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October 21, 2009 (LPAC)-- The following discussion took place Oct. 20 in a meeting between Lyndon LaRouche and his associates in the United States. Here, the issue was raised of increasing the ratio of productive employment to unproductive employment or unemployment, and how this is to be done.

QUESTIONER: One more thing I think is worth specifying on the Russia-China agreements: The reason why it is a productive investment, is because, it's very specific. It's what we've talked about with the Eurasian Land-Bridge idea for a long time. You have this huge concentration of populations in the Indo-China area, and the access to raw materials, which are currently locked up in Siberia and the Far East, that's exactly what's needed to both raise the potential population density in that region, and also to increase the living standards. And that's the specific reason why it's productive investment.

LYNDON LAROUCHE: Also, the other aspect is, you're taking, of the total labor force, you're transferring labor force from unemployment and from non-productive employment, to productive employment, and therefore, you're increasing the productivity of the labor force as a whole, per capita and per square kilometer. And that's where your real increase in wealth is: Is you're taking useless, or what is rendered useless, forms of human activity, and you're now putting it into a useful expression. And by changing the percentile of the population which is engaged in useful operations, with respect to not useful or marginal, you are increasing the per-capita wealth of the entire population, and of the nation. And it's that getting things moving, which is what we have to do now. It's just the process, you get something moving, that opens the door for getting something else moving. And that opens the door for getting something else moving. And this is what a recovery is, as Roosevelt did it, during the New Deal.

QUESTIONER: Well, especially productive employment among the Chinese, who had been formerly employed in these just cheap labor for the markets in the West.

LAROUCHE: And those who had not been employed at all! Or, had been — you know, a farmer has no horse or no tractor, and is out there plowing the field with his own hands. You give him a tractor, you give him some other benefit, and suddenly his productivity increases, as well as his comfort and wellbeing! And by just these things that do that, are the way that you actually improve a national economy. And if you keep doing that, even in what seems to be marginal degrees, you're going to get a fundamental change in the situation.

And we just got this — it's a big breakthrough, in this agreement with China with Russia. There may be problems in this thing, somewhere along the line, but right now, the first thing to see is this is a major breakthrough! And this is going to attract attention in Japan, in Korea — both Korea, North and South — it's going to attract a lot of attention in South Asia. And also Mongolia suddenly is going to come into the picture in a way it's never been, because Mongolia has no coast. But it has a potential, it has vast raw materials, and so forth, and by being included in this, now suddenly, Mongolia, which is a significant area of Central Asia, becomes significant. Then the entire region of North Asia, which is the raw materials storehouse, on which Asia depends, begins to come into activity. You're on the road to riches, in a sense: Not necessarily as big riches, that are going to tumble in on you, but you are increasing, day by day, you are increasing the productive powers of labor, in an entire nation or group of nations. And that's what we have to do. And that's the perspective we have to have.

Not somebody coming along with some scheme, we're going to make a million dollars this way, a billion dollars that way. It's this steady progress of increasing the productive powers of labor and their utilization.