Then will the feeble-footed
be jumping like a roe,
and the voice which was stopped will be loud
in song: for in the waste land streams will
be bursting out, and waters in the dry places.
And the burning sand will
become a pool, and the dry earth
springs of waters.
(Isaiah 35, 6-7).
Presentation.
In this article Brauli Tamarit
introduces us to two universal Catalans of the 20th century which
have passed unnoticed, because they dared to challenge the «politically
correct» thought trends. He not only introduces us to their
amazing biographies and to their unorthodox theories, but tries
to establish a link between the questions and answers they formulated.
At a time when there is a global
crisis, when all the twentieth century models have failed, we have
no point of reference to understand a history which seems to be
going adrift, and a political action which appears to be unable
to subdue the factual powers which take advantage of the situation.
Reading the vital and intellectual story of A. Deulofeu and A. Chalaux
challenges the validity of the standards which have ruled our collective
thinking on history, politics and economics, and shows the need
for us to look beyond in order to set down new models and not to
get caught by the mediocrity of the day to day political jobbery.
Martí Olivella.
The defence
of peace by Alexandre Deulofeu during the Civil War of 1936-1939.
Alexandre Deulofeu (1903-1978)
was a versatile man: a pharmacist, a chemist, a politician, philosopher
of history, musician, an experimental farmer, a hodman and poet,
who worked out a cyclical theory of imperialism1
and civilizations, which his friend Francesc Pujols called The
Mathematics of History.
Alexandre Deulofeu (1903-1978).
But even before working out his
theory. A. Deulofeu was a man involved in peace and the understanding
among peoples of different races and ideologies.
A. Deulofeu, as a left-wing man,
republican and Catalanist, wrote articles for the Figueres newspaper
L’Empordà Federal, where he debated with his
political opponents of the other Figueres newspaper, La Veu
de l’Empordà.
He was appointed as town councillor
of the Figueres city council for E.R.C. (Esquerra Republicana de
Catalunya). In the days of the military uprising in July 1936, because
the regular mayor was in Barcelona to give a lecture, he was appointed
deputy mayor2.
In his new position he prevented
the armed people, faithful to the Republic, from confronting the
military in the Figueres Castle, who were still hesitant3.
He also avoided the looting and destruction of religious buildings
and works of art4,
besides allowing his political opponents to escape to France. He
promoted the creation of the Committee of the New Unified School,
which carried out a fruitful task, which was later cancelled because
of the continuation of the war5.
Later, he re-established the Figueres
city council6.
As a councillor he took part in the transformation of the school
of arts and crafts into an industrial school7.
After the events of 3rd May 1937, he went back to the city council,
where he worked to reorganize the city financial affairs8.
After that he resigned his post as mayor, and became Culture Councillor9.
He was called to arms in September 1938 as military health officer10.
After the republican defeat on 5th February 1939 he went into exile,
leaving behind his wife at Figueres, in charge of the family pharmacy
and of their two daughters11.
In his exile, he was interned in
a concentration camp in Perpignan, where he suffered the privations
of the Catalan and Spanish republican refugees in France12.
One of the persons with whom he used to indulge in polemics through
the papers, and whom he had helped to escape to France when he was
the mayor at Figueres, (mossén Barceló, a
priest from Majorca who besides was a poet) paid the favour back
to him and to a group of fellow sufferers, by obtaining their liberation13.
The cyclic
theory of Alexandre Deulofeu.
Alexandre Deulofeu, under the influence
of Oswald Spengler and Arnold Toynbee, started to work out his cyclic
theory in his first book, Catalunya i l’Europa futura,
published in 1934, with a preface by Antoni Rovira i Virgili.
But it was during his exile that
he perfected this theory until, on his return from France, he decided
to create his own publishing house, Editorial Emporitana,
and to publish the configuration of this theory all along human
history.
Alexandre Deulofeu compares historical
cycles with the natural cycles of living beings. According to him,
civilizations or cultures have up to three cycles of approximately
1700 years each. These cycles bear upon all the aspects of human
life: art, philosophy, science, politics, economics, religion, etc.14.
Each 1700 years cycle of civilization
or culture starts with a phase called demographic fragmentation,
which lasts about six centuries and a half, where the political
power is divided in small nuclei, but where the maximum artistic,
philosophic and scientific creations take place15.
Later arrives the phase called of great unification, which lasts
about ten centuries and a half, where nothing new is created, but
where the creation of the previous phase spreads all over the territory
touched by this culture. At the end of the cycle, the peoples give
up voluntarily any manifestation of the spirit.
The transformations which take
place from one stage to the next often follow an oscillating process,
where the deepest advances alternate with retrocessions which are
not so good. This is what he calls the law of two steps forward
and one step backward16.
Of the three cycles of 1700 years
which a civilization or culture may have, the first one consists
of the imitation of the preceding culture. The second cycle is the
one of plenitude, where the true personality of the culture involved
becomes apparent. Finally, in the third cycle there is an imitation
of the art, philosophy and science of the two preceding cycles,
after which the creative work of the past generations is completely
forgotten17.
During these civilization cycles,
there appear the different imperialisms which have an approximate
length of five to six centuries. These imperialisms show a first
federal phase18,
after which there appears a depression, followed by an aggression
phase called absolutist, the military defeat, the conservative phase
of plenitude, and finally disintegration and death19.
Alexandre
Deulofeu’s fulfilled prophecies.
While he was working out his theory,
he also made a number of predictions which were not the result of
revelations or of supernatural abilities, but were based on his
theory itself.
Already during his exile, Alexandre
Deulofeu had stated his opinion that Germany, in spite of her aggressive
escalade, would be defeated in the Second World War.
But after the war finished he announced
that, in ten years time the defeated Germany would be in the lead
of Europe, while the French and British imperialisms would undergo
a decline20.
In his book, La pau al món
per la matemàtica de la història, A. Deulofeu
added his prediction that around the year 2000 the Soviet Union
would collapse21,
while the two Germanies would come together again.
The defence
of peace by Alexandre Deulofeu during the Cold War.
Being aware that the United States
of America could come to believe their own propaganda and transform
the cold war with the Soviet Union in a «hot» one, Alexandre
Deulofeu convinced a brigadier from Venezuela, who belonged to the
NATO, Víctor José Fernández Bolívar,
to spread Deulofeu’s theory in this organisation, in order
to convince the western block that their enemy would fall without
any fight.
As a consequence, the above-mentioned
brigadier between 1962 and 1964 published a thesis in the Higher
War School in Paris, partially based on Alexandre Deulofeu’s
theories. The book where he published this thesis was considered
as a reference book in organisations such as the Defence School
of NATO22.
Both contributed their grain of
sand so that humankind could carry on beyond the end of the USSR
which, according to A. Deulofeu, was the prolongation of the tsars’
imperialism.
Outstanding
prophecies of Alexandre Deulofeu: the case of China.
Alexandre Deulofeu made public
other prophecies, based on his theory of cycles.
The one with the most traumatic
consequences for humankind, with respect to the volume of population
implied, is the crisis which may take place in China.
In his first book of the longer
version of La Matemàtica de la Història23
he warns:
«... in later years, with
the speed of a lightning I have seen the collapse of all the forces
under the control of a new hegemonic centre which, with its first
aggression process, has carried out the conquest and unification
of China, and carries on its aggression to Korea and Indochina».
In the introduction to the résumé
book La Matemàtica de la Història of 1951,
page 30, he says:
«As far as Asia is concerned,
the Chinese empire will carry on its amazing upward process. It
will seize all the Russian possessions in Asia, and it will only
face the other giant, the Japanese empire, which, much as the
German one, is now attaining a period of imperial plenitude».
In the ninth volume of the longer
version of La Matemàtica de la Història24,
Alexandre Deulofeu gives a description of some supposed, coincidental,
prophecies of the Great Pyramid and the Bible, which afterwards
he compares with what his theory allows to foresee. This ninth volume
should have been published a little after his death, which happened
in 1978, but its publication was delayed until 2005.
In page 193 of this ninth volume
of the more extended Matemàtica, A. Deulofeu reminds
us that the Chinese culture is at the end of its third cycle, but
that a new Chinese imperialism has started its aggression process,
and after the unification of the whole of China it threatens to
go beyond and reach the lands of Israel and the Dead Sea. As a consequence
of this overflow there would be a destructive collision between
Germany, the protector of Europe, and this imperialist Chinese nucleus.
Juli Gutiérrez Deulofeu, his grandson, and defender of his
grandfather’s thought, warns about this danger in his book,
Alexandre Deulofeu. La matemàtica de la Història25.
At page 136 Juli Gutiérrez
mentions sociologist Valerie Hudson, who calculates that, if things
go on like at present, in 2020 in China there will be 40 million
Chinese males without a partner, which will produce violence, delinquency
and organized crime.
In the following page, 137, is
described the situation in China in figures:
«Analysts calculate to
be more than 200,000 the industrial disputes which take place
in China since the end of the 1990s. These disputes become more
and more serious as the differences between rich and poor increase.
These social differences are much greater in a country which still
calls itself communist than in any capitalist western country.
It is as bad as to say that in China at present there are over
ten million slaves, that means people who get food for their work
but no salary. But the situation of the 40 million unemployed
who wander though the streets in the main north-eastern cities
of the country looking for an opportunity to survive, is still
worse. In fact their opportunities will be few, as it is foreseen
that before 2007 the number of unemployed will multiply by three».
Juli Gutiérrez goes on and
reminds us:
«To avoid a social outburst
which would have unpredictable consequences, the same as other
empires did, the Chinese country will try and find abroad what
they cannot get at home. A. Deulofeu already predicted this, and
the inner reality of the country agrees with him. Catastrophe
is impending»26.
The case
of the United States of America.
Alexandre Deulofeu said that the
USA constitute an imperialism in its federal phase, where society
is divided between capitalists and proletarians, being these two
definitions the ones used by A. Deulofeu.
He wrote:
«... As of today, the USA
has reached the apogee of their splendour and glory, which is
peculiar to the end of the first aggressive process. At this time,
empires appear to be invincible and they would be so, if they
didn’t carry in themselves the seed of disintegration and
catastrophe. What happened to the American empire? Exactly the
same that happened to the other empires in the equivalent period
of time. Symptoms are perfectly visible. On the one hand the hoarding
of riches in the hands of one class, on the other the discontent
of the working class. These circumstances have led all the empires
to violent class warfare and have caused the fall of all in the
hands of a dictator and the entry into the unitarian phase. Today
the trails which drive the great American empire through these
dangerous pathways are quite visible. The countless strikes show
the dissociation to be found between capital and labour in the
USA. Hate between capitalists and workers will grow and inevitably
will lead to armed conflicts. Taking advantage of an outer war,
American proletariat will rise against the governing class, the
same as was done by the German proletariat during the war of 1914-1918.
Then, the great American power will suffer endless misfortunes.
The horrors of the French revolution will come back multiplied
according to the large American population. There will be a great
depression followed by an external invasion. There will be years
of destruction, exhaustion and fight among the rival factions.
This situation will lead to the set up of an absolute power and
of new dreams of conquest and of universal hegemony. As a consequence,
there will be a new tragedy for mankind27».
Here is described a depression
which may lead the USA to a treble civil war: one of confronted
social classes, one of confronted ethnic groups, and one of confronted
leaders. It is the counterpart f the War of Succession in the Spanish
imperialism, or the French Revolution in the French imperialism.
From this confrontation one faction would carry out the victory,
a state on unitary bases would be established and an aggressive,
absolutist, expansion would take the start, –the counterpart
of Napoleon in France or of Hitler in Germany–, which would
end with a military defeat, which would deter this imperialism from
trying to conquer the whole world, to reach later its phase of plenitude,
with a paternalistic trend, where it would just try and keep the
possessions it already has.
The case
of the Spanish imperialism.
The year 2029 the Spanish imperialism
will reach 550 years of existence28.
It must be kept in mind that 550 years is the average duration of
any imperialism, according to A. Deulofeu, but the situation of
this territory within the civilization cycle is still within the
phase of great unification, just at the moment of the greatest depersonalization
of human beings29.
This anticipates a lack of understanding among the different nations
which make up Spain, which will stop depending from the imperialistic
frame on which they still lean to join Europe under the patronage
of Germany.
Making a forecasting effort, it
is clear that, with goodwill from both parts, different sorts of
solutions may be applied so that the above-mentioned possible conflicts
(which A. Deulofeu’s cyclic theory allows to foresee) have
as little as possible detrimental effects. But in this text we shall
consider now how they could be solved according to the information
supplied by Alexandre Deulofeu himself, and, besides that, applying
the political, economic and social model proposed by Agustí
Chalaux de Subirà.
Agustí
Chalaux and Horace Finaly.
Agustí Chalaux de Subirà
(1911-2006) was a restless teenager who, when he was fourteen, had
the opportunity to attend a talk under the title of The role
of bankers in society, given by banker Horace Finaly, the president
of the Banque Nationale de Paris et des Pays-Bas (Paribas).
Agustí Chalaux (1911-2006).
When the time for questions and
answers came, Agustí Chalaux asked to speak and at the end
Mr. Finaly personally met the young Agustí.
During fourteen years both used
to meet at the banker’s place, and he explained him facts,
ideas and information of the unknown inner world of his trade.
Three years after that first coming
together, in one of their regular meetings something of capital
importance happened, that Agustí himself explains:
«The meeting was at 8.30
p.m. in Mr. Finaly’s office. When I arrived a kind servant
told me that monsieur Finaly was very sorry but could
not be with me immediately, as he had an important meeting, and
asked me to wait in the library.
At first I passed the time going
through the books. Afterwards, I sat at his desk and thoughtlessly
I checked that some drawers were open. My soul’s remonstrances
didn’t stop me from rummaging through the drawers. Everything
was in order in folders, each with the name of their contents,
all of them extremely interesting. My teenager’s cunning
was cautious to keep the folders in the same order as they were.
At the bottom of the last drawer I found a file with the word
Confidential on it. I read its contents without
understanding much. It was something new to me. It concerned an
important meeting held in Paris in 1919. I remember that the exclusive
participators in the meeting were J.P. Morgan, sir Henry Deterding,
Mr. Finaly being the host. In the meeting they were alone, but
now and again they called different experts, whose names I do
not remember, and asked them some explanation. What I found more
interesting was the résumé to be found at the end
of the report.
The résumé contained
two points:
First. According
to the experts, but also according to the general opinion of the
great economists of before and during the war of 1914, the gold
stock only allowed covering the war expenditure during three months.
In order to overcome this difficulty, international bankers had
suggested to the governments to abandon the gold convertibility
of their paper currency, at least inside each country.
Second. If the
paper currency, separated from gold, which had been recommended
and used during the war, now, after this ended, could be rationalized,
it would allow international bankers and decision makers of the
governing classes –according to experts– to earn more
money than if the disinformative and anonymous money
(which had been in use up to then, and up to now) was kept.
Conclusion. The
decision of the three was that they were not interested in rationalizing
scriptural irrational paper money in force because, in the first
place they had enough money and, in the second place, the present
day paper money allowed to carry on the (unfair) game of world
plutarchy.
While I was keenly immersed in
reading this report I received a terrible blow which threw me
to the floor. For a moment I didn’t know what had happened,
afterwards Mr. Finaly changed his attitude and helped me to get
up while he apologized. He emphasized my tactlessness in the face
of the trust he had shown, leaving me alone in his library with
the desk drawers open. He told me that not even a servant would
have dared doing what I had done (which I doubt, but probably
he had more spies in other peoples’ places than the opposite).
After this incident we had dinner.
Nobody was aware of Mr. Finaly’s sharp reaction. During
dinner he asked me what I had understood from the report.
I told him that virtually nothing.
–The word that most
impressed me has been «plutarchy».
–Little by little I
shall explain it to you– he said.
That day he didn’t explain
anything. Later he would yield to the temptation of speaking at
length with me about all these exciting issues. He delighted in
opening his most hidden mind to a thirsty teenager who, with dark
intuition, had guessed the importance of a knowledge which was
being kept secret by this superior lineage of great bankers.
Horace Finaly opened my head with an axe blow (...).
Fascinated by all these discoveries
I started studying Economics in Paris. H. Finaly made fun of the
problems I had with my studies, as he thought that the economic
studies we carried on at the university were very little scientific.
On Mr. Finaly’s advice,
and following my father’s wish, I matriculated in the School
of Chemistry at Mulhouse. In this school they ruined all the rhetoric,
all the idealistic way of thinking I had. They told me: phenomena
are to be studied following a precise method, regardless of your
ethical beliefs, transcendent ideals, ideologies and passions
you may have. A phenomenon is a phenomenon, something objective
that may be studied and documented. When you focus on the study
of a phenomenon, you do just that, nothing else. Logic is useful
to study phenomena and nothing else. Logic is not a concentration
camp: you go in and out when you wish (not like religion). When
you get out of logic you do as you please, because it is no use
for ordinary life. This basic instruction has been very useful
to me.
The discovery of this scientific
method, precise and meticulous, applied to physical and chemical
phenomena, allowed me to start focussing on the study of social
and economic phenomena with the same precision and thoroughness»30.
Agustí
Chalaux and Lluís Maria Xirinacs.
Agustí Chalaux lived his
political experiences first in the world of the left-wing Catalanism,
and later in the libertarian movement, where he verified in the
revolutionary facts of 1936 in Catalonia that ideals are useless
if they don’t go together with clear and rigorous solutions.
The Soviet occupation of Hungary
in 1956 convinced Agustí that revolutionary violence was
useless, because the State is practically indestructible, as it
has all the means to maintain itself.
In the years 1979 and 1980 he got
in touch with the former senator Lluís Maria Xirinacs, and
convinced him to study a new political, economic and social model
as an alternative to capitalism and communism. Mr. Xirinacs abandoned
active politics and together with friends, old followers and other
persons, they created, together with Agustí Chalaux, the
Centre d’Estudis Joan Bardina, taking the name of the innovative
educator Joan Bardina i Castarà.
Lluís Maria Xirinacs (1932-2007).
Historic
antecedents of Agustí Chalaux’s model.
The model worked out by Agustí
Chalaux, Lluís Maria Xirinacs and their team aims at upholding
individual liberties and at the same time to grant a minimum material
sustenance for everybody, proposing a regime of economic transparency
which would make corruption as difficult as possible, taking advantage
of telematics, but without allowing this to become a totalitarian
tyranny.
The starting idea is based on the
knowledge that in times of the state cities of the first Sumerians,
there was a market based in temples which carried out bank duties,
and was controlled by banker priests. The inhabitants took their
products to the bank-temple in order to exchange them for money
units, which were registered through several procedures, among them
the clay tablets. In these clay tablets, as forerunners of writing,
the names of seller and buyer were given, besides the goods and
money units used.
Third millennium b.C. tablet from a place in Syria.
According to the oral platonic
tradition of the great bankers, which Agustí Chalaux learned
from his mentor Finaly, this system gave the name to a golden age,
where coins were not gold or silver, and where peace and responsibility
prevailed.
The practice of alloys and the
subsequent metal money, completely anonymous, which favours unfair
game, speculation and corruption, allowed king Sargon I of Akkad
to wipe out the previous system based on the clay tablets and to
start a race of succeeding imperialisms which has lasted unto our
days. At that time came into existence imperialisms and economic
corruption.
The political,
economic and social model of Agustí Chalaux.
It consists of carrying out a system
of informative marketing transparency as the one applied by the
ancient Sumerians, stopping the use of present day anonymous coins
and banknotes, but with the technical resources offered by modern
telematic systems.
In this system every commercial
operation is carried out by means of a contract, called cheque-invoice,
where the data of the seller, buyer, goods and currency units used
are indicated. This cheque-invoice is a judicial proof of the exchange31.
Cheque-invoice.
These operations are recorded by
means of a number of communal telematic nets, controlled by an independent
justice of the several political, executive and legislative bodies32.
Justice, in order to grant its
independence, receives and manages a fixed percentage of all the
ordinary and extraordinary State budgets. In this telematic system,
the statistical data of the whole market are available to all its
agents33,
while personal information is only available to the persons themselves
and to Justice, in case there were a lawsuit in which they may be
involved34.
In order to ensure the sustenance
of all the individuals in the market, it is suggested to establish
an automatic system of incomes35.
This may be a basic income or social salary for all the individuals
who have no other income, in order to abolish material poverty.
To ensure this income system, a
working hypothesis is stated called of commercial common good according
to which, if this more scientific economic system were applied,
it must be possible to check or deny the existence of a communal
wealth originated by inventions which no longer pay patent rights,
which generate production surpluses which would allow to invent
the necessary money for buying these surpluses, without creating
inflation36.
Should this hypothesis come true,
Agustí Chalaux says that the growing point of his model would
take place when the communal incomes were more productive than the
private market itself, at which time would be reached what he calls
libertarian communism.
For reasons of economic caution,
minimal taxes would still be applied while the confirmation or denial
of this hypothesis arrives. These taxes would be applied to each
cheque-invoice37,
plus a tax on private property of the land38.
We are not going to make a full
abstract of the whole model designed by Agustí Chalaux and
his team, but in what remains of it there is a number of steps to
avoid a power concentration, such as a radical separation of the
executive and the legislative State powers39.
It also establishes that each individual person will be included
in only one of the following charters, at choice: trade, communal-liberal,
or mixed-craftsman40,
where the members of the communal-liberal charter (such as teachers,
lawyers, and therapists) may offer freely their services, and be
rewarded with incomes of communal origin41.
When Alexandre Deulofeu warns of
the serious dangers which mankind and the whole planet may suffer,
dangers which might cause an important backward movement in our
level of technological evolution, these possible facts might thwart
the intention of Agusti Chalaux that telematics offer us a tool
to establish an economy based in transparency, and which makes much
more difficult corruption, unfair game and misuse of power.
Agustí
Chalaux’s model as applied to China.
Agustí Chalaux used to say
slyly: «I have no problem with the rich, my problem is with
the poor. And with the poor there are two solutions: either you
kill them or you give them money so they stop being poor and buy
in the wealthy people’s shops».
In face of the crisis which may
attain China as a consequence of its inability to feed basic products
to most of its population, an exemplary solution would be the help
from countries which produce surplus foods acceptable for the Chinese
and other basic products for the needy population in the different
areas in China.
To start with, this solution presents
a problem. This shower of surplus food, which should feed the unemployed
and needy population of China, may be interrupted and not reach
its destination, as it has happened with many shipments of help
from the so-called first-world countries to the inhabitants of the
so-called third-world countries, through the evil action of some
corrupt go-betweens, speculators or officials.
With the introduction of a telematic
monetary system, to be compulsory and free and to include China,
–considering the high technological level of this society–
it can automatically be known which persons have no income. Then
the necessary money can be created so that, delivered as a basic
income, these same needy persons may buy the surpluses, thereby
creating profits for the final shop-keepers, the go-betweens and
the producers themselves which have generated these surpluses.
With such an income system it is
possible to face the announced crisis of resources until the Chinese
themselves may resort to their own production sources.
Agusti
Chalaux’s model as applied to the U.S.A.
In face of the predictable crisis
he announced, Alexandre Deulofeu stated the need for the USA to
change over from their federal phase to the unitarian phase with
as little upheaval as possible.
Between one phase and the other
there might be a civil war, already mentioned, which should be avoided.
Alexandre Deulofeu had said that human beings show a trend to modify
the laws of nature in their own benefit, and therefore they can
also modify the very laws announced by Deulofeu, as soon as they
get to know them:
«Now, if we compare the
human process with that of irrational animals, we may observe
a fundamental difference consisting of the fact that animals cannot
get out of their determinism, while man is breaking it all the
time. Cats and dogs, from time immemorial, defend themselves with
their claws and teeth, while man modifies continuously his defence
means. In a similar way, since their origins animals travel on
their paws, while man has discovered other transport means. With
plants it is the same. Taken as a whole, they will follow their
evolutionary cycle exactly the same all through the centuries,
while the solar system is not modified, while man, in the process
of discovering the laws of Nature, has modified his way of life
and has gone forward. As a consequence, why shouldn’t man
move on from the collective point of view when he discovers the
laws which rule community life?»42.
Among other measures, Deulofeu
suggested the assignment of the great fortunes of the USA to the
State, the adoption of a unitary structure with a strong government,
and giving up the ambitions of conquest in order to step from one
system to the next43.
Setting up Agustí Chalaux’s
model in a technologically advanced society, such as that of the
USA, allows to establish a much more rational and scientific economic
system than the ones in force at present, without having recourse
to the nationalization of the great fortunes, but establishing a
market which would be free and at the same time unambiguous, where
there appears an exact description of the market statistical data
within everybody’s reach, allowing the telematic monetary
nets and the ability to invent money, which up to now was in the
hands of a private institution, such as the Federal Reserve, to
become from now onwards of public-communal property.
The social sectors without incomes
within the USA themselves could then benefit of these incomes to
buy the surpluses of basic products, thereby eliminating poverty
and averting the ghost of a civil war.
The peoples
of the old Spanish imperialism.
Both Alexandre Deulofeu44,
Agustí Chalaux45,
and his disciple Lluís Maria Xirinacs46
advocate for a confederal structure of political organization to
solve the disagreements among all the nations and people of the
Earth.
After being aware that the Spanish
imperialism, as we know it, has an approximate validity period of
five centuries and a half, we can avoid the conflicts intrinsic
to this validity, and allow that the different Iberian peoples who
want to may come in, peacefully and with their own voice, as full
states inside the European institutions.
As we can read in Deulofeu’s
Chapter 19 of his first book, Catalunya i l’Europa futura,
«in future Europe there will be a true League of Nations,
which will make international armed conflicts impossible»47.
Alexandre Deulofeu tells us that
the natural evolution of the peoples implies an alternation of creative
fragmentation stages and stages of great unification, where there
is no new creation, but the creation of previous stages is transmitted.
The confederal structure then allows, due to its flexibility, the
pacific, but necessary, crossing of this natural evolution from
one stage to the next and vice versa, in each of the places where
these changes take place.
The consummation of the planetary
political process will be completed finally with the World Confederation,
where all the nations on earth, with no exception, will keep their
freedom, but joined together in a common political project which
will remove the ghost of war from the planet’s surface.
There is
enough food for everybody.
Since the times of economist Thomas
Robert Malthus (1766-1834), one of the main worries of demographers
has been the growth of the world population and the possibility
that there may not be enough food on our planet for all its inhabitants.
Malthus said that the growth in
food production followed an arithmetical proportion, while the growth
in population in his time followed a geometrical proportion. If
things went on in the same way, the number of human beings on Earth
could become too much for its ability to produce food.
In 1929 Warren Thompson48
and others after him found that in the more developed countries
there appeared a model of demographic transition, where countries
went from a situation of high birth and death rates to a situation
of low birth and death rates, as a result of their economic development.
This model of demographic transition
has spread to other countries, where a new feature has appeared:
the latter are speeding up the stages with respect to the first
ones arrived. The forecast is that, if things go on without great
ups and downs, world population should get stabilized by the year
2050.
On top of that, Dr. and agroecologist
Peter Rosset’s team, demonstrates that every state’s
territory is capable of producing the food needed by its inhabitants,
even in the countries with a high population. It is a fact that
we produce more than we need. He therefore suggests to distribute
well what is produced, not to use technologies which go against
the environment, to help improve small farms, which actually are
the more productive, and to respect the food sovereignty of every
country49.
In this good distribution of food,
the above-mentioned solution suggested by Agustí Chalaux’s
team, may become a very effective tool.
Intensive
exploitation of seas and oceans.
Besides the suggestions of the
mentioned authors, the need to feed humankind may be still further
ensured with the intensive exploitation of the seas and oceans.
In the paleolithic age human beings
lived of their ability as hunters, gatherers and carrion scavengers
on land. The neolithic revolution went a step further in the exploitation
of the land though farming and cattle raising.
In the present day man still applies
a system similar to that of the paleolithic age to tap the seas,
based on fishing and gathering. The idea is to stop plundering sea
vegetables and wild animals, and to establish wide areas to cultivate
vegetal species and to grow sea animals, while leaving the remaining
waters to natural ecosystems.
With these solutions we could solve
the problem of food supply for human beings without draining the
natural ecosystems, until all the peoples on earth end their demographic
transition model and human population on is stabilized.
It is not necessary then to wait
for the possible conflicts announced by Alexandre Deulofeu to help
reduce world population and thereby allow its sustenance in the
long run.
Recycling,
renewable energies and respect for ecosystems.
There are many voices warning us
about the need to transform productive and consumption systems of
human beings based on ecologic factors.
The first necessary factor is recycling
of materials. If we humans keep in mind all the cycles of materials
in production and consumption, we shall produce only recyclable
products and we shall recycle all the rejected materials, so materially
speaking we would not use up the planet.
A second factor is the exclusive
use of renewable energies. If we humans use only renewable energies,
we shall stop using fossil and nuclear energies, and we shall introduce
the use of free energies if they demonstrate their effectivity,
then from the point of view of energy we would enjoy an unlimited
abundance50.
A third factor is respect for natural
ecosystems. Both on land, in rivers, seas and oceans, human beings
must respect natural ecosystems which allow also our sustenance.
An economic system, more scientific,
where people assume responsibility, as the one set forth by Agustí
Chalaux, may improve decisively the progressive application of these
ecologic principles. But Agustí himself warned:
«Now, in order for the
relationship between man and nature to change, to move from the
present day possessive and destructive trend to one of respect
and admiration, it is necessary for a radical mind change, and
this takes time and cannot be imposed by law. Here the social
libertarian structures can help to quicken the process. A clear
and transparent society, responsible from the point of view of
currency, with a lot free time, with a productive abundance and
a great communal solidarity towards the needy, is a society which
does not put obstacles in the way of ideas, social experimenting,
which does not condition the minds but on the contrary gives them
freedom and helps them in their initiatives, and therefore promotes
change and social transformation»51.
At the same time, the application
of these technical solutions mentioned last, would help the consummation
of Chalaux’s economic model towards what he calls libertarian
communism.
Conclusion.
Alexandre Deulofeu, with his theory,
warns us of the possible dangers, and with his active action in
favour of peace, he gives us example. Agustí Chalaux and
his team at the same time give us a tool together with the model.
With this tool and the explained
solutions we may overcome challenges successfully, and demonstrate,
with this redressing of our direction, up to now selfish in the
short term, that we deserve to go on existing. After that, we may
help the ascension of our planet and of mankind in the path of collective
evolution.
Brauli Tamarit Tamarit.
Barcelona, Monday 8th March, 2010.
Translation: Loto Perrella.
We wish to thank all those persons
who have made corrections and amendments to this document.
In active «pdf» format.
Text extracted from the web page:
http://deulofeu.org/Opinions/Alexandre_Deulofeu_-_Deulofeu_Chalaux_-_Marti_Olivella_-_Brauli_Tamarit_english.htm
Alexandre Deulofeu web:
http://deulofeu.org.
Notes:
1In
this text, instead of the word empire used by A. Deulofeu,
we shall us the word imperialism, which belongs to the
vocabulary used by Agustí Chalaux, who endorsed a language
as univocal as possible in the study and application of social sciences.
On the other hand we leave untouched the textual quotes. According
to A. Chalaux, empires are freely set up by nations which come together
looking for protection and safety... while imperialisms are compulsorily
set up by nations submitted to the stronger one. According to him,
most of the so-called empires are actually imperialisms.
2Alexandre
Deulofeu, Memòries de la revolució, de la guerra
i l’exili (Memories of the revolution, of war and
of exile), vol. 1, page 14.
3Ibid.,
page 15.
4Ibid.,
page 16.
5Ibid.,
page 22.
6Ibid.,
page 23.
7Ibid.,
page 25.
8Ibid.,
page 30.
9Ibid.,
page 35.
10Ibid.,
pages 43-44.
11Ibid.,
page 110.
12Ibid.,
page 116.
13Ibid.,
page 126.
14Alexandre
Deulofeu, Naixement, grandesa i mort de les civilitzacions
(Birth, greatness and death of civilisations), page 61,
Catalan edition of 1970.
15Ibid.,
page 81.
16Ibid.,
page 90.
17Ibid.,
page 61.
18Which
we may call empire if it is freely constituted.
19Ibid.
page 121.
20Alexandre
Deulofeu, La Matemàtica de la Història (Mathematics
of History), this book written in 1948 was published in 1951,
and is based on a more extensive work finished in 1945.
21Page
196.
22Víctor
Fernández Bolívar, Los Principios matemáticos-históricos
y la Evolución de la Libertad (Mathematical-historical
principles and the evolution of freedom).
23Nacimiento,
grandeza y muerte de las civilizaciones (Birth, greatness
and death of civilisations), page 204, in 1956.
24Alexandre
Deulofeu, Les cultures irano-sumèria-caldea, hitita i
egípcia (The Iranian-Sumerian-Chaldaic, Hittite
and Egyptian cultures).
25Llibres
de l’Índex/Neopatria, 2004.
26Juli
Gutiérrez Deulofeu, Alexandre Deulofeu. La matemàtica
de la història (Alexandre Deulofeu. Mathematics
of History). Page 137.
27Alexandre
Deulofeu, La Matemàtica de la Història (Mathematics
of History), first edition of year 1951, second edition of
1967, pages 203 and 204.
28Year
1479 is when the Catholic kings became kings in their respective
reigns.
29Alexandre
Deulofeu, Naixement, grandesa i mort de les civilitzacions
(Birth, greatness and death of civilisations), page 127.
30Agustí
Chalaux, Notes autobiogràfiques (Autobiographical
Notes).
31Magdalena
Grau Figueras, Agustí Chalaux de Subirà, Essay
on currency, market and society, edition of the year 2000,
chapter 4, paragraph 1, page 69.
32Ibid.,
chapter 6, pages 89-90.
33Ibid.,
chapter 13, paragraph 2, page 139.
34Ibid.,
chapter 6, page 90.
35Ibid.,
chapter 14, paragraph 4, page 151.
36Ibid.,
chapter 22, pages 226-227.
37Ibid.,
chapter 7, page 93.
38Ibid.,
chapter 14, paragraph 5, page 155.
39Ibid.,
chapter 11, page 124.
40Ibid.,
chapter 10, pages 117-118.
41Ibid.,
chapter 16, paragraph 3, page 182.
42Alexandre
Deulofeu, La Matemàtica de la Història (Mathematics
of History), page 213, first edition of 1951, second edition
1967.
43Ibid.,
page 34.
44Catalunya
i l’Europa futura (Catalonia and future Europe).
45Essay
on currency, market and society.
46During
the constituent senate of 1977-1978 in the Spanish state, the team
of the independent senator for Barcelona Lluís Maria Xirinacs,
taking also into account suggestions of popular origin, submitted
a confederal constitution for the different nations of Spain. This
proposal was published in Catalan in his book Constitució, paquet d’esmenes, and in Spanish in his book Constitución, paquete de enmiendas. In these two books he submits his project
of constitution, as compared with the text approved by the Spanish
parliament, which is not the exact final text approved in referendum.
After this unsuccessful attempt, Xirinacs upheld the independence
of the Catalan nation with respect to Spain, France and Italy, but
carried on vindicating the confederal model to be applied to all
the political levels, including continents, such as Europe, and
the whole world. At that time he calls for an assembly tree made
up from bottom to top by individuals, going through the different
vernacular nations, such as the Catalan nation up to the European
and World Assemblies.
47Page
300.
48W.S.
Thompson, Population. American Sociological Review 34 (6):
959-975.
49Peter
Rosset, World hunger: 12 myths, published in Spain by Icària:
Doce mitos sobre el hambre, mentioned in an article by
Imma Sanchís: Todo
país puede alimentar a su gente (Any country can feed its people), in La Vanguardia,
Saturday 16.04.2005. La Contra, page 76.
50Example:
Greenpeace report Renewables 2050, of 23rd November 2005,
mentioned in press articles such as: Ángela Rodríguez:
Catalunya
té energia neta en abundància (Catalonia has plenty of clean energy). Metro Directe.
Wednesday 23rd November 2005, and Renovarse
o agotar la naturaleza (Either we renew ourselves or we shall deplete nature). Metro Directe, Friday 25th November
2005.
51Magdalena
Grau Figueras, Agustí Chalaux de Subirà, Essay
on currency, market and society, edition of 2000, chapter 18,
paragraph 3, page 204.
Related links:
Alexandre Deulofeu: «How shall we get to a universal confederation?».
Money and constitution.
The political planetary pyramid.
Let us imagine the Iberian Peninsula occupied by the French.