EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR SATURDAY, JUNE 5, 2021
Moving the Entire World to Safety
June 4, 2021 (EIRNS)—While it may be tempting to those countries adopting a new paradigm of economy and international affairs to separate themselves from the disasters of the trans-Atlantic world—physical productivity’s replacement by financialization, accelerating inflation, and increasingly unhinged and unattainable “climate goals”—the reality is that there can be success only for the entire world, not a portion of it. This lesson, made clear by the coronavirus pandemic, applies to the world’s strategic situation and to its interlinked economies.
Solutions are possible, but they must be based on true economic principles. And calls for change abound:
The U.S. dollar increasingly takes the role of a weapon, deployed through sanctions, rather than a stable basis for global trade. An event at the United Nations (sponsored by Iran) presented the painful costs exerted on everyday people by supposedly targeted sanctions, and gave the lie to claims that humanitarian and medical purchases are unaffected by sanctions.
Speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Argentine President Alberto Fernández gave a short but impassioned speech on the need to revise “capitalism as we know it,” stating that at present it creates only injustice and inequality. (His nation has finalized arrangements for domestic production of the Sputnik V vaccine.)
President Vladimir Putin himself spoke in person at St. Petersburg, on the topics of equitable vaccine access, improving the Russian business environment, and his own version of actions to address “climate change.” Nuclear, hydro, and natural gas play prominently in his proposals, which also envision billions of dollars flowing into Russia to purchase carbon credits for its forests and tundra.
Meanwhile, what passes for political discussion in the United States is an absolute joke—Tony Blinken castigating China for Tiananmen Square, UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield shedding crocodile tears for Syrians, Facebook offering social media convict Trump the potential of parole in two years, conditioned on good behavior.
Although some in the world may wish to just abandon the United States or the “West” altogether, the actual problems must be resolved, including the beyond-bankrupt condition of the U.S. economy.
Lyndon LaRouche wrote in 2000 how to address the kind of inflationary situation we face today:
“The presently reigning financial and monetary institutions, are so hopelessly and profoundly bankrupt, that the world economy could not be saved without wiping several hundreds of trillions of current U.S.-dollar equivalent from the current, vastly hyperinflated, financial-asset-values account. In other words, outstanding financial claims must be brought implicitly into line with the world’s present levels of an estimated hard-commodity valuation of the world’s combined domestic product.”
With such bankruptcy reorganization, what will serve as true value?
“In the present situation, where the valuation to be placed on each and every currency of Europe and the Americas, among others, is increasingly in doubt, what constitutes the quality of durable value upon which medium- to long-term, hard-commodity capital formation could be rationally premised?” If “durable forms of economic value cannot be adduced from a quantity of money, where does a measurable valuation of economic activity lie?”
Real value lies in the rate of increase of the potential relative population density of the human species, a change made possible only through the discovery and social implementation of physical principles. By starting with goals expressed in terms of scientific and technological advancement, and the physical baskets of commodities required to attain them, a meaningful organization of society can be achieved, one premised on growth of energy-intensity—as through nuclear power—rather than its diminution, as called for by the Green New Deal.
The intention must be to grow! “The issue of economy is, therefore, not the exact price to be placed on any economy, but the good will [the shared commitment to do good] expressed in the way a reasonable estimate of a fair price is adopted.”
Lyndon LaRouche’s July 18, 2000 paper, “On a Basket of Hard Commodities: Trade Without Currencies” is available in the Aug. 4, 2000 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
