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This was my letter in response:
There are fundamental errors in the thought process that Ben Stein uses in his Don't Worry About China, Learn From It contribution from July 31st. To speak of G.D.P. in per capita terms completely negates the geo-political strategy of the central government in question, not to mention the ability of that country to utilize the collective wealth of the population for any purpose at any given time. In a communist government, wealth is centralized and theoretically used for the benefit of the country as a whole. Regardless of whether China is using its wealth in the manner that communism professes, China's buying power benefits from the policies and rhetoric derived from communism. With that in mind, let's talk about the structure of the US economy. We may have enough money per capita to buy our 1/4 acre homes and air conditioning but the political ramifications of asking Americans to give up said "American Dream" are often too drastic to motivate any politician to even reccomend passing the collection plate at tax time. So basically the central government in America may operate in a country that has a wealthier population, but is has absolutely no access to that wealth. China has access to all of its resources.
The other error made comes at the very end of the article. To say, "The fact that our neighbors are worse off does not make us richer, and the fact that they are better off does not make us poorer," completely ignores the fact that the whole reason for currencies and monetary policies to exist is to keep the struggle for a planet with limited resources civil. They are fighting for the oil that we want to burn up in our cars. When they have enough money to win that fight the only way we can get those resources is through violent invasion. That is simply a result I don't ever wish to see.
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