Quote Originally Posted by lars573
Your speaking of western countries with safty standards and practices. I'm talking about industrialization or even the modernization of an agrarian country. These endevors are very costly in terms of lives lost to accidents and mechanical failures.
Explain Singapore then. It went from fishing village to high tech manufacturer.

Or case in point Taiwan. Sure it has had some brutal moments, but far less then mainland China and it was done better then the mainland has.

Or New Zealand in the last century, it did not have to slaughter millions of its people to create a modern society. New Zealand not only was a very agrarian country it still is, albeit a highly industrialised one.

Modernisation is done best by education. Education is not best achieved by killing ones pupils or teachers for that matter.

The industrialisation of China is not the reason millions died. The stranglehold on the powerbase is what killed millions of people. Brutal rule is not what has modernised China and it is not brutality that is achieving it at the moment.