Cost could only be calculated in money terms. The question then arises which money? If you use US dollars what assumptions do you make?
More analytically, money is only a scale for representing portions of exchange value.
Total global exchange value is a function of the total labour power producing commodities.
But the snag is that the means of production vary considerably from one country to another, as does also, enormously, the value of labour power. There is no way of calculating an average standard.
The reality is that we are talking about a global economy with a massive gradient in the level of the productive forces between and across countries.
There is a certain argument that the unit of global exchange value theoretically should be related to the value of the commodity in the most technologically advanced sector of the world market.
So how would we go about calculating replacement costs on a world scale? Perhaps we need a fusion of green and marxist economics.
Chris Burford
London