One Finite Planet

One Finite Planet

Population – Wealth Equations

Date Published:

Formulae | Terms | Implications | Finite World

The formulae:

Annual-wealth-created = total-work-done + asset-wealth-accessed

Total-work-done = average-personal-productivity * population

Per-capita-wealth  =  average-personal-productivity  + (asset-wealth-accessed / population)

Asset-wealth-accessed = accrued-wealth + natural wealth-accessed

The Terms

Total Wealth.

The total wealth is simply the wealth of the society overall.  The sum of the wealth that is available for the total society to enjoy.  This wealth is available to be share evenly or not, but it represents that which is available to share.

Asset-wealth.

Asset wealth is the sum of durable wealth which remains from year to year such as housing and infrastructure as opposed to wealth which is consumed such as food and holidays.

Assets can be man made such as housing, or natural, such as the land under the housing, fertile farm land and water to grow crops or mines as a source of mineral wealth.  For natural wealth,  only those natural resources which are being utilised add to the wealth of the community at the time being considered.  Unused land or undiscovered minerals which may potentially be part of future wealth, do not add to current wealth.

Per Capita Wealth.

Simply the total wealth divided by the number of people.  In a society with perfectly even distribution of wealth, each individual would hold the per capita share of wealth.  Raising the Per Capita wealth would raise the wealth of all in the society.  However, simply adding to the wealth of one individual will still raise per capita wealth, even though there is no distribution of the increase in wealth.  Per capita wealth only is a sound indicator of overall wealth if wealth distribution remains static, and the rich remain in the same ratio of wealth to the poor.

Per capita wealth creation follow the formula above and combines individual wealth creation with the share of natural resource wealth.  Growing population should allow specialisation which can have a positive impact on the ability of an individual to produce wealth, but as the population grows this effect reaches a limit.  While there are untapped resources, growing the population can also allow accessing more resources,  but eventually all resources are already leveraged.  The result is that there is a phase where as population increases per capital wealth should increase, followed by a tipping point when all resources are fully exploited after which per capita wealth will be driven to decrease by further population grown.

The Implications: Pre-Finite world

Logically, total work done should increase in proportion to population. However, increased opportunities for specialisation and economies of scale can result in an increase in total work done slightly beyond the logical proportional increase. Simplistically, it is feasible for a team of 200 to do more than 10x the work of a team of 20 because of economies of scale and ability to specialise.  But a team of 200 trying to dig the same 3meter diameter hole in the ground may not be 10x as fast as team of 20.

Pre-finite world, natural asset wealth could never fully utilised, as there was always new natural assets to be found and utilised.  As population expands, more land can be utilised, more minerals discovered and the accessible total natural wealth expands as the population expands.  The result is that increase in population has the potential to increase per-capita wealth.

Finite World Implications

Once we reach ‘finite world’ where all new land has been found, and there is already sufficient people to exploit all available resources, more people simply means a smaller share of available land and resources per person.

Like digging the hole in the ground, there is an optimum number of people on the team.  Less than the number the work takes longer,  but past a certain point adding more becomes counter productive… or a least results in no further increase in production and the proceeds of the work on a per person basis start to decrease.

Once finite world is reached, further increases in population simple mean less wealth per person.  This is the same with any creatures in nature, within a given habitat, there is a maximum population of each creature which can be sustained by the habitat before living conditions start to decline.

Table of Contents

Categories

Crime: A litmus test for inequality?

Around the world, many countries have both a battle with equality for some racial groups and minorities and also a battle with crime-rates within and by those same groups.

Should we consider crime rates the real sentinels of problems and a solution require focusing on factors behind crime rates? Or is the correct response to rising crime rates or crime rates within specific groups an adoption of being “tough on crime”, thus increasing rates of incarceration and even deaths in custody for oppressed minorities and racial groups?

This is an exploration of not adjusting the level of penalties and instead focusing on the core issues and inequalities behind crime-rates. It is clear that it is “damaged people” in general rather than specific racial groups that correlate with elevated crime rates, so why not use crime rates to identify who is facing inequality?

Read More »

Influence: There’s no free lunch and they use your data to make you pay.

It can seem all those tech companies are so dumb giving away services for free.

I recently read another comment containing the “I don’t want Google getting more of my data to sell” and it reminded me of the question, ‘why is your data valuable?’ people too rarely ask. The common myth is that Facebook and Google etc want your data so they can sell it, but even with companies that do sell your data, it still requires someone to turn data into money, and enough money to fund the “free” services of the tech companies and allow them enough spare to make profits beyond anything seen in the world previously. So how does the data turn into so much money?

There is no such thing as a free lunch. Google and Facebook etc make their money from advertising, not from selling data, and unless they use can the data to persuade you to buy products at prices inflated by advertisers paying part of the sale price to Facebook/Google etc, they would lose money.

Your data is used to inflate the cost of living and earn votes for politicians with an agenda that gives them a budget to spend. They (Google/Facebook etc) don’t want to sell your data, but the reality, is more sinister: they use it to have to change your thinking, so more of your money will go to make them richer.

Read More »

The Power struggle in Australia.

From “the biggest corruption scandal ever” in Brazil, problems in Venezuela, human rights in Saudi Arabia and Iran, to the problems caused by lobbyists against action on climate change, an abundance of fossil fuels is a source of political power, yet rarely force for good, and Australia, with a wealth of coal and gas, is not spared.

The current crisis in Ukraine not only drives up energy prices globally, but it also creates a dilemma for gas producing nations.

Read More »

Fragile Democracy: Was Scott ‘Scomo’ Morrison autocrat of Australia?

Democracy collapses when a leader, who is able to bypass the checks and balances, uses their position to retain power.

Steps by recent leaders Scott Morrison and Australia and Donald Trump in the USA, raise questions as to whether current reliance on conventions and constitutions reliably protects democracy.

China, Russia and even North Korea are all technically democracies, and all proof of how technically being a democracy does not necessarily deliver real democracy.

Read More »

Ukraine: Putin and China, method or madness?

What if Russia and China both intended that the invasion of Ukraine would trigger global inflation and food shortages, and a potentially new financial crisis?

That Putin sees himself in the image of Peter the Great and restoring the Russian empire is no secret, and is generally portrayed as evidence that Putin has completely lost the plot. But what if there is a bigger plan involving both Russia and China that starts with triggering a global financial crisis? A dangerous game by two desperate leaders needing to bring others with them as their own economies collapse.

Read More »