[Siberian Fox]

I have just added a new document to the website on world Gross National Income for last year.

http://www.politicsforum.org/documents/ ... /index.php

If you're an economicsy-type person like me then this my be of passing interest to you.

2002 World income distribution:



Compared with 2002 population distribution:



As is apparent, not only is North America the richest continent in the world (as if we didn't already know that), NAFTA, the EU and Japan have about three quarters of the world's income, but less than one quarter of the world's population.

[briansmith]

Isn't it a shame that NAFTA is making up 35% of the world's income, and yet it's destroying the jobs of American factory workers all in the name of "free trade" so corporate executives that bought out sections of both of our political parties (almost all of the Republicans and the DLC section of the Democrats) in order to be able to move their factories to Mexico, pay Mexican workers pennies on the dollar to work in those factories, and then ship the products back into the United States and try to sell them to the same American workers that were laid off in the company's move to Mexico?

Yeah, in case you didn't notice, I don't much like NAFTA or "free trade." Maybe I prefer to see workers not being royally screwed on a daily basis by jerks like Ken Lay and Dick Cheney.

[malachi151]

The interesting thing is that in theory, under truly free trade what we should see is income levels falling in line with populations roughly.

That means a lowering of teh standard of living for the current dominate blocks.

However "free-trade" is not real "free-trade" so... I'm not sure what we will see. I think it all goes back to class. Under "free-trade" class will dominate nationality or geographic location.

The past 80 years have been nationalistic so nation has overpowered class, which is the point of nationalism, but in a free trading environment, rigged or not, you see class overpower nation status as the dominate dividing line between people.

[SpiderMonkey]

'Free trade' is an oxymoron.

An anarchic market, like those which are glorified by capitalists, gives everybody the freedom to do what they want with their money. Thats what capitalists like about it.

There is a problem though. Those who through luck or birth start off with more money, can use that money to alter the market - they can advertise a product to increase demand for instance. Of course, being human they will alter the market in a way that benefits them and not care about other people. Thus the supposedly 'free' market becomes a market controlled by those in power to the end of keeping them in power. (To be clear, I'm talking economic power not political here, although capitalism likes the 2 to be inseperable).

This problem scales up to global 'free trade' - so you get situations where people in the third world are not free to trade the fruits of their labour at all. The charts above show the results.

[malachi151]

Well, I dont exactly agree with that, but generaly yes. I don't see birth rite and the only obsitical to free trade, even if everyone starts with the same you still can't have a "free market". The "free market" is an idea, it can never be reality unless there is no capital at all, which is impossible. By its existance capital always puts leverage on any market, thus the only way to have a truely free market with either with no capital or totally equal capital. So even if everyoen has equal capital, as soon as the first transaction is made that breaks equilibrium then the "free market" is broken.

[SpiderMonkey]

Well, I dont exactly agree with that, but generaly yes. I don't see birth rite and the only obsitical to free trade, even if everyone starts with the same you still can't have a "free market". The "free market" is an idea, it can never be reality unless there is no capital at all, which is impossible. By its existance capital always puts leverage on any market, thus the only way to have a truely free market with either with no capital or totally equal capital. So even if everyoen has equal capital, as soon as the first transaction is made that breaks equilibrium then the "free market" is broken.

I get the impression we both said the same thing in different ways. At least we agree the free market is a myth.

edit: got confused which thread I was in

[Gothmog]

-This values seem to be based on raw currency exchange rates instead of Purchase Parity Power values (the NAFTA share in world GNI falls to 22-25% if we use PPP). In this case, it must be considered that the dollar suffered a HUGE devaluation in 2002-2003, and so relative share of NAFTA is probably under 30% now, even using raw currency exchange rates.

[Siberian Fox]

From the text file at the bottom of the 2002 statistics page:

Total GNI 2002, Atlas method (Source: World Bank)

I am sure a brief search would reveal what the Atlas method is (unless you already know of course), and thus exactly how these statistics have been calculated.

[Gothmog]

From the text file at the bottom of the 2002 statistics page:

Total GNI 2002, Atlas method (Source: World Bank)

I am sure a brief search would reveal what the Atlas method is (unless you already know of course), and thus exactly how these statistics have been calculated.

-Thank you. I´ve loked at the graphics and data is not PPP adjusted, If you use PPP values, then India will have her GNI increased by 300% and China by 200%. In those days of wild exchange fluctuation, raw currency values are unreliable. The GNI for European countries should rise by 30% due to the dollar devaluation relative to the Euro.

[bach]

The most striking country is Japan, with only 2% of the population obtaining 14 percent of the GNI, and if to that we add that Japan is a bounch of little islands, it seems to me pretty clear that technology, industrialization and management are the most important factors.