That industrialization is needed for a country’s prosperity is not a matter of debate. Without industrialization growth cannot happen beyond a point. Before taking up the issue of the link between industrialization and alleviation of poverty let us first tackle the issue of why is industrialization a precondition for growth.

Historically all economies started with basic activities like gathering essential needs for living from nature and hunting for food. From that came agriculture and animal rearing. This was the stage that laid the foundation for the modern economy and the concept of market and money as the medium of exchange.

But with time as the population started to grow, the need for more and more economic activities to sustain life became important. But with the scope of economic activities being totally dependent and defined by the nature, struggle for ownership of land started. War to win over land and grabbing the wealth of others became the rule. So someone’s riches were the result of someone else’s deprivation or poverty.

With industrialization and emergence of technology things started changing. It became possible to churn out more from the existing resources and economic growth or the prospect of it started getting defined by the spread of industrialization.

Growth as we understand it naturally leads to an increase in prosperity. And when the fruits of prosperity get distributed among the citizens, per capita prosperity also increases. And that in turn leads to the reduction in poverty. That in a simplistic way describes the relationship between industrialization, growth and poverty alleviation.

Now there would be questions like why in some nations despite there being growth there is no simultaneous reduction in the incidence in poverty. To understand this let us look deeper.

Let us first note that prosperity or the gains from growth doesn’t get distributed equally and automatically. It benefits by creation of employment and spread of market thereby putting money in the hands of employees and the self-employed. That money gets spent in the market, raising demand for commodities. Which leads to a growth in production and further growth.

Let us look further deep. What does industrialization do? It provides mechanical support to primary activities. For example, instead of tilling land the traditional way that takes a lot of labour, use of mechanical tiller achieves the same efficiently and faster thereby freeing up labour for other productive use. It also boosts productivity. Leading to the creation of prospects for further production.

There is a catch though. If the primary activities are affected, fulfillment of our daily needs will also be affected. That’s why over the last few decades there is a stress on sustainability along with industrialization as the precondition for poverty alleviation.

For example if the rivers and water bodies are polluted and encroached into, the fish that we eat will die, the land that is cultivated for agri products will not produce the same amount of grains as it would have in the absence of pollution. If that happens, the primary activities of the poor will not only get affected they will also undermine their basic sustenance giving a lie to the proposition that industrialization is a pre-condition for poverty alleviation. It also answers the question that why despite there being growth there is no commensurate reduction in poverty.

So yes; industrialization is a precondition for poverty alleviation but the rider is it has to be sustainable.