Has there been a country which has become an industrial economy without utilising international enslavement and domestic exploitation?

I would say the fact that they benefit from their very wealthy populace ( where that wealth was gathered elsewhere through possibly exploitation) is large contributory factor to their economy.

I watch or have watched a few Australian dramas and they seem to be including stories of Aborigine and South Sea Islanders and Torres Strait Islanders.

I'm seeing more and more that there is an acknowledgement of country, even on cooking shows when they go in to the outback.

If you want to watch something look out for 'Black Snow' series 1.

That's because of the help with reconstruction they were given by the Americans. The idea being that they needed to prosper to avoid dodgy politics being attractive.

Meanwhile the UK was virtually bankrupted by the end of the war and had to pay America back until 2006.

Oh I’ve never heard about this. Grim.

South Sea Islanders were kidnapped into slavery in the sugar cane plantations. Well they theoretically were indentured.

Have a google of 'blackbirding'.

War reparations probably helped, certainly that's how it worked for Finland at least - had to pay lots of war reparations so had to industrialise, and fast, in order to pay them off.

I agree! I was musing about how America occupied Japan, and it rose so magnificently from the ashes, yet America spent 20 years occupying Afghanistan, and that was dismal, so put it mildly.

How about Germany and Japan from 1945 onwards ?
I always found it interesting that the two main nations that were defeated in WW2 then went on to become economic powerhouses, admittedly with some aid, but even so.

All the people working in the manufacturing, pharmaceutical and tech industries might not share your view.

It's very interesting - and inspiring! I'm aware of a couple of similar projects in Portugal now, and I imagine (hope) there must be others.

Bournville started off something like this. There's also Quaker and John Lewis Partnership - room for criticism, to be sure, but I think there's a sound basic principle here: if your only shareholders (and, ideally, investors) work at the business, you have more scope for considerations of fairness and wellbeing, etc.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondrag%C3%B3n

Probably not, but have you ever heard of Mondragon in Spain?

Another interesting question could be which countries partook in international enslavement before industrialisation? The two aren’t necessarily linked.

I often think that it must be extremely difficult to own a company of a significant size without compromising considerably on quality, care, decent morals and treating employees and customers truly well.

Once you get to the point where you're taking on shareholders, opening multiple branches, decentralising control and making economies of scale, you're never going to be able to put ethics and kindness at the centre.

I reckon it must be the same principle with countries. There are plenty of tiny little nations that are wholly insignificant on the world stage, and never going to become global powers -- but there's plenty of scope for the people to have nice lives and a real sense of community, with a cleqr conscience, should they wish to.

On the other hand, none of the industrial powerhouse countries could possibly have got where they are now by not doing a lot of very bad, horrific things along the journey.

How much does that contribute to the Swiss economy? (Genuine question)

erm... it's because they store the gold and money of all the other people doing nasty things

Ireland is not an industrial economy

The Luddites would beg to differ. If you read the actual histories and not the romanticised made up ones, the Luddites were not against technological advancement - they were opposed to low wages, job displacement, and the changing nature of work. So actually they were fighting against the exploitation of people in factories. Factory jobs were not more secure or better paid.

If you are to take a purist view of industrialisation, there is no possibility of it developing without exploitation because exploitation is the basis of capitalism (wage slavery). As the Ragged Trousered Philanthropist explained to his colleagues....

Ireland.

Switzerland had the Verdingkinder and the Kaminfegerkinder

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labour_in_Switzerland

How did he have the time to go on a reality show, then?!

😂

Though, in a way, they're very similar. As there's conspiracy theories saying both countries don't exist

But also yeah Australia is no Finland 😂

perhaps in the absolute very early days most of the very rudimentary infrastructure was built by convicts - but ive never come across anything that has said that was the majority source for infrastructure building. There were non convict sources of labour as well. But for sure labour rights would not have been great in the early days. So exploitation in that sense I suppose - and women were of course a massive source of free labour and exploited. But the domestic exploitation of labour was not the same as in other colonial countries where the indigenous inhabitants were more numerous.

i think the indigenous population were abused because of the vileness of humanity. In Tasmania settlers went across the island in a coordinated move to kill all indigenous inhabitants. There was no economic incentive or benefit to this. Just inhumanity.

2024onwardsandup I appreciate what you’re saying and it makes sense, but surely all of the proceeds of the mining and farming had to be gotten in and out by way of the infrastructure built by forced labour? Also as I was saying about GGGUncle, he physically couldn’t leave after he’d served his time so ended up in the mines in the south. He did get paid but it was nothing after bed and basic food was covered, which was provided by the mines and then docked.

I guess it’s up to how many degrees away we’re talking for the purposes of the discussion. I’m more of a view that it’s all in symbiosis, even if it seems removed it isn’t, but I understand what you mean re the south and also about the indigenous population. I guess I’m interested then to know (I’m not hugely informed on Aus) what then was the reasoning behind the way the native population were treated, if it wasn’t for some kind of economic purpose?