"If you have to industrialise, you need private capital, " says Sen, perhaps the only Blackberry-carrying member of the state cabinet.

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But even if agriculture is highly productive, emerging economies need to industrialise because there is a limit to the demand for foodstuffs.

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Part of this was simply that the UK was the first country to industrialise and thus, obviously, as others did so they would catch up.

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BP, a British energy firm, has worked out how to industrialise the process of making biobutanol, as the chemical is commonly known when it is the product of fermentation.

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The Liberal MP Sophie Mirabella got sustained applause when she presented the carbon tax as a threat to the Australian way of life: "We don't want to de-industrialise our country, " she bellowed.

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As for the western states' mineral and farm exports, they will surely grow over time as less developed Asian countries such as China, Vietnam and Indonesia increasingly industrialise and switch to more meat and grain in their diets.

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Some readers will dispute Mr Jones's version of history, arguing that Mrs Thatcher's reforms or something very similar were both inevitable and necessary, or that governments can do little in the face of the economic tides that are enriching millions in the developing world at the same time as they de-industrialise the rich countries.

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