A LaRouchian Approach to a New Credit System for the BRICS

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and chairwoman of the Schiller Institute, and Richard A. Black, representative of the Schiller Institute to the United Nations in New York, gave online presentations Oct. 25 to a major international conference organized by the National Committee for BRICS Research of Russia.

The two-day event, titled “International Scientific-Practical Conference: Scientific-Technological and Innovative Cooperation of BRICS Countries,” heard first from Sergey Ryabkov, the Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation, who described the historical importance of the BRICS, emphasizing its task of technology transfer to the Global South from now to the year 2030, as well as the nature of the BRICS’ ongoing positive, inclusive cooperation, emphasizing especially the role of young scientists.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, in her contribution on “A New Credit System for the Coming Scientific Revolution”, presented in concise terms the unique notion of physical economy developed by her late husband, Lyndon LaRouche. Given the turmoil in the current financial system and the growing moves for an alternative to the dollar system, she stressed the need for “a representative group of governments”, such as the BRICS, “to prepare to set up a new credit system which shields the countries of the developing sector from the effects of a chaotic disintegration of the hitherto dominating financial system of the Western central banks.”

The essential features of such a credit system, she added, must be: “1.) a fixed exchange-rate system of national currencies, which can be periodically adjusted; 2.) a cooperating system of national banks based on the sovereign powers of government; 3.) limited convertibility of the currencies; 4.) capital controls, which have basically the same effect as an international Glass-Steagall banking separation; 5.) protective tariff and trade regulations, which guard especially the nascent economies of the developing countries; and 6.) prohibiting any forms of speculation.”

The optimal way to ensure real economic growth, Helga Zepp-LaRouche continued, would be for the BRICS to mobilize “all available resources… for a coordinated ‘science-driver’ program”. Priority should be given to scientific breakthroughs that are based on “tendentially higher energy-flux-densities that allow therefore higher relative potential population densities, a correlation which is one of most crucial aspects of the science of physical economy which differentiates it completely from monetarism”.

Space exploration is among the most promising fields, she pointed out, as “the spillover effect of new revolutionary technologies into other areas of the economy promises the highest increase in the productivity of the productive process at large at the greatest possible rate”. This is also valid for other avant garde technologies such as thermonuclear fusion, biophysics and biochemistry, cognitive sciences, etc.

This theme was further developed by Richard Black in his contribution on the “Prospects for a Fusion Energy Based Economy for BRICS Nations and Partners”. Both presentations are published in the Executive Intelligence Review dated November 3.