A nation can become rich and powerful as a militarily aggressive tyranny, conquering territory, and looting and enslaving the conquered.  Contrary to the wishful thinking of some American abolitionists prior to the Civil War, slavery was and typically is enormously profitable to the slavers. By some measures, Charleston, South Carolina was the richest city in America before the Revolution. Not coincidentally, slaves working the Carolina rice plantations had the shortest lifespan of any slaves in the colonies, by some estimates as little as five years. Working slaves to death paid well.

The other way a nation can become rich and powerful is by free commerce, understood to mean not only “trade” but all productive enterprise. Almost inevitably such nations will acknowledge the source of their wealth by sharing power with those who create it, though the forms of power, like the forms of slavery, may be more or less explicit.

These really are the only two choices. Once we see that, it is impossible to deny which choice we made or even when we made it.