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

[Ursulla]

Trying to think of one.

No. Not possible.

Switzerland

South Korea, but it depends on how domestic exploitation is defined. They study and work insane hours there in comparison to Western countries, but it's not illegal and also not unusual in the Far East.

eta On a recent reality show, one of the contestants was a doctor who had a side gig as the CEO of a tech company. He existed on three hours sleep a night!

I guess the huge amounts of uncompensated labour necessary for industrialization to be possible have to come from somewhere.

Lots without enslavement.

domestic exploitation is largely in the eye of the beholder. In England people moved from the countryside to take factory jobs as they were more secure and better paid.

plenty of people were half starving in the English countryside (and most other countries)

Australia. Aboriginals were treated awfully but they weren’t fundamental for economic development

Switzerland isn't mass produced relative low/medium valued goods. It's highly specialised highly priced goods, along with it's huge financial services industry.

White settlers stole the land.. that it pretty exploitative..

Also, convicts were sent to Australia and sentenced to terms of hard labour.

I think the terms would need to be defined - but Australia is not without issues.

I’m not saying it’s without its issues. I’m saying it’s economic development did not depend on international exploitation or domestic enslavement.

convict labour I don’t think was key to economic development in any meaningful way

the issue of stolen land is a different analysis

Sadly the law of the jungle never seems to go away.

Australia’s development was dependent on forced labour. My ancestor spent 8 years building roads, having been transported there as a teenager for stealing meat. The infrastructure that allowed for its development was made possible by the labour of convicts, mostly made up of the poor.

Once my ancestor had served his time, he could not afford the astronomical fare to get back home, and stayed there working in the mines for the rest of his life for a pittance. He died in his 40s. That and the forced removal and genocide of indigenous peoples, to make way for the expansion and development, surely means it was slavery and exploitation.

Finland. Didn't industrialise until the mid 20th century but industrialised rapidly after WWII when the labour movement was already strong so domestic exploitation wasn't really possible, and of course no slavery.

im not saying that there wasn’t forced convict Labour - I’m just saying I don’t think it was critical to economic development. South Australia never had convicts. Mining and farming where the biguns in terms of economic development.

I also don’t think that the abuse of aboriginal people
was fundamental to economic development- it could have been achieved without any of that abuse. The aboriginal population was (and is) very small. Very different to South Africa for example. I don’t think economic exploitation was at the heart of the abuse of aboriginal people. I don’t think that makes the abuse of aboriginal people any better.

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?

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.

But also yeah Australia is no Finland 😂

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

😂

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

Switzerland had the Verdingkinder and the Kaminfegerkinder

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

Ireland.

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 is not an industrial economy

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

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