this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2025
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Yes but which free trade are you talking about? Because if you close borders so trade only happens within one country, then there will still be competition within the country. I.e. your neighbor's factory. That's why I ask which borders you mean exactly... Because usually "close the border" means closing the border of the country to imports/exports of goods/humans of other countries.
Yes but i suspect that competition would be less fierce within the country, for two reasons:
the central government can stand in and regulate that "a factory may only produce a specific amount of goods". such regulation works better on the smaller level, because regulatory oversight is easier to achieve.
i guess that maybe the competition could naturally be less fierce. Consider: you would not want to pick a fight with the neighbour that lives directly next door; because you still have to get along well with him. It's easier to be in fierce competition with somebody who is on the other side of the world, because you will probably never see them again.
That makes sense, but this approach first requires the will to actually regulate in this manner. Because "just" closing the border right now would just keep capitalism unchecked, just within the country. Most people don't even meet their next-door neighbor that often, countries are usually still big enough that I don't think your second point does very much.
Otherwise, it does theoretically sound good. However, I don't think just any country at this point could be entirely self-reliable, some just have an impossible land-to-people ratio that is only possible by importing food from other countries. I don't have that much information about this, though, so might be false, I don't know how much land you need and how the agrarian situation is like for many countries.