Lyndon LaRouche: Well, we have recently returned from a week in India, which was a lot of fun. Specifically Bangalore city, in southern India. It's also had the advantage, for this season, of being about 1,000 feet up, and therefore an elevated level was somewhat cooler, than it was at lower levels.

I've also been on a visit to Greece, more recently, specifically about an hour and a half ago, an hour ago, with Michael Liebig. We were discussing ancient Greece. And, we are now headed for the strangest of all countries: France. And, wish you bon voyage. Good hunting.

Now, the point I wish to make is, the reason I referenced different places like ancient Greece, and India, and a distant country called France, is that, in order to understand any part of the world, coming from European civilization, you must first understand the characteristics of European civilization itself. And, this goes back, actually, to about the time of Solon of Athens, and even earlier, to the ancient Pythagoreans and Thales.

But, if you understand what has happened to European civilization, as a continuity, as Schiller defined this task in his Jena lectures on history, you must take European civilization as a whole, the civilization inside which you live. And, you must, really for the first time, understand it. Because, if you don't understand this civilization, then you have no possibility of understanding other cultures, other civilizations.

And, within this civilization, you have to also understand the specific history of your own national origin, which is also a culture. It's a sub-culture of European  civilization, each with certain characteristics, idioms, other characteristics. And therefore, within European civilization, you must understand the culture from which you come more immediately. And, by a deeper understanding of your own culture, then you can understand the world. If you don't understand yourself, and who you are, how do you know who anybody else is?

So, that's what I shall deal with.

Now, the fundamental question, in all cultures, is one. Therefore, there is a relationship among all cultures, because they have one common feature, sometimes imperfectly expressed: That feature is the difference between a human being and an ape. That should be the common feature of all cultures. Some cultures are defective in that respect. They don't make that distinction. And, the failure to make that distinction, efficiently, is the cause of all great catastrophes in human history.

Give an example. Let's take the case of--Michael and I were discussing sophism, the history of sophism, from the standpoint of the work of some modern historians. And it's valid argument. I would agree. But I would put the thing differently, as I shall now, as follows.

What is the difference between a man and an ape, and how can you tell the difference. If someone said, "What's the difference between you and a monkey, in principle? Aren't you just another animal?" Well, we have a modern philosophy, you can't tell the difference; you're not allowed to. It's called,  for example, empiricism. It was introduced to modern European civilization by a very nasty fellow, called Paolo Sarpi. And Paolo Sarpi was actually the housemaster, the owner, of a serf, a lackey, called Galileo Galilei, who was one of the greatest hoaxsters in modern history! And this hoax, of empiricism, as defined by Paolo Sarpi, and as taught by Galileo Galilei--the faker Galileo--is one of the major problems in all modern European history. It's a form of what Michael would call "sophistry," "sophism."

How's it work? The argument is essentially, that you don't know anything, except what you experience with your senses. All you can do, is accept the assumption that the universe is pretty much as your senses imply: That is, you think time goes backward and forward, in linear units. That space is extended in three directions. And, that things happen in space-time. You can observe these things, and you could make guesses as to explanation for their occurrences, as Aristotle and other Sophists did.

In that respect, if you believe that, by intention, you're no different from an animal. You're not human. Because the distinction of human beings, is one, which I think Jonathan may have addressed today, as he often does: And that is, that what we observe with our experience, shows us that all these guesses, based on three dimensions of space, and invention of time--linear space and time--and of observing objects floating in space-time--this is all false. It's not false, in one sense. But, it's false in fundamental sense. That is not the real universe.

What is it? Well, it's a result of observing things with your senses. Now, what are your senses? What we call the senses, are parts of your body, which are the agencies of sense-perception. And these days, the most popular sensation is that of smell--especially when you're around politics. But, these senses are part of your body; they're part of an organism. What they show you is not the real universe. What they should you, is the reaction of your senses to something that happened in the real universe--at least in the best of circumstances, when there's no imagination or fakery involved.

So therefore, you find, in studying the universe, as Kepler did in his study of the Solar System, you find there are errors in the interpretation of these observations. It shows you the universe does not work the way that the simple empiricists' attempt to interpret this statistically suggests. There're are peculiarities, which show that there's an agency outside sense-perception, which is invisible to your senses, but which is efficiently acting on the universe, as in the case of the Solar System. Gravitation: You never tasted gravitation; you never ate it; you never smelled it; you never touched it; it never grew hair. But, it exists as a force, which controls the Solar System.

You can know it. How? As Kepler did. The method of knowing is what Plato defined as the principle of hypothesis. You find that there are errors, in your assumptions, assumptions based on sense-perception, and by the power of looking at these contradictions between what sense-perception suggests, and what actually is occurring, as a process, you can hypothesize the existence of some unseen principle, which is operating beyond your sense-perception, to control the events in the universe in which you live, which you experience. These are called "hypotheses." If you can prove this hypothesis, experimentally, which means: Can you control the universe, in some sense, by using this principle, then you've demonstrated that knowledge of this principle gives you, as a human being, mastery over the universe in that degree. Then, you can call it "a universal principle" of nature, because you have discovered it.

Now, we have two kinds of hypotheses, which are really the same, but they come at different points. On the one side, you have hypotheses, which arise in experimental physics, in observation, where you find a contradiction, in what appears to be the case, which leads you to discover a universal physical principle. In this case, your mind is approaching the relationship of the individual mind, to the universe; or to some sub-part of the physical universe.

In another case, you apply the same thing to social processes. And from these things, we get the ideas, such as those of natural law. And this is the distinction of Classical composition and performance, as distinct from Romantic composition and performance, or Modernist composition. Romanticism and Modernism are totally irrational systems, a result of the influence of what Michael would call "sophistry"--part of the legacy of sophistry in modern history.

But, in the case of Classical art, what you're doing is, you're representing invisible principles, which are very efficient. For example, in Classical musical composition: There is no Romantic fantasy in Classical musical composition or performance. It is all lawful.

For example, take the case of the difference between Beethoven and Liszt. Now, Liszt was a student of Carl Czerny, who was a pig, as described by Beethoven. Czerny has this young boy, Liszt, whom he trained, to be facile at the keyboard. But, Liszt did not know how to compose music. He was very familiar with the work of Beethoven and other composers--he didn't know music! He once tried to do a piano sonata, based on the model of the Mozart K. 475. It's a famous sonata. It failed! It doesn't hang together; it disintegrates, in the performance. It disintegrates in the score. Because, what he was doing, was what all the Romantics did: Is to try to imitate the effect of what had become popular as Classical composition--as of Mozart and Beethoven and Schubert and so forth--without actually understanding, or knowing the principle of composition. And therefore, it's a big splash.

For example, we say, in keyboard performance, or conducting, that person who finds passage-work, in Mozart, in Beethoven, in Schubert, Schumann, or so forth, or Brahms--anyone who thinks as "passage-work" is called in Classical composition, is an idiot. There is no passage-work. There is, however, passage-work--of the type you might relegate to the gentlemen's lounge--in Liszt. Lots of it! It's almost a diarrhea of passage-work, which is what he's famous for.

So, the difference is, there is always a universal principle, a principle of relationship among human minds in all Classical artistic composition.  You'll find that a population, which is educated and developed in Classical artistic composition, and to study history from the same standpoint, is more able to understand the human species, than someone who is not. A rational society, a truly rational society, is a society of people who are developed in Classical culture; that is, a culture which has the same approach to human relations, the relations among human minds, that we call "physical scientific principles" in the case of man's mental relationship to the physical universe around us.

Now, these conceptions, which we can discuss more at the appropriate point in this process today--these conceptions are the proof, to us, that we are different than the apes. The fact that we can discover, and prove, universal physical principles, of which man is able to control the universe, in ways that no animal can, proves to us, that we're different than the animal. It proves to us, that these mental process, these mental powers, by which we are able to discover what no animal discover--the physical  principles that run the universe; not only know them, in the sense of interpreting them, but also being able to use them to control the physical universe. This is the nature of man. This is the difference between man and an animal.

Now, take, for example, let's take the case of the ape: Now, for those who did not go to monkey school, it is obvious that the population of great apes on this planet, at any one time, could never have exceeded 7 million living individuals. You have today, over 6 billion living individuals, human beings, on this planet. How did we get there? How did a species, if you compare it to a great ape, could never have exceeded several million population on this planet, now has a global population of 6 billion; and could, with existing technology, easily support a population of 25 or more billion persons? This expresses man's increasing mastery over the universe. These powers of discovery.

But, these are not separable from those powers, which pertain to social relations, as Classical art typifies, this kind of mastery. In other words, we have a problem of mastering nature: An individual mind, re-experiencing discoveries of universal principles from the past, can apply those principles to increase man's power over nature, per capita. But, how can we get society to cooperate, in a way, which ensures the transmission of these ideas, their replication, and coordinated application of these for the benefit of society as a whole. This is the area of art.

So, on this basis, we say that man is different than an animal; on this basis, we get ideas about humanity, which we call "natural law"; and natural law, as it applies to political philosophy, as it applies to statecraft, as it applies to Classical art, is the same thing, as natural law, in the sense we use natural law to describe universal physical principles. It's just the subject is different. We're applying the same powers of mind, that we apply to make physical discoveries, to understanding social processes, how human beings can relate to one another.

In this state, where man is committed to the principle of hypothesis, to the principle of Classical scientific progress, of Classical artistic composition, in these cases, society will always progress. There would be no dark ages. There would be no terrible times, in social terms. This is what Plato dealt with, as in the Timaeus: That there are certain catastrophes that hit mankind, that mankind thinks he can't control, so-called "natural catastrophes"--great floods, like that which struck Europe, with the melting of the glaciers in Europe, in particular, especially around 10,000 B.C.; when there was a great flood, wiped out the lake, which we now call the Black Sea, and turned it into a salt sea. The Mediterranean was flooded by the melting of the glaciers at an accelerated rate, in about 10,000 B.C. There were also great meteor strikes, coming from outside the planet, and similar kinds of catastrophes we've not yet learned how to control.  So, Plato divided the problems of mankind between these two classes, as in the Timaeus. One the side, these so-called natural catastrophes, which we do not yet know control. On the other side, which is the subject of virtually all of Plato's work, is the question of dealing with the catastrophes which man brings upon himself, and how to understand these, and how to correct them, how to avoid them.

What happens then, if this principle, of the distinction between man and the ape, is disregarded? What if people no longer believe, that there are knowable, universal physical principles, invisible to the senses, which man can control and use? What if man no longer believes, that social relations are also a subject of knowledge, of true knowledge: the discovery of principles of relations among people, by which we can form more stable, better forms of government, and ensure the progress of mankind? What if society becomes irrational? What if society begins to try to behave and imitate apes? Behave like apes? Or even worse monkeys? If you know the difference: Apes, generally are slow; chimpanzees are a little bit dangerous; but monkeys--they are--well, they're sort of like liberals! Monkeys are the worst. Or, other animals: Snakes will never be friendly. A hippopotamus would rather eat you than look at you, but also will make insulting gestures to you with his tale! Sometimes, if you get too close, it's very bad.  So, animals are animals. But, when human beings behave like animals, then the potential population of the planet, human beings on the planet, drops to about several million people.

That's been the history of mankind. What has happened is, in European history, in particular, as you see in the case of ancient Greece, or you see in following the civilizations of Mesopotamia earlier: Mesopotamian culture was evil from the beginning! It was a colony of a Dravidian-speaking population. It was not a Semitic culture, it was Dravidian. These people were of the so-called "sea people," who populated largely the Indian Ocean area, what we call, today, the Indian Ocean area. They were largely a Dravidian-language group. They founded Sumer, and the following society, after the collapse of Sumer, was based largely upon this Sumerian culture.

In that period, there were Semitic populations in the area, but they were illiterate, food-gatherers, cattle-herders and so forth; and killers, among other things. And, gradually, as the Sumerian or Dravidian-language culture decayed, the Semitic population assimilated elements of the earlier Dravidian culture, and using cuneiform documents, began to develop based on incorporating the particular sounds associated with the Sumerian cuneiform writings, adopting the names--the sound-names of these--and translated these into Semitic languages, and thus we had a Mesopotamian culture, which was derived, actually, from a Dravidian-based culture before then.

This is referred to, of course, by Herodotus, who speaks of the origins of Sumer, the origins of Ethiopian culture, the origins of what is now the southern tip around Aden, and what became the culture of Tyre, the Phoenecian. All of these were colonies, according to Herodotus, of this sea-faring culture, Dravidian-language culture, which created these systems.

So, these societies were also evil. They had a certain amount of achievement, which came in ebbs and flows. But, they were essentially decadent: always decadent, or potentially decadent. Mesopotamian culture was always decadent.

Greek culture was significant, in that it represented a break, with this decadence, in what we call the "Classical Greek culture," typified by names such as Thales, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Solon and so forth. But, why did this culture, which was so powerful, so effective, so superior--why did it collapse? It collapsed, because those who represented power, powerful families, who regarded human beings in general as human cattle, and raise them and kill them, as people raise and kill cattle; or hunted them down, and exterminated them, as hunters sometimes slaughter wild cattle. This principle, called the "oligarchical principle," the idea of oligarchy--some few, subjecting the rest of humanity to the status of either wild cattle, or herded cattle, were concerned to maintain their system: the system of oligarchy.

And, they developed a system, which is now called, in modern European experience, "empiricism." Or, otherwise called "liberalism." "Philosophical liberalism." The European civilization, for example: The European nations today, are based in their forms of government, on the Anglo-Dutch form of philosophical liberal, based on a decadent form of government, called "parliamentary government." Parliamentary government has three elements. It has a state, the agency of executive responsibility for society. It has a parliament, which is disbanded in a crisis, whenever it becomes inconvenient, like the attempt to overthrow the parliamentary government of Germany, right now.

It has a third element, which is called, a "central banking system." A central banking system is nothing more than a common agency of a Venetian-style collection of fondi: That is, of wealthy families of the type that do live in banks, they control banks. These are the financial family interests, which  control banking systems. These fondi, this financial oligarchy, controls the modern European state, through control over the central banking systems. The governments do not have control over the central banking system, in the final analysis, has control over government. They control the state, and they control, especially, the parliament.

How do such forms of government, which are inherently decadent, survive? They survive, by corrupting the people. They corrupt the people by means of what is called "popular opinion," or "popular culture."

Take what happened to the Romans:  The Romans were unable to resist the knight-class, who rose to consolidated power in the wake of the Second Punic War. These people came back from wars, with vast amounts of loot, which they had stolen abroad. They broke up the agricultural system of Italy, by large-scale introduction of slavery. Italy declined, in the way in which the United States has declined since 1964, when the United States was the most productive nation on this planet, per capita, in 1964. Since then it has declined. It became a consumer society, rather than a producer society. After 1971, it became effectively, a society of parasites. The United States is a collective parasite. Which, through its control, since 1971, over the world IMF system, is able to dictate terms to other countries, and to loot them. To determine what the prices of their products will be, and when the United States will deign to pay, for the acquisition of these products, which is not in a timely fashion. To demand contributions of financial wealth, from other parts of the world, to sustain the U.S. economy, just the way Britain did, as an empire--the same way.

So, what you have is, you have the crisis in society is, that progress occurs, to the progress of Classical forms of scientific and artistic culture. The productive powers of the people increase. People struggle for the benefits of what they call "progress," a higher standard of living, a higher standard of culture, a higher standard of popular education. And then, the oligarchs say, "The cattle are getting out of hand, again! We've got to do something about it." And then, a cruel hand comes on society, and crushes the society. The Hitler case, is a case of that: to destroy it; it was an attempt to destroy all of European civilization.

But, the method by which they succeed, is through popular opinion. The worst enemy, of humanity today, is popular opinion. And, what's the idiocy! The person who protests against injustice, says, "This is contrary to popular opinion!" But, it is popular opinion which  controls their behavior, so that they actually demand, and support the institutions, which are responsible for the oppression. They'll say, "It's not fair!" What is a gladiator going to say, in the Roman arena, when he goes in to kill or be killed? He said, "The decision was not fair." The Roman arena, the gladiator system, was itself unfair. So, to complain about the unfairness of the gladiator games, is foolishness. The existence of the games, is what the foolishness is. The existence of the games is the evil.

Our political process, in Europe and in the United States, are, to a large degree, a farce! They call it "democracy." It's a farce! And, you know it by the effects. You can not get a government elected and stable, which will continuously do, that which is useful for the benefit of present and future generations.

Let's take the case of health care. What happened to health care? In the United States and in Europe? They cut it! Why? In order--and partly, because they were Malthusians; they were environmentalists; they wanted to reduce the human population. They wanted to kill off the old people, and the chronically ill--and they've done a fairly significant job in that! In 1973, they had the HMO bill, which said that, no longer, does the individual, who has paid in, perhaps to a health-care fund--no longer do they have a right to health care: What comes first, is the stockholder, who bought into the corporation, which took over the health-care system, and they must be paid first, even if it means killing the patient. Or, denying them the care they need.

This is done by popular opinion. This is called "liberalism"; called "contemporary liberalism." It's called "free trade." By which societies are destroyed. Totally irrational system!

Q: What is your idea, how to organize health care?

LaRouche: Well, that's not too difficult. We did a good job in the United States in organizing health care: We learned the lesson of several wars, and other things, and we set up a Hill-Burton system of health care, in the late 1940s. The objective was, to provide health care for everyone. And the way we did it, was this: We said, "We will set a standard, every year, for improvement, in health care, on a county level." We concentrated on hospitals, and similar institutions, and we demanded that there be an increase in the number of beds--that is, patient beds--available, in different categories of health care--surgical and other health care--available in every county of the United States. We decentralized this, in the sense that we put the primary responsibility in the county organization, to create a county organization of public and private institutions, concerned with health, including the medical profession generally. To organize health care with the objective of improving the health care available in the following year.

Now, what we had, was a system, under which some people paid into health-care programs. Some people were wealthy and didn't need to pay into health care programs. Other people were covered, in other ways.

So, what we said was, essentially, that everyone is going to be cared for, no matter how poor, or whether they have money, or not: They're all going to be cared for. And, this system, based on hospital-bed system, on a county basis, will take care of the problem. For example: If somebody fell down in the street, some observer would call the police, and say, "A person has fallen in the street!" The police would bring an ambulance, and carry that person to the nearest emergency ward in the city. At the city, they would treat the person immediately; the first objective was treatment: Get the person alive, get them stabilized, whatever their condition was. Then, move them into a place that they required, for further care, such as in-hospital care, or surgical treatment --whatever.

Now, at that point, someone down the line says, "Who's going to pay for this?" But, the question is never raised: Will they be cared for? They will be cared for--whether they have any money, or not. The assumption was, because you had a profile in society, of people with different income levels, with different kinds of plans, that you would assume that part of the total medical care, would be covered, by people who already had enough money paid in, to cover for their health care. And, then, in an extreme case, of a very serious case--which required surgical treatment, say, beyond the means of any reasonably equipped person, you care for them anyway. Or, a person, who was totally indigent, and had no money at all, you'd care for them anyway.

So therefore, the percentile of the total care, which would be covered by income received, against the percentile which had no money--either to pay these high-level costs of emergency, or to pay for ordinary health care. It worked. What they did is, they had a meeting, every year. They would go through the actuarial figures, on expectations of disease, with a built-in factor for epidemics or other sudden emergencies. So, the institutions from the Federal, to the state, to the county level, were all prepared for any reasonably anticipated medical requirement.

You had, also, in the military systems, in those times, you had a Veterans Hospital. The military veterans would have special hospitals for them. This was another form of care. In the United States, you had the Federal Public Health System. These were largely doctors and others, who would receive their education in medicine, as a subsidy by the government. In return for receiving this education, they were expected to put in a certain number of years of their professional life, doing work for the government in public health: in case of emergencies, epidemics. You had other institutions of this type.

So, you had a system, which had built into it, the capacity to deal with all anticipated emergencies. You might get one beyond it, but, you even had an imagination how to deal with that.

Then, you would go to the budget question: The annual budget, on the county, state, and Federal level. So, you would have fund-raising programs, the health-care fund. And you would have these annual campaigns to raise contributions to health care, to help supplement the cases that would not be covered by their own money, or other funds. Then, if the county did not have enough money, to meet this requirement, the county would go to the state, and have the state raise and provide some of the money to fill the gap. In a desperate case, it would go to the Federal government, and the Federal government would provide the funds, to fill the gap.

So, we have a system, that was designed, that everyone would be cared for. Now, it wasn’t perfect, because the performance of various parts of the United States was uneven. But, nonetheless the principle was there, and that was the law!

In 1973, under Nixon, this was repealed, and the Health Maintenance Organization law was introduced instead. And, the idea then, was to get rid of the unwanted. Don't treat people, who it would be too costly to treat. Regulate everything, so that the people who invest in health-care management, as stockholders, would be treated first, and the patients last.  So, in the case of the United States, the solution is: Go back to Hill-Burton.

In Europe, we used to have some sense of that in the health-care system, where government and so forth, knew the responsibilities for dealing with disease, with dealing with epidemic disease and other problems. And there were various systems, which were oriented to the principle of the general welfare: That anyone who was ill, who requires medical treatment, should receive it, in some fair way, one way or the other. In recent time, under the influence of liberalism, or present liberalism, and free trade, we've had, since about 1964 on, but especially since Nixon, 1971-1973, the direction has been the opposite direction.

So, what most of you have known, is a world which is a world of that changed character. For example, the same thing is in education--same business in education: In 1963, when the Paris office of the OECD, under the same Dr. Alexander King, who was a co-founder of the Club of Rome, a genocidalist, prescribed the destruction of education in Europe! As a result of this, under Peyrefitte in France, you had the introduction of a new schooling system, which began the destruction of education in France. You had, under Brandt, you had the so-called "Brandt reforms," which virtually outlawed Classical humanist education in Germany, on which the strength of the German economy had been largely based, the role of a Classical humanist education in producing the future leaders and scientists of society.

So, what you've been experienced to, in your lifetime, since 1964-71, the world you've lived in, is a different one, than the world we lived in before, in Europe and in the Americas. We are degenerating! Our problem, is to reverse that degeneration. Go back to ideas, which were commonplace and accepted, back then, in the post-war period in Europe, or in the Americas. And, reverse this crazy liberal system, which resulted in these horrors, which we face today.

We really don't need to invent a new system. We have to go back, essentially, to the system that worked, and make improvements, on the basis of that system, rather than trying to design a completely new system. Because, there's a relationship between the way the Hill-Burton law was passed, and they way medicine works. So, it was not designed on the basis of some accountant coming up with a scheme. When you get to these kinds of policies, throw the accountants out!

You have to think in terms of scientific principles: What are the principles of medical practice? What are the principles of health care? What are the principles of preventive medicine? For example, take preventive medicine: Today, we have a population in the United States whose life expectancy has increased probably ten years, over what it was, at the end of the war. Ten or more years. Now, that's the good part. The bad part is, when people become older, they become more susceptible to diseases which we associate with advancing years. Therefore, when people become older, and a large part of the population becomes older, that means you have a new category of health care, is required, to meet the fact that older people now require more health care, which is attuned to the aging generation--the post-65, post-50 (actually) generation.

Therefore, you need to have a factor of more emphasis on preventive medicine, preventive care, which is one of the things which is being eliminated by the present so-called "reforms" in medical care. Preventive care is not being attended to. You get lists. You go to a physician, for a diagnosis. The physician makes a medical diagnosis, but then, he has to submit the diagnosis to insurance companies, or government authorities. The insurance companies will take this diagnosis, and they'll put it through a computer. And, they'll say, "This person will be treated for this disease"--the diagnosis made by the computer, and the accountant, not by a physician. The physician makes a diagnosis of his examination. He then forwards that, according to an approved form, to the agency which authorizes the treatment, and the payment for the treatment. That agency is like an accounting firm type, which now processes it with their computer, and says, "This patient will be treated for this disease and only this disease, and will get this amount of treatment, this surgery, and only that. If they're still sick, that's too bad. They go on the street."

And that's what you have now. What is done in this process, this signifies, that there is preventing of preventive medicine. Because competent physicians and institutions can anticipate, by a thorough medical appreciation of the patient, the life-style, the conditions of life, and so forth--can anticipate what their problems may be. What problems are developing. What they have to do, to care for themselves, to prevent these problems from arising.

Now, actually, preventive medicine, in these categories, will do more to lower the actual experienced disease rate, and the cost of medicine, than by not doing it. Preventive medicine is generally much cheaper, than curative medicine, after the problem erupts. This is eliminated. And therefore, we're in a period, where people have been tending to age longer--that means they're somewhat healthier, that's why they age longer. But, at the same time, they do develop organic diseases, which they're susceptible to, which are foreseeable, and against which they could take precautions, and for which they require care of some kind or other, or assistance.

If we provided that, we would lower the kind of serious disease, which kill people.

Tennenbaum: He was developing a conception. Perhaps we could wait, until he's rounded out his presentation, before we question. I would suggest that.

LaRouche: So, the problem here, is this decadence. And, this decadence is largely deliberate, as you've seen, by what's happened in health care and education, and other things.

And employment! For example, it's pure idiocy to have 4-5 million unemployed in Germany! There's no reason for it! It's insane! Because the cost of employing people who are productive, with all the shortages in society, is crazy!

Think of what you need: Take the railway system in Germany (the United States is a total disaster). The railway system is being destroyed. The public transportation system is totally being destroyed. Whole parts of Germany are being destroyed by neglect of basic economic infrastructure. The Stadtwerke are in jeopardy--these are an essential part of the infrastructure of the whole economy! They're not being maintained.

So, the idea of cutting expenditures, for these categories of public expenditures, is idiotic! Because, paying for these expenditures, does what? You pay for somebody who's productive, or a group of people who are productive, as a group. You employ them, as opposed to leaving them unemployed. All right, first of all, you pay them an income. But, they're producing more wealth  than the income they're receiving. So, the amount of national wealth is increased more rapidly than cuts in their salaries. Hmm?

So, it's insane! As this Lautenbach proposal, back in 1931 [showed]: The secret is to create mass employment, largely in basic economic infrastructure, which governments can organize quickly. There're always public infrastructure projects to be completed. Water projects to be straightened out. Power production and distribution to be improved. Mass transportation to be increased. Medical care to be improved, public medical care. Education to be improved. There are always large projects, which need to be done, for the future of the nation. These will be beneficial to the nation: They will be more benefit than they cost.

So, it is insane, not to have public efforts to employ the unemployed, put them back to work. And the obvious thing in Germany, would be--the first objective in Germany would be, if I were the Chancellor: 3 million more jobs! Period. Assigned in these categories, where government is capable, of either providing the employment, on the state, or Land, or municipal level. Or, where government can organize the private sector to expand its employment, in these same kinds of areas. And, with 3 million more jobs in Germany, the budget would balance. And, the amount required to be spent, to create these jobs, would be less than the economic benefit of the jobs, themselves.

So, it's insane. But, you have this crazy Stability Pact--or the "Mental Instability Pact," it's better called--which prevents that from happening. And the Chancellor does not dare challenge the Maastricht agreements, at least on this point, which would be the obvious thing that a head of government or state would do, in a depression. I mean, after the lessons of the 1930s Depression, for example, in the United States, other depressions, we have learned, that this method works: That, in a time of crisis, you have to take the long-term view, and the state has to intervene on a long-term basis, to create public credit; direct it to these kinds of projects, to stimulate the regrowth of the economy, knowing, that over the 10-, 20-year period, that this will pay out fine.  So therefore, the credit, which was generally cheap, government credit, is well worth spending.

But, then have along this idea of free trade. Under this, you can't do it: "You have to let ‘The Market' decide."  This comes back to another point: Why are virtually all economists proven incompetent, now? Why am I sometimes the only competent economist in the world, at least in Europe and the Americas? Why? Because economists today believe in money. I don't believe in money.

See, people base the idea of measuring an economy on the "The Market." "How is the financial market doing? What are the stocks doing? What are the bonds doing?" "What are my investments doing?" "Is the market value of my house increasing?" (Even though the house is getting more dilapidated all the time.)

If you look at my "Triple Curve" representation of what has happened since 1966 in the United States, and then, also, in Europe and elsewhere: You had the total amount of monetary market values have been going up, in a curve, accelerating; the monetary emission to support this financial market has been increasing, to a hyperinflationary degree, presently; while the physical output of society per capita, has been collapsing. So obviously, there's something wrong with money! Or the way it's being used.

Now, money is useful, but money in a proper system, unlike the European system of Anglo-Dutch liberal parliamentary democracy: Money should only be created by governments, who are responsible for issuing it, and managing it. Why? To prevent this from happening! To prevent financial values from increasing, while the physical values go down. The function of regulation, and control of money, taxes, other kinds of regulation in an economy, is to force money to behave itself! That money values shall not increase, or not be encouraged to increase, more rapidly than the physical values are increasing. That's the way you have a stable economy.

But, this leaves no room for profits from financial speculation. And, what happens is, in the world today, under the free-trade system and the reforms which recently occurred, the free-trade system says, that the money values, the financial-market values, shall predominate. And everything shall be done, to make the stockholders happy--the speculative stockholders. Because they don't have long-term investments. They come like mosquitoes, from one investment to the next. So, that's the problem.

So, popular opinion, by accepting these kinds of idea, denies a principle of truth, of truthfulness, by rejecting the idea of hypothesis; by losing their mental moorings in the kinds of so-called "popular culture," which corrupt and destroy minds today. The population becomes its own worst enemy. And, to the extent that it intervenes in society, it makes the worst choice. And, then it blames the politicians. And, if it gets angry enough with the politicians, it brings in a dictator, who will really do the job. That's what happened before; that's what's threatened now.

So, we in European civilization, largely as a result of the legacy of Christianity, as a legacy, which is based, largely, upon the Classical Greek culture, known to the Apostles of Christ, as typified by the Gospel of John and the Epistles of Paul. This culture, despite all the evil done with it within the Roman tradition, in particular, achieved the highest rate of improvement in the human condition, in all known history. This culture. European civilization.  Therefore, when we're true to ourselves, our object is to share the benefits of our culture, with people of other cultures. To do that, you have to understand our culture itself, its best features. You have to understand the difference between man and the animal. For example, look at the problem in Asian society. Look at the large mass of people, who are murderously oppressed; kept ignorant; without progress, while a relative minority of the population prospers on the back of people who work almost as herded human cattle, to provided the food and so forth, for that sort of culture. That's wrong.

We know it in Europe; we have similar phenomena in European history. We've fought against this. We've fought against feudalism. We fought against this, with the dignity of the human individual, in the sense of man in the image of the Creator, in Europe. All the good things we did, were a result of that. If we look and understand European history, from the beginning, in Greek civilization, and look at the problems around the world, our concern is to give the world the best we have to offer; and to assist them, in elevating the condition of their masses of millions of poor. The population of China is 1.3 billion or more. The population of India is more than 1 billion. The population of Southeast Asia is very large, hundreds of millions, and in similar condition. The population of Pakistan, similarly. The population of Africa is also.

These countries are in misery. We have the knowledge, we have the power, we have the ability to cooperate with these countries, to create an order on this planet, which emphasizes the idea of man in the image of the Creator, as man is distinct from the animal. Therefore, it is our obligation, if our lives mean anything, to spend our lives, as we would spend money: Spend it wisely. Spend it for the future of humanity. Examine ourselves. Examine the history of our culture. Look at the kinds of problems I've briefly described to you, and apply that knowledge to the situation. And think of yourself almost as a missionary, or something else, of culture, who is innovating in other countries, as their friend, expressing here, in our own culture, the best we have to offer, and defining our relationship to them, and, in fact, we want to offer the best.

And they get happy, when you really do that. They may object at first, and say, "You're tampering with our culture." Or, "we had a good culture." Well, it's a stinking culture. They have many elements of their culture are very good. But, the mass of poverty is not good. The mass of desperate poverty is not good. A 3% HIV ratio, India, is not good! It's a marker of the other diseases. The HIV problem and other problems in Africa is not good. The health situation in Southeast Asia is not good.

And we have the ability to change it. And that's what I've sort of dedicated my life to--at least, it's crept up on me. I sort of believed this, for most of my life. But then, more and more missions kept crawling up on me, and I found myself committed to this, for the long term, and I've been at this particular work I'm doing now for over 35 years. It just started out of something I thought I had to do, and now it controls me! But, that's all right, I don't complain, I enjoy it.

But, that's the point. The key thing here, is, it's only a summation of the points, which you've had in other discussions, and I'm sure with Jonathan today, earlier; and Helga, and whatnot: That, you have to start, in European culture. You have to understand what European culture ought to mean to you. You have to understand national cultures, within European culture, in those terms. And, with that understanding, of the implications of the difference between man and beast, you have to look at other cultures--as Asian cultures, for example--and look at them, from the standpoint of the fact, they are human; they have the same essential qualities that we have; but, they have a different, historically determined culture. And therefore, we must try to understand their historically determined cultural development, which is the context, within which they can work out these same kinds of ideas.

In the end, we should come to the same conclusion, the same conclusion about humanity. But, humanity for a long time to come, is going to still be composed, justly, of respectively sovereign nation-states. Our job is to create, to bring into being, a community, of respectively sovereign nation-states upon this planet. And, by understanding ourselves better, we will be better able to understand those of other countries, and find the pathways of communication and policy-making with them, which can bring this state of humanity into being. We desperately need it.

The one thing we have to be conscious of, in all this: We have to be conscious of the [enemy?-- tape break] of humanity, is what Michael referred to today, as sophistry [ ... tape break] same thing. It's the generation of popular opinion, based on this form of corruption, which, renders society vulnerable--good  societies--vulnerable to destruction.

If you have a sense, as I do, of the ups and downs, of European civilization, including that of the Americas over the recent 40, 50 years, you see that, in the post-war period of reconstruction, in Europe--Germany notably--there was a great upsurge of improvement in culture. There was a return to the influence of a Classical culture, revival of the Classical humanist education in schools, secondary schools. An improvement in the number of engineers; improvement in technologies.

Then, it began to go down. So, you have a sense of the ups and downs. And you can date it, say, the time of the Brandt reforms: The destruction of the German Classical humanist education, was probably the beginning point of a decadence, a pervasive decadence, in the culture of Germany. You can do similar things in France; similar things in Italy.  So, we have these episodes of ups and downs, ups and downs. Always, in a renaissance, humanity comes to itself, and has some sense what a human being is, a sense of human values. Then, you get into another phase, the so-called "popular culture" phase, which took over the United States, in the middle of the 1960s: And you see a descent, a moral descent, and then a physical descent of society.

We have to understand, that this is the enemy. That popular opinion is the enemy. Popular opinion is what has to be changed. If you can change popular opinion, you can solve the other problems.

Thank you.

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