Excerpt from a keynote address given by Lyndon LaRouche on Sept. 2, 2000 to the annual Labor Day weekend conference of the International Caucus of Labor Committees and the Schiller Institute.
Full transcript is available here.
What kind of actions can we take, which the universe acknowledges to be a command?
Well, typical of those kinds of acts that we make--which we can prove, the universe will obey, otherwise the universe won't obey them--are actions which conform to the discovery of a universal physical principle. If you can discover a validated, universal physical principle, and you can give that, as an order to the universe, the universe will obey. Man is the only creature that can do that! That can formulate an order, called a universal physical principle, validate that discovery, and issue that discovery as an order, a command, to the universe, and the universe is compelled to obey.
That is the means, the accumulation of these principles, which are part of our technological culture, is the means by which mankind has been able to increase the life-expectancy, to improve the demographic characteristics of populations, and, in general, to increase man's power, measurable power, in and over the universe, per capita and per square kilometer. That's the great, scientific experiment.
We are able to do this, not only through physical experiments, through physical discovery: We're able to do this, by discovering higher levels of methods of social cooperation, through which, we're able to cooperate in fostering these kinds of discoveries, and applying them.
So, those things. Those are the kinds of actions, which the universe acknowledges to be man's willful actions of significance. Everything else that man does, is on the level that any lower form of animal life can accomplish.
So, therefore, the kinds of action which distinguish a human being from lower forms of animal life, is that, and only that.
Now, look at this question of strategy, which I've introduced here, from that standpoint: Strategy should mean, once we've understood these lessons--which, presumably, we had learned from study of European history, since the time of Solon and Plato. Say, what's important? What is strategy?
The purpose of strategy, is to defend the human species; to improve its condition, to improve its well-being; to improve its power in and over the universe at large. That's the purpose of strategy.
In order to do that, we must promote scientific discovery, and utilize it. We must promote those discoveries of principle, such as artistic principles, which enable us to cooperate, in more advanced ways, to utilize these physical discoveries, for man's benefit. What we, therefore, require, is forms of society, in which we perpetuate the rearing of our children, and our institutions, in such a way, that this mission of mankind, implicit in our nature, is fulfilled.
Thus, we fight to defend this idea of progress. We fight to defend and improve forms of society, which promote progress. We fight to undermine, and nullify, those forms of culture, and political and social systems, which are the enemies of progress. The significance of the United States, is that it was produced as a product of a certain phase in European civilization, coinciding with the 15th-Century Renaissance, centered in Italy. It struggled to create a form of society, in which the only legitimate authority awarded to government, was the responsibility and power, to promote the general welfare of each and all persons. That is, to promote progress, in that sense.
In this process, during that century, the policy was adopted, of having self-governing, modern, sovereign nation-states, whose authority to rule, was located in the commitment to progress so defined. Against that, we had an opponent. The opponent was forces of bestiality: Those, who see a few people, as the power to use as human cattle, the majority of other people, other nations, and subject populations, generally. This is called, oligarchy.
So, the forces of progress, and the nation-state, are pitted against the forces of oligarchy. In the same way, that the idea of free trade, of globalization, today: These are the enemy.
Because, without the nation-state, without protection of the form which only the nation-state can provide for an economy, to ensure progress, can we have progress. Those who propose to liquidate the nation-state, that is, to globalize it (or globularize it); those who propose free trade, rather than fair prices to protect the process of production of food, and other things upon which life depends: These are the enemies of civilization.
Since its establishment in 1714, the British Empire has emerged as the chief proponent of a system of oligarchism on this planet. The United States was created, in order to provide a fulcrum of opposition to those forces of globalization--that is, Roman Empire-style--represented by the British monarchy.
And, it is that fight, which defines it.
Now, our method, of fighting the British Empire and what it typifies as oligarchy, is the force of progress. We fight, how? By demanding education for all of our children, and conditions of life for all of our children, which enable the child to make the progress from infantilism to childhood and adolescence, into a moral adulthood, and productive adulthood.
The first level of progress.
We fight for those conditions of shared culture, on which we can share the knowledge represented by universal physical principles, and of principles, like artistic principles of cooperation, through which we're able to work together for good. We fight to defend these kinds of institutions of progress, against their adversaries. We try to win the adversaries over, since they're human, to our cause, and say, "Come, join the human race. You don't have to be British all your life. You can be human. We'll give you a green card, to enter humanity." We don't have to kill them; we're not like beasts. But we will, and must defend our essential institutions: the institutions of progress.
Thus, what I've described, therefore, becomes a principle of universal action for people. And, the constant issue, which we have to face up to today, is to understand that the essential conflict on this planet is between British monarchy, and the United States. What the United States represented, as progress, at its making: What it represented under Lincoln's leadership. What it tried to represent, again, under the leadership of Franklin Roosevelt.
That's the issue, and no other issue is of anything but secondary, or auxiliary importance.
