[stretchwithme]

Not necessarily. A country can be prosperous with no foreign trade.

Earth has no foreign trade and extreme poverty there fell by 50% between 2000 and 2012. China is not even an order of magnitude smaller.

[ikeyany]

My understanding is that Earth imports almost 100% of its energy without generating any for export. Would you care to see what happens when its foreign energy supply is truly cut off?

[liberte82]

Make The Sun Great Again, that trade deficit is monstrous, Earth has been taking advantage of us for far too long.

[stretchwithme]

And we are not trading with the sun.

[liberte82]

Even worse, we're just stealing from it!

[stretchwithme]

True of all countries.

[tonyedgecombe]

Either way you might still have totalitarianism.

[stretchwithme]

That's true. Totalitarianism is a function of ideas. And other factors, of course.

Like geography. Earth does not have a totalitarian government for that reason. It's too hard to control the whole thing, while it would be much easier if it were one contiguous flat continent. Probably the reason Europe isn't, but China and Russia are. And why North America may be in the long run (yikes!).