Norseman
26th July 2010, 19:08
As an anarchist, I'd like to have a pretty clear idea of what a post-capitalist, post-government economy would be like, mainly in terms of work required to earn a living. To that end, I've been working on measuring the effects as much as possible. I'd like to share my work here to clear up any embarrassing mistakes or oversights I might have made before I go on to share this libertarians and economists for a harsher criticism.
So, please keep me honest, and point out any fuck-ups I might have made along the way. Hopefully, we'll all get a good idea of just how rich workers will be in an anarchist society.
Ideally, I'd like to just divide the GDP across the jobs that would remain once we get rid of capitalism. This isn't too hard. In 2008, the combined wages paid to all employees totaled $5.714 trillion (http://www.bls.gov/oes/2008/may/oes_nat.htm) (take the mean annual wage for all workers and multiply by the number of workers). However, among those workers, I would eliminate the following categories:
Management Occupations: 6,152,650 employees, Average yearly salary: $100,310
Legal Occupations: 1,003,270 employees, Average yearly salary: $92,270
The total annual wage for the workers in these two categories comes out to $709 billion (I calculated this by multiplying the number of employees by the mean annual salary).
In addition to those categories, I would eliminate the following specific occupations:
Credit analysts: 74,400 employees, Average yearly salary: $64,580
Loan counselors: 29,430 employees, Average yearly salary: $41,970
Loan officers: 321,850 employees, Average yearly salary: $63,540
Tax examiners, collectors, and revenue agents: 66,030 employees, Average yearly salary: $53,090
Tax preparers: 63,030 employees, Average yearly salary: $35,520
First-line supervisors/managers of correctional officers: 40,840 employees, Average yearly salary: $58,380
First-line supervisors/managers of police and detectives: 92,840 employees, Average yearly salary: $76,820
First-line supervisors/managers of fire fighting and prevention workers: 53,300 employees, Average yearly salary: $70,860
First-line supervisors/managers, protective service workers, all other: 49,310 employees, Average yearly salary: $47,700
Bailiffs: 19,290 employees, Average yearly salary: $39,090
Correctional officers and jailers: 428,040 employees, Average yearly salary: $41,340
Parking enforcement workers: 9,530 employees, Average yearly salary: $34,020
Police and sheriff's patrol officers: 633,710 employees, Average yearly salary: $52,810
Transit and railroad police: 3,830 employees, Average yearly salary: $48,540
Gaming surveillance officers and gaming investigators: 9,100 employees, Average yearly salary: $31,550
Security guards: 1,046,760 employees, Average yearly salary: $25,840
Crossing guards: 68,530 employees, Average yearly salary: $24,290
First-line supervisors/managers of food preparation and serving workers: 805,360 employees, Average yearly salary: $30,810
First-line supervisors/managers of housekeeping and janitorial workers: 183,560 employees, Average yearly salary: $36,310
First-line supervisors/managers of landscaping, lawn service, and groundskeeping workers: 108,940 employees, Average yearly salary: $42,990
First-line supervisors/managers of retail sales workers: 1,186,270 employees, Average yearly salary: $39,910
First-line supervisors/managers of non-retail sales workers: 275,390 employees, Average yearly salary: $79,870
Telemarketers: 345,220 employees, Average yearly salary: $24,770
First-line supervisors/managers of office and administrative support workers: 1,404,330 employees, Average yearly salary: $48,700
Brokerage clerks: 68,430 employees, Average yearly salary: $41,370
Court, municipal, and license clerks: 115,070 employees, Average yearly salary: $35,120
Credit authorizers, checkers, and clerks: 65,020 employees, Average yearly salary: $31,980
Loan interviewers and clerks: 212,340 employees, Average yearly salary: $33,890
Human resources assistants, except payroll and timekeeping: 164,340 employees, Average yearly salary: $36,810
Executive secretaries and administrative assistants: 1,491,520 employees, Average yearly salary: $42,340
Legal secretaries: 257,810 employees, Average yearly salary: $41,640
First-line supervisors/managers of farming, fishing, and forestry workers: 20,800 employees, Average yearly salary: $42,740
First-line supervisors/managers of construction trades and extraction workers: 577,390 employees, Average yearly salary: $61,280
First-line supervisors/managers of mechanics, installers, and repairers: 443,840 employees, Average yearly salary: $59,160
First-line supervisors/managers of production and operating workers: 658,500 employees, Average yearly salary: $53,500
First-line supervisors/managers of helpers, laborers, and material movers, hand: 186,230 employees, Average yearly salary: $44,380
First-line supervisors/managers of transportation and material-moving machine and vehicle operators: 218,480 employees, Average yearly salary: $53,960
Parking lot attendants: 136,470 employees, Average yearly salary: $20,120
The total annual wage for these jobs comes out to $528 billion.
So, the total of the above category and these jobs is $1,238 billion annually. In total, the eliminated jobs represent about 13.8% of the workforce, and about 21.6% of the total wages earned by all workers. The total income earned by the portion of the workforce which would not be eliminated is $4.476 trillion.
In 2008, the GDP of the United States was $14.441 trillion (no link, sorry, I've been working on this on-and-off for two years now). The reason why the GDP is so much higher than the combined wages is because people earned a lot of money from doing things other than working. Like, owning shares in companies, and renting apartments.
Of that $14.441 trillion, $4.476 trillion is already going to the people we want it to go to. However, we want the remaining $9.965 trillion to go to the workers. If we divide that among them, then we'd see average income increase by 223%. For every dollar you earn today, you'd earn $3.23 without capitalism, though some of this would come from paying no rent or interest, and some would come from not paying dividends to shareholders, and some would come from not paying for those jobs I mentioned above.
In addition to this, a substantial portion of the GDP is taken in taxes. It would be enormously complicated to calculate combined income, sales, excise and property tax rates. The easy way to do this is to look at the state's budget, but the federal government takes some taxes, each state takes some other taxes, and then special government programs have additional taxes of their own that aren't part of the federal government's or state government's budgets (for example, the excise tax on gas is put directly into the road development fund, and not included in the federal budget at all).
To simplify things on myself, I'll rely on a MSNBC article which states that most people are currently paying a 40% tax (http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Taxes/Advice/YourRealTaxRate40.aspx). So, for every dollar you earn, you're allowed to keep sixty cents. In other words, for every dollar you take home now, without taxes, you'd be able to take home $1.66. So, in anarchism, for every dollar you take home today, you'd be able to take home $5.38.
Half of all workers today earn more and half earn less than $32,390/year, however, in anarchism, I'd expect that to effectively rise to at least $174,360/year.
Now, of course, this simple analysis has missed some crucial factors. I expect that the GDP of the United States is calculated as the net annual income of every person, corporation, and unincorporated business in the USA, and I think it's calculated like this because the government needs to know it in order to tax people appropriately. There are a few problems of course:
Rich people and big corporations try and frequently succeed to hide their income to avoid getting taxed on it, and this will keep it off the records.
I'm not accounting for the losses inflicted by inflation.
Not all state revenue is spent on Americans or American businesses - some money is sent to Israel, some to Turkey, etc.
Black market trade would take place off the radar, so to speak. It would not be figured into the GDP.
I've also double-counted a few jobs. For example, I removed police from the list of jobs that you'd pay for, but I also removed taxes you'd have to pay. So, I got rid of the police twice. To fix this, I think I'd need a table which lists job occupation statistics according to how many people in that field work in the private sector, compared to people working in the government.
So, can anyone offer me any criticism or useful links to help provide more accurate data for my estimates?
So, please keep me honest, and point out any fuck-ups I might have made along the way. Hopefully, we'll all get a good idea of just how rich workers will be in an anarchist society.
Ideally, I'd like to just divide the GDP across the jobs that would remain once we get rid of capitalism. This isn't too hard. In 2008, the combined wages paid to all employees totaled $5.714 trillion (http://www.bls.gov/oes/2008/may/oes_nat.htm) (take the mean annual wage for all workers and multiply by the number of workers). However, among those workers, I would eliminate the following categories:
Management Occupations: 6,152,650 employees, Average yearly salary: $100,310
Legal Occupations: 1,003,270 employees, Average yearly salary: $92,270
The total annual wage for the workers in these two categories comes out to $709 billion (I calculated this by multiplying the number of employees by the mean annual salary).
In addition to those categories, I would eliminate the following specific occupations:
Credit analysts: 74,400 employees, Average yearly salary: $64,580
Loan counselors: 29,430 employees, Average yearly salary: $41,970
Loan officers: 321,850 employees, Average yearly salary: $63,540
Tax examiners, collectors, and revenue agents: 66,030 employees, Average yearly salary: $53,090
Tax preparers: 63,030 employees, Average yearly salary: $35,520
First-line supervisors/managers of correctional officers: 40,840 employees, Average yearly salary: $58,380
First-line supervisors/managers of police and detectives: 92,840 employees, Average yearly salary: $76,820
First-line supervisors/managers of fire fighting and prevention workers: 53,300 employees, Average yearly salary: $70,860
First-line supervisors/managers, protective service workers, all other: 49,310 employees, Average yearly salary: $47,700
Bailiffs: 19,290 employees, Average yearly salary: $39,090
Correctional officers and jailers: 428,040 employees, Average yearly salary: $41,340
Parking enforcement workers: 9,530 employees, Average yearly salary: $34,020
Police and sheriff's patrol officers: 633,710 employees, Average yearly salary: $52,810
Transit and railroad police: 3,830 employees, Average yearly salary: $48,540
Gaming surveillance officers and gaming investigators: 9,100 employees, Average yearly salary: $31,550
Security guards: 1,046,760 employees, Average yearly salary: $25,840
Crossing guards: 68,530 employees, Average yearly salary: $24,290
First-line supervisors/managers of food preparation and serving workers: 805,360 employees, Average yearly salary: $30,810
First-line supervisors/managers of housekeeping and janitorial workers: 183,560 employees, Average yearly salary: $36,310
First-line supervisors/managers of landscaping, lawn service, and groundskeeping workers: 108,940 employees, Average yearly salary: $42,990
First-line supervisors/managers of retail sales workers: 1,186,270 employees, Average yearly salary: $39,910
First-line supervisors/managers of non-retail sales workers: 275,390 employees, Average yearly salary: $79,870
Telemarketers: 345,220 employees, Average yearly salary: $24,770
First-line supervisors/managers of office and administrative support workers: 1,404,330 employees, Average yearly salary: $48,700
Brokerage clerks: 68,430 employees, Average yearly salary: $41,370
Court, municipal, and license clerks: 115,070 employees, Average yearly salary: $35,120
Credit authorizers, checkers, and clerks: 65,020 employees, Average yearly salary: $31,980
Loan interviewers and clerks: 212,340 employees, Average yearly salary: $33,890
Human resources assistants, except payroll and timekeeping: 164,340 employees, Average yearly salary: $36,810
Executive secretaries and administrative assistants: 1,491,520 employees, Average yearly salary: $42,340
Legal secretaries: 257,810 employees, Average yearly salary: $41,640
First-line supervisors/managers of farming, fishing, and forestry workers: 20,800 employees, Average yearly salary: $42,740
First-line supervisors/managers of construction trades and extraction workers: 577,390 employees, Average yearly salary: $61,280
First-line supervisors/managers of mechanics, installers, and repairers: 443,840 employees, Average yearly salary: $59,160
First-line supervisors/managers of production and operating workers: 658,500 employees, Average yearly salary: $53,500
First-line supervisors/managers of helpers, laborers, and material movers, hand: 186,230 employees, Average yearly salary: $44,380
First-line supervisors/managers of transportation and material-moving machine and vehicle operators: 218,480 employees, Average yearly salary: $53,960
Parking lot attendants: 136,470 employees, Average yearly salary: $20,120
The total annual wage for these jobs comes out to $528 billion.
So, the total of the above category and these jobs is $1,238 billion annually. In total, the eliminated jobs represent about 13.8% of the workforce, and about 21.6% of the total wages earned by all workers. The total income earned by the portion of the workforce which would not be eliminated is $4.476 trillion.
In 2008, the GDP of the United States was $14.441 trillion (no link, sorry, I've been working on this on-and-off for two years now). The reason why the GDP is so much higher than the combined wages is because people earned a lot of money from doing things other than working. Like, owning shares in companies, and renting apartments.
Of that $14.441 trillion, $4.476 trillion is already going to the people we want it to go to. However, we want the remaining $9.965 trillion to go to the workers. If we divide that among them, then we'd see average income increase by 223%. For every dollar you earn today, you'd earn $3.23 without capitalism, though some of this would come from paying no rent or interest, and some would come from not paying dividends to shareholders, and some would come from not paying for those jobs I mentioned above.
In addition to this, a substantial portion of the GDP is taken in taxes. It would be enormously complicated to calculate combined income, sales, excise and property tax rates. The easy way to do this is to look at the state's budget, but the federal government takes some taxes, each state takes some other taxes, and then special government programs have additional taxes of their own that aren't part of the federal government's or state government's budgets (for example, the excise tax on gas is put directly into the road development fund, and not included in the federal budget at all).
To simplify things on myself, I'll rely on a MSNBC article which states that most people are currently paying a 40% tax (http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Taxes/Advice/YourRealTaxRate40.aspx). So, for every dollar you earn, you're allowed to keep sixty cents. In other words, for every dollar you take home now, without taxes, you'd be able to take home $1.66. So, in anarchism, for every dollar you take home today, you'd be able to take home $5.38.
Half of all workers today earn more and half earn less than $32,390/year, however, in anarchism, I'd expect that to effectively rise to at least $174,360/year.
Now, of course, this simple analysis has missed some crucial factors. I expect that the GDP of the United States is calculated as the net annual income of every person, corporation, and unincorporated business in the USA, and I think it's calculated like this because the government needs to know it in order to tax people appropriately. There are a few problems of course:
Rich people and big corporations try and frequently succeed to hide their income to avoid getting taxed on it, and this will keep it off the records.
I'm not accounting for the losses inflicted by inflation.
Not all state revenue is spent on Americans or American businesses - some money is sent to Israel, some to Turkey, etc.
Black market trade would take place off the radar, so to speak. It would not be figured into the GDP.
I've also double-counted a few jobs. For example, I removed police from the list of jobs that you'd pay for, but I also removed taxes you'd have to pay. So, I got rid of the police twice. To fix this, I think I'd need a table which lists job occupation statistics according to how many people in that field work in the private sector, compared to people working in the government.
So, can anyone offer me any criticism or useful links to help provide more accurate data for my estimates?