this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2024
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The problem with wealth redistribution calculations like this is that they import the wild real estate values of the global north, which only investors generally benefit from (and the occasional sexpat selling their house and moving to another country)
Yes, that's true. The calculation includes real estate "value", or rather prices, which are highly distorted and far removed from value based on labor power. But what would a more Marxist analysis look like and what would it's likely outcome be? Complicated concepts like absolute and differential ground rent from Capital volume three get involved, if you really want to do it thoroughly.
I don't think you could do it quantitatively - you can hand wave away rents entirely with the premise of the question (global equal wealth distribution) and just look at labour and global production, but even then you'll run into issues around substitution.
For example, most of the world's cobalt is mined in horrific conditions by poorly paid children in the DRC, but if you were redistributing wealth globally (and therefore stopping kids having to mine coltan for poor wages) the impact on the price of cobalt and electronic goods would be fairly marginal, because capital investment through mechanisation would increase in the DRC, or Australia would go back to being the primary cobalt producer as it was historically.
Yes, for real value, quantitative studies might be impossible.
Rent just means income without work or exchange. If you want to account for real estate, you can't wave rent or ground rent in the Marxist sense, because expected rent during depreciation plays a part in determining the price for things like land, which don't have an inherent value, because no labor is used to produce them.
I was manly interest in the impact on revolutionary potential in the core.
Edit: Oh, sorry, you meant the premise of revolutions, hence no more rent. Yes, of course.
Like, how would the numbers on the map I linked change, if real estate weren't included in the calculation?