Roman Soldier said:
What does it mean to say that a country or state has been industrialized?
Where industry is developed on a vast scale. This is coupled with mechanisation of the production process through technological advances. The organisation of the production needs to be changed in the process of industrialisation - agriculture (suddenly they need to use less people to grow more food for workers in the cities), education (with increased mechanisation of production, workers need to be able to read and learn how to use the machines), transport (more manufactured goods need to get from city to coumtryside, and also overseas resources need to be transported imported long distances while manufactured goods are exported), resource exploitation (more resources are needed for machines than by hand), the environment (pollution and space problems in cities), and social structures (if you want to make even a little bit of money in pre-industrial societies, you have to employ slaves, or at least try some other trick to gain a little bit of profit, which you spend on luxury. But an industralised society needs free workers, not slaves, and profit is used as capital, not wasted on luxuries).
Essentially, there would be a massive different between a pre-industrialised state and an industrialised one. The first industrialisation, the Industrial Revolution in Britain, made Britain seem miles ahead the rest, but now there is a whole lot of countries trying to catch up (such as the East Asian Tigers, who have succeeded), who find it both easier and harder to industrialise. Easier because the technology exists to do more than they did in the Industrial Revolution. But harder due to environmental concerns, and the need for more resources to exploit.
