Economic man vs Political man

My blog of yesterday is really about the disconnect between on the one side "the man is an economic individual" theory of the world, shared by neo-classical economics and the humanitarianism lobby, and the "man is a political animal" theory of Aristotle. The "man is a political animal" theory was dominant of most of western history and is pretty much obvious to everyone apart from liberals.

From the economic individualism perspective, the fact that China with its billion-strong population and ever-more dominant production-based economy, is simply a relatively poor country, because individual incomes are lower than in the West. From the political animal perspective, China is simply a very powerful country, possibly more powerful than the United States in the economic arena due to its holding of American reserves and very real status as factory to the world. It is a little like the United States saying to Scandinavians, who have a higher per-capita income than Americans, that the US should be treated as a relatively poor country rather than a superpower.