deposited in currency and jewels, that today are of no benefit either to their owners or the public wealth.

  • The colonization of the coasts to increase consumption and tropical agriculture.

  • Appreciation for and remuneration of those who correctly and consistantly dedicate themselves to and excel in discoveries and promotion of industry, to awaken interest in productive and noble endeavors.

Another follower of this economic model was Carlos Olaguíbel, and here we briefly summarize some of his points for a new economic program:

  • Long-term, low-interest credit for the promotion of industry;

  • Protective tariffs, not only for consumer products but also to promote the national production of machinery;

  • Development of agriculture based on industrialization of the country;

  • State investment for the building of industries necessary for development.

In this sweep of history, we have been able to prove that nations that have become great powers by basing themselves on the principle of the General Welfare, owe their development to the application of sovereign protectionism, which, while allowing internal growth, at the same time, promotes alliances with other nations based on the good neighbor policy.

As for the Br(u)tish System, we won't take time to discuss it, for its inefficacy is proven with each passing day. But we will mention its main classical precursors: Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Thomas Malthus, among others. What is worth mentioning is that the American System has been omitted from the university curriculum, while the British System has been discussed in both its forms: free-trade economics, and what has been falsely presented as its opposite, that is, so-called "Marxism."

It is worth pointing out that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels knew the works of Friedrich List and Henry Carey, and wrote a 30-page diatribe against List. What upset Marx was that List rejected materialism, and like Hamilton, insisted that "mental capital" is the true source of wealth. Marx and Smith considered the human being to be a materialist without a soul, and that's why the Marxist system only functions according to the parameters of the British System. Marxist thought resigns itself to the idea that history must be treated as an affirmation of the victory of the British System.

In his recent document, "How the Liberals Tried to Turn Engels' Monkey into a Man," LaRouche states that cycles of history must be understood as the effect of the popularization of a flawed method, and requires human volition as the principle of change in order to get out of the crisis.

Let's not assume that the economy is something mystical, controlled by "little green men" under the floorboards, where we, the individuals, are only spectators. Rather, it is the voluntary process of self-perfection of nations and its citizens to generate the means to guarantee the search for human happiness in each individual of our Republic.

Against a Tragedy on the Stage
of History, A Classical Idea

The threat of a New Dark Age which we face today, has as its origin in the generalized violation of Classical principles of statecraft, in which each citizen should be educated before finishing his elementary education. To understand history, we must recognize the interdependence of politics and economics with the Classical methods which underlie science and art, represented most clearly in Classical tragedy, but also found in other artistic manifestations.

In times like these, in which lying is the most prevalent behavior in society—the product of cultural decadence rooted in hostility to scientific thinking and denial of truth—it becomes necessary to ask: On what should we base true knowledge? Those seeking the progress of humanity towards a political ordering which more closely approximates the Platonic concepts of the Good, the Beautiful, and the Just, and observing the ease with which a society allows itself to be dragged into sorry forms of collective suicide, shall have to acknowledge that for the creation of a successful state, the notion of truth becomes necessary.

Real politics is a form of Classical art, practiced according to the principles which the great dramatists Shakespeare and Schiller expressed in forms of composition and execution of poetry and Classical tragedies. To the argument that art has nothing to do with politics, as the former is an instrument of "entertainment and recreation of the masses," and the latter "objective activity, and organization of society," we offer a couple of historical examples to support our statements.

Abraham Lincoln won a complicated war with the help of lessons learned from Shakespeare, which he presented as guidelines to members of his Cabinet. On the other side, the Nazis, prohibited the performances of Friedrich Schiller's plays Don Carlos and Wilhelm Tell, as they (correctly) considered them a call to overthrow the tyrants.

Politics bereft of beauty reflects a bestial conception of man, where the creation of a society does not rest on the uniquely human quality which renders man superior to the beasts, and gives him the ability to transform himself, a quality shared with the Creator. In this latter point resides the necessity of Classical art, possessing that quality of transmitting truthful principles that it shares with science, in the task of bringing society to the understanding of what the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley called: "profound and impassioned conceptions respecting man and nature."

Contrary to the bestialization to which current "entertainment of the masses" leads, the Classical artistic principles are based on the highest levels of deliberation in the creation of national policies, following the model of Plato's Dialogues, these being dramas which represented real political figures of the time. Through the process of rediscovery of the Platonic dialogue, the citizen experiences that quality through which he becomes increasingly efficient in the rational selection of political decisions. Thus, all Classical artistic composition functions according to those principles of the Platonic method.

Drama has been one of the most influential forces, for good or evil, in the fate of a culture. Pagan Rome and its perverse mass entertainment in the Arena exemplifies this, as opposed to the more successful, powerful, and revolutionary form of drama which moved and inspired people, produced by the leading intellectual of the national liberation struggle of the Prussian reformers, Friedrich Schiller.

This principle resides in the identification of the protagonist's tragic failure to consciously and radically change the destiny of a population whose customs and popular institutions have brought it, as in our present case, to the edge of the abyss. The politician's worst mistake is his failure to break with flawed customs, that would prevent his nation's population and its posterity from plunging into a terrible calamity. This principle of Classical drama is not based on appeal to the senses, as are, for example, the cheap sensationalism and unabashed irrationalism of certain currents that convert drama into a forum for insanity, before an ever-more brainwashed public. Victimized by reigning degradation, this public has ended up accepting ever more degenerate "artistic forms."

In contrast, the principle of Classical tragedy is the Socratic principle of Truth, that which the audience recognizes as the efficient factors (intangible to the senses) that give form to evolving developments.

To build an advanced society, it is crucial to distinguish between the type of artistic activity which creates citizens, those individuals who freely contribute to the development of the republic through their own intellectual transformation, and those types of entertainment which either do not reflect these qualities, or openly destroy all idea of a higher morality, all sense of historical responsibility, any notion of human nature coherent with that quality of creative thought—in short, any notion of the Sublime, a principle at the center of all Classical art, as the only thing which is "truly free."

The role of art is to enoble man and create an environment of cultural optimism in the whole society. A society that recognizes these principles would never have accepted so-called "popular music," which at best, is completely banal. While we cannot deny that there are cultural manifestations that spontaneously emerge from certain social groups, in which these groups have located a large part of their identity, we also cannot deny that these groups are the most regrettable victims of liberal politics hostile to progress and development. We thus expose the incongruence and hypocrisy of some groups, which, under cover of certain "sociological" or "anthropological" indigenist theories, ignore the moral imperative to provide justice for these people, who live in misery and are the "object of erudite study" by those who, in theory, defend their rights. Yet these same sociologists and anthropologists appear unwilling to offer these populations the opportunity to exchange their unfortunate circumstances for justice and prosperity.

Therefore, any national project based on particularities resulting from lack of development must be rejected, as it excludes the principle of truthfulness discussed previously. This is not based on any course of literary criticism or classroom musical salons, or on any "sociological" or "anthropological" theory as such, but rather on undeniable reality. These traditional manifestations shouldn't be proscribed, but must give way, thanks to development, to a higher notion of art which lies in the unique ability of the individual human mind to discover universal physical principles validated experimentally, through which the human mind is capable of producing a qualitatively conscious increase in "ecological potential" that positively affects the entirety of the human race. We derive from this notion that Classical art belongs to all mankind.

As for our absolute rejection of certain forms of bestiality, such as "popular music," including some of the most degenerate forms, such as "rock" and "electronic music," among others, it's not that we refuse to accept the scientific proof of its validity that their followers might present. It's that they themselves refuse to offer any proof that might make them legitimate. They instead base their fierce defense on a cult of personal taste, or on the arbitrariness of certain pseudo-sociological "laws," obstinately refusing to submit their artistic conceptions to the test of fire of the Platonic principle of Truth, which through Socratic dialogue, clearly proves the essence—true or false—to which it is reduced.

Science and Art

By a valid discovery of a universal physical principle, we mean something we cannot touch with the senses, but rather an idea through which the power of man to survive is increased in a tangible way. This increase generates measurable effects, which are therefore real, but the efficient causes of those changes cannot be detected by the senses.

These principles of mental activity are the basis for preparing the individual's mind to attain a quality of truthfulness which scientific knowledge shares with Classical art forms. This is indispensable for scientific progress, and to avoid the cultural flaws such as those visible in the world today. The source of authority of Classical art for statecraft and the creation of republics, is that it is the most appropriate means to adduce the relative truthfulness of ideas by which a nation chooses to carry about its business.

To summarize: A successful state is based on the determination of whether the artistic composition emerging from it satisfies the following essential requirements:

  1. It must never depart from natural beauty (beautiful forms as they occur in nature), based on the harmonic negentropic relationships congruent with the Golden Section.[2]

  2. Something that is simply arbitrary or departs from the confines of natural beauty cannot be art. However, the mere imitation of natural beauty is not art. Art is what employs, and does not deviate from natural beauty, but makes use of that environment to carry out creative activity. Classical beauty is not a sensual object, but rather a relationship among people, and between the cognitive processes of the artist and the public.

  3. The proper unity of science and art is essential, as the complete and integral incarnation of the qualities of the human mind that distinguish man from beast. A universal humanist Classical education demands such a unity.

  4. Such art never descends to the banality of pure entertainment, but rather expresses a spiritual quality of cognitive human processes, which celebrate the law that each man and woman is created in the image of the Creator of this universe. Herein lies the superior moral authority which, as Shelley affirms, presents the poets as humanity's true legislators.

The Struggle of Modern Physical Science

I have recognized from experience that those who are completely Cartesian are not capable of discovery; there have been many beautiful discoveries since Descartes, but, as far as I know, not one of them has come from a true Cartesian. Descartes himself had a rather limited mind. He excelled all people in speculation, but he discovered nothing useful for the portion of life which falls under the senses, and nothing useful in the practice of the arts.—Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

As opposed to modern experimental science, Cartesian empiricism reduces the individual's knowledge to the "world" of the senses, while Leibniz advocates the idea that man is created in the image of the Creator, and as such, is capable of participating in the continuous development of creation, thus elevating him to the level of understanding those principles that are beyond the reach of the senses. This is the conception of science and of man that gave rise to the Renaissance.

This Renaissance tradition inspired by the science known as Sphaerics and the works of Kepler on planetary orbits is what led Leibniz to the development of the infinitesimal calculus, and his dynamic and anti-entropic conception of the universe.

This vision of dynamics is defended today by Lyndon LaRouche, as a representative of the Leibnizian tradition which laid the basis for the founding of the first republics in America.

Contrary to the empirical method, modern physical science is the practice of cognition by which you are able to discover, or as Plato would say, "remember," the universal principle from which your human nature is derived, and understand the principles that generate the "shadows" or the effects that present themselves as paradoxes in the material world (see Book 6 of Plato's Republic).

This is the fundamental principled dispute: the existence of principles against the idea that the only thing that exists is what we can perceive with our senses. The point here is: To what does matter respond? Does an atom behave the same way in air (abiotic) as it behaves in a living body? What exists in the universe that determines the behavior of this atom in different ways? As Vernadsky correctly notes, there are three phase-spaces—the abiotic, the biosphere, and the Nöosphere. In each of these, the different atoms (isotopes) order themselves in a different and higher-level way, and the principles that govern these phase-spaces are acting beyond simple matter and are connected among themselves. Physically, these phase-spaces continuously exchange matter. The form and order of matter depend on the principle governing phase-space in which it is found (see Box: "What Defines What We See?")

Conclusion

What we have to have make clear in any historical change, are the ideas upon which a Republic is founded. What is important are not the particulars of certain laws or rules, but ideas based on natural law, establishing that government and society pursue the happiness of its individuals. And this is what should govern the institutions as well as the actions of individuals.

Our objective is to make something beautiful of our lives, taking responsibility for changing history, as LaRouche develops in his document "The Historical Individual" (see www.larouchepub.com):

"On this account, the exceptional political leader who rescues his people from the precipice of self-inflicted cultural collapse, performs a function which expresses the same characteristics as the discovery of an experimentally validated universal physical principle. Rather than arguing for remedies within the bounds of the generally accepted culture which threatens to destroy that nation, the valid leader for a time of such crisis, does exactly what Shakespeare's self-doomed Hamlet refused to do. The adequate leader for a moment at the brink of systemic crisis, like the scientific discoverer at a critical juncture in his work, must lead the nation away from its suicidal instinct, to adopt sweeping changes in the axiomatic assumptions on which that society has been operating up to that point. The would-be, `practical leader,' who seeks approval from the authority of prevalent popular opinion before acting, is, like Hamlet, a menace to his nation. The needed leader, is an exceptional individual."

This, thus, is our mission, principally as young adults over the next fifty years of the planet.


[1] On Aug. 16, 1982, Mexico confronted bankers and international financial interests. President José López Portillo was faced with the choice of declaring a suspension of debt payments and nationalizing the banks, after financial authorities demanded that the oil price be lowered by $10 and refused to buy oil in advance, to allow for payment of debts coming due. The decision was made to nationalize the banks and impose total exchange controls. The President sated, "...Therefore, to address the clash between public and private interests, there was no option but to make a nationalist effort of such radical characteristics as those we announced in September 1982, when we nationalized the banks and imposed exchange controls. There should be no standing with arms crossed, but imposing, as we did, exchange controls. It was that, or accepting the complete undermining of the power of the Nation."

[2] Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) and Luca Pacioli (c. 1445-c. 1517) identified that the geometry of living processes differs from those of non-living ones, due to self-similar growth congruent with the Golden Section, a geometrical characteristic present in a logarithmic spiral, found also in the relationship between the side of the pentagon and its diagonal, equivalent to the so-called "golden mean."

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