Industrialization

[unmerged(15764)]

imagine the possibility to industrialise a heavily populated poor colony then you could maybe produce things much cheaper because of the cheaper workforce??

 

[Alexandre]

Originally posted by Timothy Ortiz
That's a great point I hadn't thought of. It would definitly mske it difficult for Argentina of Ethiopia to become a major power. But one most remember Japan's meteoric rise.

Actually, IRL, Argentina was as developed as Canada at the begining of the 19th century. If she'd had a decent political culture, I dare say that Argentina would be a first world country.

Ethiopia was *far* less developed than Japan was.

Alexandre

 

[Alexandre]

Originally posted by Meiji-Tenno
It was during this period that zaibatsu (I don't know the English word, and neither does my dictionary.. Sorry )

Oddly enough, the English word is zaibatsu. Sometimes we've got to borrow words from you.

Alexandre

 

[unmerged(1002)]

Originally posted by Alexandre
Actually, IRL, Argentina was as developed as Canada at the begining of the 19th century. If she'd had a decent political culture, I dare say that Argentina would be a first world country.

Strikingly it is only the former British colonies which have been able to make the rise to first world status and make a real success of themselves. Disregarding odious ideas of racial superiority, why do you think that is? Just good luck?

 

[Avernite]

Well, not all English colonies were succesfull either.

And I gues it's partially because you just grabbed the best parts, partially because a huge empire can finance more nice things

 

[unmerged(1002)]

Nonsense; everything we touched turned to gold!

But I think you're probably right...

But one of the interesting things in this period is that Europe - and Britain in particular - exported HUGE amounts of money to the rest of the world. Once a colony achieved a reputation for having a certain amount of law and order it was able to borrow vast sums to build up an infrastructure (railways, cities etc.) which can abviously lead to urbanisation and industrialisation. It didn't really matter if you were part of the Empire or not; Argentina built its railways and such with British money.

My point (I do have one!) is that if you're playing as a colony it should be relatively easy to finance a real burst forwards towards modernity once you are able to establish a certain degree of law and order (stability? Infrastructure?). There was plenty of (British) money sloshing around for those countries that did. So it should be possible for other countries to make the leaps forward that Canada and Australia did if they can get their acts together to a certain degree.

I'm simplifying wildly and fully expect to be torn to shreds...

 

[DGuller]

Originally posted by John Silver
Gah, Russia should not have THAT many problems to industrialise, I think. I disagree with the idea that Russia's size hindered industrialisation, since most of Russia was in the west anyway, both in terms of population and technology. There were two real problems for industrialisation.

Serfdom, as you said, was a big problem, but it was solved pretty neatly; the unrest was limited and controlled, and redemption payments made the nobility happy. I think this should be a feature to be considered in the game; the possibility of emancipating the serfs, and the extent at which to do this - all of this directly affecting your stability, of course.
The second problem was the nature of the Tsars; they were all too conservatory. Even Nicholas I, despite all the "Tsar reformer" crap, was a conservatory who believed in all the values about authority and tsarism (in fact, he only emancipated the serfs when forced by the Crimean War). And Alexander III and Nicholas II were both educated by the reactionary Pobedonostsev, so they didn't get much fresh ideas. This must be added to the fact that their government was chaotic and inefficient.
But except for serfdom - which as I said, should be given the option to solve to the player - it was a problem of crappy leadership of the country, not of particular social conditions. After all, look at what Sergei Witte did at the end of the 19th Century: Russia's industry made huge leaps forwards. Without World War I, it was presumable that Russia could have become an industrial power comparable to Germany before 1940. I am convinced that this could have happened much earlier, if only someone had gotten to work on it.

So conclusions? If Russia is to be given a handicap in industrialisation, this must be limited to the nature of the leaders and the chaos in the government. But it should only be limited to that, and not extend itself to unalterable social conditions.

Oh, and I think that a great emphasis should be given to the international effects of economy. After all, Russia industrialised through foreign investment, so it should be possible to ask huge loans, and have nets of credit and debt here and there creating an interesting and complicated world balance - which would, of course, affect strongly the diplomatic behavior of the AI, giving new motivations for waging or not waging war.

The single biggest problem with simulating Russia is that we as players know better. Russian history is filled with obvious blunders by the leadership, that we as players know to avoid. Unless you program those blunders as unavoidable events, Russia in the game would be much more succesful than real Russia at the time.