A More Aggressive Look At the Overhead of Private Property

Rediscovering IBISWorld’s Industry Research Reports, I went through and redid my analysis on the overhead of private property in the United States; I have generalized the scope somewhat to be an analysis of the overhead of capitalism, though it’s still difficult to justify including certain industries.  The table I created can be found here in CSV. I separated the cost streams into the following groups:

  1. Private property-only expenditure: Were the institutions of private property not to exist, neither would this cost.
  2. Government + private property-only: Were either the government or private property not to exist, neither would this cost.
  3. Cost added due to capitalism: Were capitalism or a similar system not pervasive, this cost would be somewhat reduced, or, were some other system in place, a comparable cost would probably exist.  This includes costs that serve to predict actual future costs while taking private profits, as well as transportation whose utilization is increased due to commerce.
  4. Cost multiplied due to capitalism: Were capitalism or a similar system not pervasive, this cost would be significantly reduced.  This includes costs which could be replaced by shared infrastructure and retail stores.

I calculated four totals, one with group 1 only, one with groups 1 & 2, one with all groups, and one which is a weighted total, using the formula

1.0 * G1 + 1.0 * G2 + 0.25 * G3 + 0.75 * G4

Here are the totals I found, in billions:

Group 1 only: $4,966.50 (29.62% GDP)
Group 1 & 2 only: $6102.60 (36.29% GDP)
All groups, unweighted: $12,362.26 (73.72% GDP)
All groups, weighted: $10,460 (62.38% GDP)

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