Last, we need to reappraise the supply of farmland as a long-term productive resource: in a world of falling crop yields, volatile markets and unpredictable weather, farmland cannot for much longer be regarded as simply ripe for "development".
To deal with this problem, it urgently needs to develop a long-term productive strategy through a broad-based public consultation involving not just the government and private sector firms, but trade unions, educational institutions and research institutes.
Going back to the nineteen-thirties and nineteen-forties, Keynes and many of his followers were fully aware of how high unemployment, in addition to being a human disaster, degraded an economy's long-term productive potential.
Because aggregate saving feeds through the financial system to create the national supply of capital, it follows that aggregate consumption and saving behaviour has a powerful influence on an economy's long-term productive capacity.
The idea is to redirect capital investment away from short-term speculative ventures which are high-risk, high-debt and if profitable only of value to a tiny class of investors, into "long-term productive low-emission assets and services" of benefit to the wider public, as well as generating longer-term returns.
In theory, the right kind of infrastructure project boosts the long-term productive potential of an economy and pays for itself while providing much-needed jobs in the short term.British pension funds have generally promised retirement incomes that are linked to inflation (albeit with an upper limit of 5%).
Darling needs to get the economy moving again; he needs to build-up its long-term productive capacity; he needs to invest in a long-term future, and he needs to tackle the two roadblocks to reform: the City and the housing market.
And the bulk of foreign investment pouring into China is devoted to long-term productive projects.
Avoiding cuts in projects designed to help boost growth will minimise damage to the economy's long-term productive potential.
On the one hand, this increase in transparency should provide companies with easier access to capital and allow them to invest in long-term productive projects.
"At the same time, promoting infrastructure and other long-term, productive investments by these institutions can help raise real returns on capital in advanced economies more generally, thereby improving structural conditions for business and the financial sector.
