This form of economic survival is known as "democratic freedom". The condition permits the sick patient to breathe easily and work gallantly. But the patient (a nation-state, its lands and resources, work, wages and manufactured products) are all rigorously taxed and most of the taxes are then used, by the "democratic" government to pay interest on loans to IMF and World Bank. Most countries, with comparable GDPs to Latvia's, never succeed in paying off the interest, so the unpaid loans are renewed at a higher rate of interest. And thus these "free" nation-states become locked in to a global system based on accumulated debt known as "the international community". It's a sweet system - for the invisible creditors. In reality it's a form of feudalism for the millions paying the taxes, brainwashed to imagine their country has "independence", and expecting a higher standard of living. They never know what percentage of national revenues end up in the coffers of IMF and World Bank. Frustrated and disillusioned, many nationalists from small countries like Latvia end up as migrant workers in other countries.