The Dollar System Will Now Let 1 Billion People Starve; What Will Prevent It?

April 9, 2022 (EIRNS)—Economists, business, union and media speakers from the United States, China, India and Colombia tackled the foreboding imperative “to prevent the starvation of 1 billion people” within the next year, in Panel 2 of the Schiller Institute conference for a new strategic and development architecture for the world.

Ibero-America director Dennis Small presented the Schiller Institute’s new “LaRouche Plan for a New International Economic Architecture,” and discussed the potential of what Primakov dubbed the “Strategic Triangle” countries—China, Russia and India—could lead in its implementation. They have 38% of the world’s population, produce 42% of its wheat, 66% of its steel, and so forth. But they will have to forge an agreement on fixed exchange rates among them and a barrier of capital and exchange controls between their new currency arrangements, and the dollar. Above all—he quoted Lyndon LaRouche directly on this as well as citing Alexander Hamilton—a new monetary agreement rests on the credibility of their intentions jointly to create credit and direct it to higher physical economic productivity in the near-term and generations-long future.

This was strongly reinforced by the presentation of Justin Yifu Lin, formerly World Bank chief economist. He explained that China has long understood that it was obliged as a major economic power to contribute to world development, and intended to do so through the existing—dollar system—international institutions, the IMF, World Bank, and so forth. But these, over decades, have failed to move any significant number of low-income nations to medium-income, or medium-income nations to high-income status. According to the Chinese proverb, “If you want to become rich, first build the roads,” China developed infrastructure projects and the grand Belt and Road Initiative to build them in the developing countries. Lin said the key “sustainable development goal” is “deliver decent jobs to the people,” and this requires good infrastructure above all.

Chinese-American businessman George Koo argued that the dollar-reserve system is in fact moribund now, because “the ‘Biden’ sanctions spell the death of the dollar”; the full faith and credit of the United States is put into doubt. Only a small fraction of nations in the world joined these sanctions, and even before the Ukraine war there was movement away from the dollar as a reserve; now “Biden’s folly” will collapse NATO economies.

Two leaders of one of Colombia’s national trade unions, CTU USCTRAB, contributed to the discussion. One, Pedro Rubio, described how with the infrastructure of the Belt and Road Initiative or World Land-Bridges coming into South America, and modern agricultural technologies applied, Colombia with a population of 49 million could feed 75-80 million, neighbor Venezuela could feed twice its 22 million people, and other examples of how to “prevent the starvation of 1 billion people.” His colleague Fraydique Gaitán, the president of the labor confederation, also spoke on the panel on keeping man at the center of all economic considerations, as did the veteran Indian journalist Saeed Naqvi, who has traveled and reported from 110 countries, and has seen how the media over decades have become more and more polarized and untruthful. “When war breaks out, truth is the first casualty,” he quoted Aeschylos.