[Paleopsych] Tullock Rules!

[Premise Checker]

Yesterday I circulated a 1997 New York Times article that estimated the value 
of the ecosystem as worth $33 trillion. Someone asked me in comparison to what. 
Well, annual World Domestic Product is about $30 trillion. The value of human 
and other capital is ten times annual WDP, or $300 trillion, and my guess was 
corroborated by googling. In this country at least, according to Robert Fogel, 
human capital is about two-thirds of the total.

But humans value themselves more highly than capital markets do, as evidenced 
by various decisions people make on paying to avoid death at various 
probabilities. It turns out to be $2-4 million per person in the US. Call it $1 
million for the generally much less rich world. So the value of people as 
estimated by themselves is 6 billion times $1 million per person, or $6 
quadrillion.

Five percent of this is $300 trillion. Now Gordon Tullock says we are 95% 
selfish and 5% altruistic. He based his calculations on the fact that Americans 
allocate 5% of their incomes in the form of net downward redistribution. This 
has remained constant for 140 years and does not depend on whether the 
redistributing is done primarily privately or by local governments or primarily 
by state and national governments.

Here's a different confirmation of the same.

But the ancient Hebrews had already articulated the Tullock Five Percent Rule, 
when they said:

The Earth from God we do but rent,
And all he asks is ten percent.

Related articles to follow.