Low Tech vs Interstellar societies...

[Condottiere]

You have to figure out what the critical mass would be to establish, and maintain, an industrial base, at any particular technological level.

First off, energy, as cheap and plentiful as possible.

Technical personnel.

Natural resources.

Tends to require political stability, capital, and institutions to promote technical knowledge.

 

[Spinward Flow]

I do wonder at some of the places that get maintained for no clear reason.

Are they being maintained? Are they still on the upswing? Or are they on the downswing, now that the boom times are over and the bust has settled in for the long haul?

Remember, not everyone is going to want to "leave their home(s)" ... even if their population has No Future going for it.

Here's a real world example of this phenomenon, in case you're interested.

 

[Rupert]

I don't believe this to be a good example for several reasons:

• On the favorable side, Germany had itsown people already trained to TL 6, and its remaining industry was also TL 6
• On the unfavorable side, the cost in fact was quite higheer, as Germany devoted also many resources to recover. US aid was useful, bu probably only a small part of the cost
• To compare, Germany raised from TL 5 to TL 6 between 1918 and 1936 without this high foreign aid, and despite having to pay heavy war reparations

The war reparations they actually paid were not that great (unlike the ones levied by the Germans on the French after the Franco-Prussian War, which were relatively speaking about the same size and were paid). Also, during the inter-war period there was very considerable British and US investment into Germany, in an attempt to create a economy that was integrated into the world's economy, and so would be a strong disincentive to another major war. Well, that was the British government's motivation, anyway - everyone else was mostly interested in profit.

As a consequence, Germany actually consumed more coal per capita than France (a crude measure of industrial activity), despite supposedly having to supply France with a great deal of said coal (and other industrial materials). Instead of it going to reparations, that coal went to buying steel from Sweden, and other such purchases.

Relevant to this discussion - Germany in the interwar period did not actually pay huge reparations, and did have considerable foreign investment ('aid'). They also ran a ponzi scheme in the mid-late 30s to fund their industrial growth and military production, and it was about to all fall over when they started WWII. So all-in-all pre-WWII Germany is not a good example of a bootstrap.