How Much Money is There on Earth?

[Mindtoaster]

And if it was equally distributed, how much would every person receive per year?

I haven't been able to find any reliable source for this information, but I may just be typing the wrong searches into Google. This might be extremely effective information when debating with capitalists.

[Black Sheep]

What is the purpose of this question?Money itself does not have neither a stable value of wealth 'representation' (excuse my english), neither an equal value from place to place (countries).

But the certain thing is that there is enough (and way more) wealth produced to support ALL of the world's population into a very good level (according to today's average living standards).

And that in today's economy, with all the useless and parasitic 'jobs', such as advertisers, bureaucrats, etc.Imagine the potential in a socialist economy..

[Cult of Reason]

I am afraid it is not really possible to answer your question meaningfully. First of all, there are many different types of money. If you simply mean currency, the notes and coins, then the amount of that per capita is far below GDP per capita in the world, let alone the developed world. Currency itself is an abstraction, but the rest of the money is even further detached from reality. All of the rest, non-currency, of the money is a result of loans. Whenever you take a loan out from a bank, new money is effectively created. (Unless I have missed something, that probably means that you taking out a loan has increased GDP...)

Secondly, even if that was not the case, the money has no direct relation to physical objects or production (after all, inflation does not happen to iron...). A vast amount of the money in banks is not used for the purchasing of new products, but is either used to buy already existing things, or sits and gathers interest. Dividing it all up among all the people to spend as they wish would mostly have the effect of pushing up prices. Money is an abstract form of the power to make someone else work, but the latter is limited while the former is not, assuming static population. If a person with £60 billion gave it all away to 60 million UK residents, and the UK was an autarky, each person would end up richer by £1000. Would an extra £1000 of goods and services be produced for each person? No. The supply of raw materials, energy and labour would remain the same. People would not suddenly start working harder, and nor would the supply of energy and materials increase. Prices would therefore rise, as the supply of money has increased, but not the demand. Similarly, if the UK became completely egalitarian and all the GDP (let us not consider wealth and assets, it complicates things) the equally distributed, the median income (£16450 per year in 2004) would equal the mean income (about £23000 in the same year), but people in the middle would not suddenly become better off by the equivalent of £9000, as those at the top were not spending all the money on actual production. There would be a small benefit to the majority based on the equal distribution of goods and services, not money, as the total production would not necessarily change. Someone earning 10 times as much as you does not consume 10 times as much as you.

Thirdly, partly because of the phantom nature of money I mentioned in point one, measuring exactly the amount of money around is not possible. However, the CIA estimates about $54,620,000,000,000 as the GDP of the world, which is $8,241 per capita. Not that much, especially considering that a lot of it is not then spent on consumption.

[Mindtoaster]

What is the purpose of this question?

Its mostly for debating purposes, such as explaining the reality of the unequal distribution of wealth in our society and the massive improvement to quality of living wealth redistribution would bring to the majoirty of the human race.

IE: There is *this much* money in the world economy. If that was to be equally divided every person on Earth would make *this much* money a year.

Its information for people who have not been exposed to socialism or the idea of wealth distribution.

[turquino]

Might this (http://monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com/2008/07/06/blast-of-the-past-from-irtr-a-rough-estimate-of-the-value-of-labor/) be what you're looking for?

[JimmyJazz]

The money supply in every country is constantly changing (increasing). The dollar is not tied to anything finite--like gold--so the government simply prints more when it feels like doing so to pay its debts.

What you were probably asking was, if all material things were distributed evenly, how much material stuff would every person have, in terms of current U.S. dollars? Sorry, I don't know. :)

[ashaman1324]

why would you want to have a representation of a symbol of wealth?
paper represents gold.
gold symbolizes wealth.
barter, then you can have true wealth.

[ZeroNowhere]

Wait, socialism stands for the redistribution of money? I never realized this.

[Hit The North]

GWP (Global World Product) is estimated at $65.61 trillion, in 2007, according to the CIA.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/xx.html

[Black Sheep]

Wait, socialism stands for the redistribution of money? I never realized this.
It stands for the equal distribution of production to all working people who make it happen.

[ZeroNowhere]

It stands for the equal distribution of production to all working people who make it happen.
So everybody gets cookies, whether they want it or not?
Also, labour credits and such aren't incompatible with socialism either. Though yes, it pretty much does advocate something radically different to today, rather than just "spreading the wealth around". Also, why the hell would you redistribute money equally to everybody anyways? I mean... Why?
It would be more beneficial to point out that, say, we can produce far more than enough food to feed everybody and solve world hunger and such problems, but we do not because of the profit motive.

[Bilan]

Money is an expression of capital - productive, or otherwise. It has no value in itself, it's value is derived from the amount of capital in circulation, etc.

[Demogorgon]

About 55 trillion dollars meaning if everybody had an equal amount it would be $8,500.

You had to remember though that this is a very arbitrary figure as the 55 trillion dollars is a nominal figure not reflective of each countries own currencies PPP.

If we were to calculate amount of money based on that it would be around 65 trillion dollars which is $10,000 each, but that does not reflect actual money in the world but rather purchasing power though i fact it might better represent "real" money.

[Hit The North]

As Marx writes, opening the first volume of Das Kapital, "The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as “an immense accumulation of commodities,” its unit being a single commodity." Under capitalism the exchange of commodities is governed by money which becomes the symbolic representation of the value of those commodities. Therefore wealth in capitalist society is generally measured in monetary terms. So, as a debating tactic, giving examples of the inequalities of monetary wealth both globally and nationally works well for anti-capitalist propaganda.

[Raúl Duke]

So everybody gets cookies, whether they want it or not?

We do not force the cookie unto them...

It's only becomes available for their consumption when they wish to have it.

If they don't we can always save it for another occasion...

[chegitz guevara]

I recently heard on NPR that in 2006, there was 70 trillion dollars available for investment. That is simply idle money. It doesn't include invested money, it doesn't include transactions or other forms of wealth, such as land, buildings, etc. And all that money was looking for a place to earn interest.