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

[Ursulla]

Trying to think of one.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Have a google of 'blackbirding'.

Oh I’ve never heard about this. Grim.

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.

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.

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.