National Caucus of Labor Committees

Template:LaRouche The National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC) is a political and philosophical organization in the United States founded and controlled by political activist Lyndon LaRouche. It originated as the Labor Caucus of the radical student organization Students for a Democratic Society, and became the NCLC in January 1969 after the group was expelled from SDS. By 1972 the NCLC had approximately 1,000 members.

LaRouche is the NCLC's founder and, since the expulsion of oppositional factions in the mid-1970s, the political views of the NCLC are virtually indistinguishable from those of LaRouche. For more information on these views see the article Political views of Lyndon LaRouche as well as the main article titled Lyndon LaRouche.

The NCLC was originally a New Left organization influenced by both Trotskyist and Maoist ideas as well as those of other Marxists such as Rosa Luxemburg. The NCLC became embroiled in conflicts with other leftist groups, culminating in "Operation Mop-Up" which, according to the Village Voice, the Washington Post and various former members of the NCLC, consisted of a series of physical attacks on members of rival left wing groups.

By the late 1970s, the NCLC had abandoned Marxism altogether, in favor of an American System approach.

NCLC members, in addition to their political activities, are expected to carry out original research in science, history, Classical music, and other areas. In addition to LaRouche, other individuals who have played an important role in the NCLC include:

• The late Allen Salisbury, an NCLC researcher who wrote the book entitled The Civil War and the American System. His research into the importance of Henry Carey (for example, Carey's debate by correspondence with Karl Marx,) Erasmus Peshine Smith, and others, was a big influence over LaRouche and the NCLC, and unleashed a major wave of other historical researches by Graham Lowry and others.

• Anton Chaitkin, co-author of The Unauthorized Biography of George Bush, which was the first published exposé of the financial ties between Prescott Bush, Averell Harriman, and the Nazi Party of Germany.

• Jonathan Tennenbaum, who did important original work in physics and classical music.

• Helga Zepp-LaRouche, who introduced the organization to the ideas of Friedrich Schiller and Nicholas of Cusa.

Electoral politics

The NCLC launched the U.S. Labor Party (USLP), a registered political party, as its electoral arm and ran LaRouche for President of the United States on the Labor Party ticket in 1976. The USLP was described by its founders as "an independent political association committed to the tradition of Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Henry C. Carey, and President Abraham Lincoln."

In 1980 LaRouche changed his political strategy to one of running in Democratic primaries rather than as a third party candidate. This resulted in the USLP being disbanded.

International work

The International Caucus of Labor Committees (ICLC) was founded as the philosophical nucleus for LaRouche movement operations worldwide.

For a number of years the ICLC operated in Canada as first the North American Labour Party and then the Party for the Commonwealth of Canada. The ICLC has affiliates in France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Russia, Denmark, and Sweden, along with Mexico and several South American countries. In Australia LaRouche operatives took over an older extreme-right group, the Citizens Electoral Council (CEC), and regularly contest elections. The most recent significant addition to the network of active ICLC affiliates is in the Philippines. The LaRouche organisation publishes a weekly newspaper, The New Federalist and a weekly newsmagazine, Executive Intelligence Review. The real membership of LaRouche's organisation is not known.

External links

• The Moral Obligation to the Virginia Prisoners (http://www.larouchepub.com/lar/1995/prisoners.html) provides a statement of the philosophical principles of the NCLC
• Lyndon Larouche: Fascism wrapped in an American flag (http://www.publiceye.org/larouche/nclc1.html) tracks the evolution of the NCLC in the 1970s.
• Archive of Dennis King's articles on the NCLC (http://www.dennisking.org) includes the 1979-80 Our Town series and later writings