The measure as written
The rule of WHAT ABOUT THE GIFTS OF NATURE? makes the resources of nature a gift, to be shared:
"An individual should consider the natural resources as a gift from nature that must be distributed among other individuals in accordance with the elastic limit of nature, while maintaining the desire to necessity equilibrium."
Under the heading "They are free!", their price is set at the cost of the steps they undergo:
Their static price (i.e. in the form and place where they are found in abundance) must be zero (i.e. no one can claim to be the owner of a natural resource and take a profit on that basis; its price is determined solely by the cost of the steps it undergoes, i.e. extraction, purification, transportation, processing etc.) …
and tells how the price is checked:
(In practice, the price of a natural resource can be checked by a step-by-step cost audit, i.e. by adding up the cost of each step it has undergone (extraction, purification, transportation, processing); anything charged beyond this sum is a profit taken for the resource itself.)
This price is placed in the ideal society:
This is only possible in an ideal society, as there the resources are used only as per requirement, i.e. there is no abuse or overuse, only legitimate use.
What it measures, in plain words
In the forest example, anyone in need can go and get a tree from the forest; if he uses the services of others to cut and carry it, "he pays for the services, not for the tree". A natural resource is not wealth, "as in the first place it is not a compressed form of the net work done by individuals". So the part of the price paid for the resource itself pays for no one's work. The profit taken on these resources today is not stealing. The measure shows how much a society could save once it reaches the ideal society: when every resource is used by the people only for need, all the rules are followed (oil, for example, is used far less, only as much as nature allows within the elastic limit), and the respectfuls are in plenty. Then the gifts of nature cost only the steps they undergo, and prices are much lower for everyone.
The price beyond the cost of the steps. For each gift of nature that is sold (oil, natural gas, coal, minerals, and wood from forests), the price it is sold at, minus the cost of the steps that produce it, including a normal return on the means used. What is left is the part of the price that the ideal society would not charge. As the cost of the steps already includes a return on the means used, the profit on investment that RESPONSIBILITIES FOR THE WEALTH allows stays in the price. Land is left out, as in WHAT ABOUT THE GIFTS OF NATURE? "the land itself is separate, i.e. it is not counted among the natural resources".
Read in hours of work. This part of the price, as a share of all of a society's income, is the same share of the work that its income commands. So it is read as the hours of work the people of a society could save, per adult a year in each society, and for the world as a whole.
How to read the result. A share of 5% means that of every 100 hours of work a society's income commands, 5 pay for the gifts of nature themselves and not for any step they undergo; in the ideal society, where one "pays for the services, not for the tree", those 5 hours are saved. In hours per adult, 52 hours a year is one hour of work saved by each adult every week. Four points keep the reading true to what was written:
· Nothing is taken from those who work: the cost of every step, with a normal return on the means used, stays in the price.
· The price at the cost of the steps comes with the rest of what was said: "the real demand is determined while taking into account the NEPs and the necessity to desire ratio", the resources drawn upon first are chosen "by their priority and efficiency level", and coal, oil and natural gas, which nature replaces only over thousands to millions of years, "come last in the level of priority". So the result, read at the use of today, is only the first part of the saving: within the elastic limit far less of these is used (Part 5), and what is not used is not paid for at all.
· The share rises and falls with the prices of oil, gas and metals, so each year is read on its own, and each society by its average, its lowest and its highest year.
· A large result does not mark a society as doing wrong: it shows where pricing the gifts of nature at the cost of the steps would lower prices most for its people.
How we measured it
The measures. Each is read from figures published for most countries of the world:
· The price beyond the cost of the steps: for oil, natural gas, coal, minerals and wood from forests, the world price minus the average cost of producing them, including a normal return on the means used, times the quantity produced, as a share of each society's yearly output (World Bank, World Development Indicators), every country and every year from 2010 to 2021, the last year given.
· Hours of work: the hours of human work contained in everything a society uses, its own and other people's (OECD, Trade in Employment, with the weekly hours of the International Labour Organization, as in the broader Participation to Burden ratio of "Pads drained between societies"), per adult aged 15 to 64 (World Bank), every year from 2010 to 2020. The tables cover 58 to 59 economies, six of the seven among them; India from 2015, the first year its own hours are measured. Nigeria is not covered, so for Nigeria only the share is given.
· The world as a whole: the world's share in 2011 times all the hours worked in the world that year (EXIOBASE 3.8.2: 6,537.7 billion hours).
Hours saved. The share of a year, times the hours of work per adult in the same year. The price and the output are counted in the same money of the same society, so only a share inside the society enters, and no currency.
Measured years only. Each year uses its own prices, hours and adults; no value is carried from one year into another. The share rises and falls with the prices of oil, gas and metals (for the world, from 1.5% in 2020 to 4.8% in 2011), so each society is given by its average, its lowest and its highest year.
Checks. The World Bank values each resource at the world price. The national accounts record the prices actually charged: what mining and forestry keep beyond the pay of their workers, what they buy from others and the wear of their machines, as a share of the society's yearly output (OECD, national accounts, value added and its components by activity). For the 40 economies covered by both, from 2010 to 2021, the two put the economies in nearly the same order (rank agreement 0.81), and in the middle economy the national accounts come to 0.80 of the World Bank's share (0.62 to 1.16 for the middle half). Of the seven, they cover the United States (0.3% against 0.7%) and Russia (9.0% against 11.8%).
What the seven societies show
The share is the part of a society's output that is the price beyond the cost of the steps; the hours are what each adult could save in the ideal society, at the use of today.
| Society | Share of its output: average, 2010 to 2020 (lowest and highest year) | Hours of work saved by each adult a year: average (lowest and highest year) | Largest parts |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 0.6% (0.2% in 2015, 1.2% in 2011) | 13 (5 in 2015, 25 in 2011) | coal and oil, about equal |
| China | 2.8% (0.9% in 2020, 7.7% in 2011) | 45 (15 in 2020, 124 in 2011) | coal, then oil and minerals |
| Russia | 11.9% (7.6% in 2020, 16.3% in 2011) | 169 (105 in 2020, 231 in 2011) | oil, then natural gas |
| Brazil | 3.3% (2.4% in 2015, 4.3% in 2011) | 46 (32 in 2016, 64 in 2011) | oil, then minerals |
| Egypt | 7.3% (3.2% in 2016, 12.3% in 2011) | 68 (28 in 2020, 114 in 2011) | oil, then natural gas |
| India | 2.9% (1.7% in 2016, 5.3% in 2011) | 24, from 2015 (21 in 2016, 27 in 2018) | coal, then minerals |
| Nigeria | 9.7% (4.6% in 2015, 17.6% in 2011) | not covered | oil |
The saving is largest where the gifts of nature make up a large part of what a society produces. In Russia, 11.9% of its output on average, mostly oil and natural gas, would come off the price: 169 hours of work a year for each adult, about 3 hours a week, from 105 hours in 2020, when oil was cheap, to 231 in 2011. Nigeria's share is close to it (9.7%, mostly oil), and Egypt's is 7.3% (68 hours a year). In the United States, which produces mostly other things, it is 0.6% of its output: 13 hours a year, about 15 minutes a week. China, Brazil and India lie between (2.8% to 3.3% of their output; 24 to 46 hours a year); in China and India the largest part is coal.
On the prices actually charged, the saving is somewhat smaller: 126 hours a year for each adult in Russia, and 6 in the United States.
Across the world, the price beyond the cost of the steps was 4.8% of all output in 2011 and 1.5% in 2020 (2.8% on average from 2010 to 2020); oil was the largest part in every year, about half of it or more. In 31 to 56 societies a year it was more than a tenth of all they produce, and in 6 to 33 more than a fifth (2010 to 2021). Across the 58 to 59 economies in the employment tables, the ideal society would save from 77 billion hours of work a year (2020) to 233 billion (2011); for the whole world in 2011, 316 billion hours, about one hour in every twenty worked.
As set out above, this is the saving at the use of today. Within the elastic limit, far less coal, oil and natural gas would be used, and what is not used is not paid for at all.