Views of Lyndon LaRouche and the LaRouche movement

Lyndon LaRouche and the LaRouche movement have expressed controversial views on a wide variety of topics. The LaRouche movement is made up of activists who follow LaRouche's views.

According to Matko Meštrović, emeritus senior research fellow at the Institute of Economics of Zagreb, Croatia, LaRouche's economic policies, developed from originally Marxist beginnings, call for a program modeled on the economic-recovery program of the Franklin Roosevelt administration, including fixed exchange rates, capital controls, exchange controls, currency controls, and protectionist price and trade agreements among partner-nations. LaRouche also calls for a reorganization of debt world-wide, and a global plan for large-scale, continental infrastructure projects. He rejects free trade, deregulation, and globalization.

Lyndon LaRouche began his political career as a Trotskyist and praised Marxism, He and the National Caucus of Labor Committees abandoned this view in the 1970s. LaRouche no longer opposes capitalism as an economic system, and his analysis of political events is no longer phrased in terms of class.

According to Tim Wohlforth, during and after his break with Trotskyism, LaRouche's theory was influenced by what he called his "Theory of Hegemony" derived from Vladimir Lenin's view of the role of intellectuals in being a vanguard helping workers develop their consciousness and realize their leading role in society. He was influenced by Antonio Gramsci's concept of a hegemon as an intellectual and cultural elite which directs social thought. LaRouche's theory saw himself and his followers as becoming such a hegemonic force. He rejected Gramsci's notion of "organic intellectuals" being developed by the working class itself. Rather, the working class would be led by elite intellectuals such as himself.

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