The United States is a "Rule of Law" jurisdiction that places very high values on the sanctity of contracts, respect for private property, and (as a structure) a government of laws, not men. This has made the nation an attractive place to do business, with enormous amounts of capital ready to be put to work productively in various ventures.

How much is that worth?

It is very challenging to put a number on that, as it is difficult to assess such an inherently soft and squishy quality. There are not a lot of metrics that directly quantify what the Rule of Law is worth. We can look at GDP, income, wealth, equity P/E, etc, but no one figure captures all of this value.

We can, however, see the direct effects in countries when these values are ignored. I believe these three comparisons might help put this into context:

1. China's current crackdown on its own tech stocks;

2. Russia as a organized crime syndicate, (albeit one with a standing army)

3. January 6th insurrection in the United States

Let's stay with China today since it is both timely and lends itself more towards quantifying the impact of recent actions.

Consider the market capitalization of US equities is (as of June 30th, 2021) at ~$47 trillion dollars. That is a substantial increase from about $27 trillion five years ago. But despite its size and economic footprint, the market capitalization of China's equities hit a peak of $13.4 trillion in May 2021. That was before the government decided it wanted more control over who could own shares in its companies, who could run them, and what they could say and do.