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by alive-or-not 4626 days ago
Measuring economic potential in PPP is like measuring software functionality in lines of code. The basic question is does a country produce enough food to feed itself. If that's the case it can grow an industry slowly with respect to human lives, etc. If not IMHO there are still better solutions than building sweatshops.
2 comments

Most countries don't wish to grow an industry "slowly with respect to human lives" even if they have enough food to feed themselves.

As it shows in practice all over the world, if people are given the chance to go from subsistence agriculture to sweatshops, they do so eagerly, intentionally migrating a thousand miles away from their families if needed so. You'd need to apply a lot of force and bloodshed to move them back away from those jobs to the farming; and when given a fair vote, those workers press for many things but not on slowing down industry growth, rather the opposite.

Did New York State grow enough food to feed itself during its' own sweatshop phase?