Which non-European nation had the potential to industrialize first?

[Duke_of_Darkness]

Let's say that for various reasons, Europe is backwards technologically speaking in the 18th Century. This could be due to a worse Black Death or massive religious sectarianism or more severe Mongol/Muslim conquests or any other reason. The point is that Europe is in no position to become strong or have huge empires.

Given this idea, which civilization outside of Europe has the potential to industrlialize first? And when will they do it? Could a South Asian or East Asian nation pull it off? Could an African or Middle Eastern nation pull it off? Could even an indigenous American civilization pull it off?

 

[GuildedAgeNostalgia]

Obviously Song/Ming China or whatever dominant Indian state is around at the time are the likeliest, followed by a Middle Eastern nation.

 

[Lalli]

China and some notable Indian Empire. Perhaps too some notable Mid-Eastern nation like Persia. Or even surviving Caliphate.

 

[Ambassador Huntsman]

China in the 11th century, Bengal in the 18th century.

 

[Ogrelord420]

China or India would probably fill in the void

 

[black_0]

The problem is that in both China and India there was no economic incentive for industrialisation because labor was extremely cheep due to the large population.

Why build a machine that does the work of 100 men if you can get 200 men to do the work for much cheaper.

I think that the Middle East is more likely. I could possibly even say Central Asia but there the population my actually be too low and thus the demand for manufactured goods would not be enough.

 

[Tanc49]

The problem is that in both China and India there was no economic incentive for industrialisation because labor was extremely cheep due to the large population.

Why build a machine that does the work of 100 men if you can get 200 men to do the work for much cheaper.

I think that the Middle East is more likely. I could possibly even say Central Asia but there the population my actually be too low and thus the demand for manufactured goods would not be enough.

I'll go with India as you have competing states with a somewhat unified culture (or set of cultures), meaning scholars could go around court to court (as I understand India).
This competition offers incentives to industrialise.

But yeah, labour availability is somewhat of an issue. You'd probably need a plague or a similar type of constraint on labour availability.

 

[kholieken]

It might not happen at all. We dont know what cause Industrial Revolution. It might be China and India would evolve into Qing highly sophisticated non Industrial economy.

Probable necessary ingredient of Industrial Revolution :
- expensive price of labor
- available capital
- highly developed water works industry
- textile export nation
- easily dig, high grade coal
- etc
We dont know if only some is needed or all is needed.

 

[Lalli]

It might not happen at all. We dont know what cause Industrial Revolution. It might be China and India would evolve into Qing highly sophisticated non Industrial economy.

Probable necessary ingredient of Industrial Revolution :
- expensive price of labor
- available capital
- highly developed water works industry
- textile export nation
- easily dig, high grade coal
- etc
We dont know if only some is needed or all is needed.

Avaible resources are indeed necessity for industry. If not coal no industry unless you can't use steam power effectively.

And government should be very motivated to push industrialisation. If not it would be much harder to push forward even if other factors are fine.

 

[Tanc49]

It might not happen at all. We dont know what cause Industrial Revolution. It might be China and India would evolve into Qing highly sophisticated non Industrial economy.

Probable necessary ingredient of Industrial Revolution :
- expensive price of labor
- available capital
- highly developed water works industry
- textile export nation
- easily dig, high grade coal
- etc
We dont know if only some is needed or all is needed.

I'd really add something about competition. A lot of capital and investment went through the state, or States which had to centralise due to the need for a standing military, and associated equipment costs.
That is quite similar to what you see in China.

One possible difference is that once you reach the level necessary to beat up internal revolts and state nomads, you don't really need to keep innovating. On top of that, having one state means (possibly) promoting stability which is not quite compatible with rapid advancement.
So, how do you combine centralising states with the need for dynamism? You get competing states.

When the Europeans came to India, there were large standing armies with well used artillery. The states didn't have mastery of naval warfare, but Portuguese had to use a lot of local allies in any land battles. They also had a few genius commanders in the right place at the right time.

If the Portuguese had been there but not quite as successful, with a drip of Europeans coming in, it might have spurred further advancement, especially if the Ottoman Empire gets involved.
OR your PoD might be the Portuguese lose the Ottoman-Portuguese war in the XVIth century, which is not far fetched. It acts as a wake up call, pushing industrialisation to serve the Ottoman and European market, as well as sharing military doctrine and tech.

 

[Tanc49]

Avaible resources are indeed necessity for industry. If not coal no industry unless you can't use steam power effectively.

And government should be very motivated to push industrialisation. If not it would be much harder to push forward even if other factors are fine.

Akshually, you could use water power, the French were fairly advanced in their use to produce power and electricity until fairly late in the game

Hydro Power from the Early Modern to the Industrial Age: ca. 1500–1850 - Electricity & Alternative Energy - Alberta's Energy Heritage

In the early modern period, water power continued to be used throughout the world for traditional purposes like milling grain and lifting water.

history.alberta.ca

ps: sorry for the double post

 

[tus3]

Why build a machine that does the work of 100 men if you can get 200 men to do the work for much cheaper.

I think that the Middle East is more likely.

If I am not mistaken in the Middle East slaves were very cheap thanks to the trans-Saharan slave trade; so I believe they also have the above problem.

But yeah, labour availability is somewhat of an issue. You'd probably need a plague or a similar type of constraint on labour availability.

That might not necessarily help; population will recover in a few generations unless mariage patterns change or something.

Anyway my bet on 'country outside of Europe has the potential to industrialize first', in a scenario wherein Europe is technologically backwards but otherwise the same as OTL 18th century, is Japan.
Japan seems to have been the first Asian country which had reached sustained per capita growth; going from being poorer than China at the beginning of the 18th century to being richer than China at end of the 18th century.

 

[Insane Ranter]

Had Muhammad Ali 1849 not died and/or started his programs earlier Egypt might have been able to pull this off. Or even if programs did not fall into decline Ottoman Egypt might have been able to rise to the top of things.

 

[Grey Wolf]

Crikey, so we're saying Europe falls by the wayside in the 14th century, no Portuguese exploration, no Spanish, French, English etc

Thus, the knock-ons are removed.

 

[Booster Gold]

Japan was very advanced and didn't have a massive labor surplus. As was Korea (I think? Anyone know their 18th century demographics?) They also have the resources. They would need the incentive though. Maybe an expansionist Qing?

Apparently Indonesia has some decent resources too.

 

[Tanc49]

That might not necessarily help; population will recover in a few generations unless mariage patterns change or something.

The key question for me here is why it led to more freedom in the West and to serfdom in Eastern Europe.
I guess it depends of prior economic structure and if reduced population leads to higher wages or just the same resource for them because of captation from above.
If you have monetisation, then it helps?

I'd question Japan, because Japan industrialised in response to, and following the model of, Europe. So it's European competition that spurred it, it wasn't native.

I'm gonna go with a fractured Benghal and an existing European Market and influx of European silver in China leading to a supply competition between Indian states to produce vast amounts of clothes, as the market is there.
With the Ottoman as intermediaries, maybe the Canal of the Pharaoh is reborn so logistic costs are low enough, compared to the Cape route especially

 

[Jürgen]

I think none, from what I can see no country outside Europe had all the factor in place which caused the Industrial Revolution.

 

[Domz]

Let's say that for various reasons, Europe is backwards technologically speaking in the 18th Century. This could be due to a worse Black Death or massive religious sectarianism or more severe Mongol/Muslim conquests or any other reason. The point is that Europe is in no position to become strong or have huge empires.

Given this idea, which civilization outside of Europe has the potential to industrlialize first? And when will they do it? Could a South Asian or East Asian nation pull it off? Could an African or Middle Eastern nation pull it off? Could even an indigenous American civilization pull it off?

Edo Japan had the capacity to industrialize, per this Gresham College lecture Why Did Europe’s Economies Diverge from Asia? It's just that their aristocrats were stupidly xenophobic. They did however industrialize OTL, I'm kind of saying they could have done it a little earlier.

Southeast Asia couldn't have possibly industralized (prior to the Europeans forcing it upon them). The fact that its first communities were one to two thousand years after Europe and China-India tells you of the disadvantage of Southeast Asia's location.

I've seen quite a few questions on why Thailand didn't become a "great power". 50% of its territory was acquired only in the 18th century, during a period of rapid military expansion. It's jungles made civilization such a slow progress (Southeast Asia's population density according to Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit was a fourth or fifth of China and India's). Southeast Asian communities were largely confined to the rivers. The high mortality of a tropical environment resulted in the rise of a slave society. When neighboring kingdoms fought one another, they fought to depopulate each other, steal each other's people and goods and take them back to increase their own legitimacy. Buddhism and the idea of the Bodhisatta (i.e. a king on his way to become the Buddha) probably didn't help either. Capitalism didn't really exist in Southeast Asian society until the Chinese started to settle in Southeast Asia in large numbers beginning in the 18th century and European colonization (which I would argue is a key factor of industrialization).

In 1800, Thailand had a population of 1-2.5 million. Thanks to modern medicine and a Thai baby boom in the 50s and 60s, the current Thai population is 70 million.

Vietnam in 1850 had a population of 6 million (Vietnam should really be called the "fourth" Confucian state (China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam), whose government structure was more similar to China than the Indic systems of Thailand, Cambodia, and Burma). The current Vietnamese population is 97 million.

Japan in 1800 had a population of 30 million, The current Japanese population of 126 million.

While China developed at a good pace in the 18th century, Europe's development was astonishing in the same time period, according to the Oriental Institute lecture "Why the West Rules -- For Now". The Gresham lecture highlights the importance of Britain's government protection of its local wool industry as a key instrument in Britain's rise to global dominance (on the other hand, Britain was only globally dominant for 250 years from 1700-1950, China over a thousand years from 600-1700, 2000-).

I've heard good things about Novgorod though (from Kraut's "Origins of Russian Authoritarianism"). Russia was, in my opinion, a hybrid European-Asian (Steppe) state historically (watch the Kraut video).

References:
Kraut (Youtube) - Origins of Russian Authoritarianism
Gresham College (Youtube) - Why Did Europe’s Economies Diverge from Asia?
Oriental Institute (Youtube - Ian Morris | Why the West Rules -- For Now
Baker, Chris, Phongpaichit, Pasuk. A History of Ayutthaya: Siam in the Early Modern World.
Baker, Chris, Phongpaichit, Pasuk, A History of Thailand (Third Edition).
The Siam Society (Youtube) - A History of Ayutthaya (Youtube title "The Siam Society Lecture: A History of Ayutthaya (28 June 2017)").
ASU Lecture (Youtube) - Reimagining the History of Slavery in Pre-Colonial Burma and S.E. Asia (Youtube title "ASU Global Asia Lecture Series - Bryce Beemer").
Wongsurawat, Wasana. The Crown and the Capitalists: The Ethnic Chinese and the Founding of the Thai Nation.
Wyatt, David K. Thailand: A Short History (Second Edition).
Subrahmanyan, Arjun. Amnesia.
Lieberman, Victor B. Strange Parallels: Volume 1, Integration on the Mainland: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800–1830.
Wikipedia.

 

[PragmaticAntithesis]

Japan was very advanced and didn't have a massive labor surplus. As was Korea (I think? Anyone know their 18th century demographics?) They also have the resources. They would need the incentive though. Maybe an expansionist Qing?

Apparently Indonesia has some decent resources too.

I agree with Japan and Korea being decent candidates for industrialisation.
Were it not for the problems caused by Christianity, Japan would likely not have closed itself off from the world, leading to them getting more institutional knowledge and potentially reaching the critical mass of technology needed to start industrialisation. As the daimyo would have been competing with each-other, the incentive to innovate and become stronger than one's rivals could easily become stronger than the incentive to maintain a beneficial status quo.
Korea also invented quite a bit of technology, such as the ironclad, earlier than Europe, so Korea could well have industrialised before Europe IOTL if their kings willed it.

 

[Jürgen]

I agree with Japan and Korea being decent candidates for industrialisation.
Were it not for the problems caused by Christianity, Japan would likely not have closed itself off from the world, leading to them getting more institutional knowledge and potentially reaching the critical mass of technology needed to start industrialisation. As the daimyo would have been competing with each-other, the incentive to innovate and become stronger than one's rivals could easily become stronger than the incentive to maintain a beneficial status quo.
Korea also invented quite a bit of technology, such as the ironclad, earlier than Europe, so Korea could well have industrialised before Europe IOTL if their kings willed it.

The problem is that industrialization is not about the king will it into being and neither is it about develop some new technology.