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We don't need to sort every letter but we need to deliver them by hand. And packages, etc.

How many people are required to run the government compared to the size of the population they serve is absolutely a valid metric and makes tons of sense. Not only comparable historically but also across countries.

Per Capita is per person, not GDP btw.

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I obviously know what per capita means.

My point is interrogating the domains where that metric is useful and isn't. Are we delivering 10x more letters per capita? Does US mail sent use scale with GDP per capita?

In many areas I would expect a 1:1 relation with population, but not GDP. For example, I would expect primary education cost to scale at with population (eg teachers and schools per student). If cost per student has gone up 10x instead, why is that?

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