TLDR is start with strong authoritarian state capacity and violently bring order to social fabric and build industrial/extractive base while ingratiating powerf

TLDR is start with strong authoritarian state capacity and violently bring order to social fabric and build industrial/extractive base while ingratiating powerful hegemons / neighbours, or certainly not piss them off. Ultimately, those with wealth and power get to pick winners and losers. Nascent democracies tend to be developmental death sentences - can't coordinate. It will likely involve extreme state violence. Less viable Asian Tiger export driven route: -Be authoritarian. -Establish domestic serenity via state violence. -Have maritime access. -Be geopolitically strategic to US interests at heigh of hegemony. -Align as satraps and be subsidized by US. -Create export driven industrial policy to climb up value chain. -Educate population Still viable extractive state route. -Be authoritarian. -Establish domestic serenity via state violence. -Have maritime access. -Have resources. -Don't be sanctioned by US. To get to upper income fast: -Helps to have small population. -Have access to cheap migrant labour. Historically, start with: -Be authoritarian. -Establish domestic serenity via state violence. -Have access to cheap slave labour.