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Third World

Posted November 17, 2009 @ 9:11 pm In Numbers,Three | No Comments

The term “third world” was created early during the Cold War [1] (1945-91) to indicate the less-industrialized, non-aligned countries of the world. In the years since the end of the Cold War, the term has come to mean developing countries in general as can be seen from the first quote in the “How It’s Used” section below, which dates from 1997 and refers to Russia—the successor state to the leading second-world nation—as a “third-world” country [NOTE: Russia would generally been viewed as a first-world nation today].

Historical Definitions:

  • First World—industrialized, Western countries and Japan
  • Second World—the Communist countries in the Eastern Bloc
  • Third World—less-industrialized, developing countries

Since the early 1980′s, a parallel term, “two-thirds world,” has been occasionally used, mostly by evangelical Christians. This term builds on the wide understanding of the term “third world,” but uses the word “third” in a different sense than the original definition. In the original definition, “third” was used to indicate an ordered set, i.e. “first,” “second,” “third,”etc.  In the new phrase, “third” is used to indicate portion or size, i.e. “half,” “third,” “quarter,” “fifth,” etc., and therefore, that most of the world’s population—the “two-thirds” in the phrase”—live in poverty.

  • “At an ecumenical conference in Glenstal Abbey [2] this summer, I listened to speakers from Sierra Leone and Nigeria, among others. One speaker insisted that he was from the Two-Thirds World, not the Third World. The speakers talked about the crushing debt imposed on them by the multinational financial institution, commercial banks and creditor governments which prevents them from providing adequate health care services, education, clean water and medicines for sick children in their countries.”—Roisin Barr, “Letter to the Editor: Population and Debt,” The Irish Times [3], November 5, 1999.

How It's Used

“‘Companies used to buy [kidnapping insurance] coverage for their most senior people,’ said Mack F. Rice, Jr., a senior vice president at Marsh & McLennan.  ‘But as companies are working much more in the third world in places like Russia and Latin America, virtually all their employees, anywhere in the world, are being covered.’”

—Joseph B. Treaster, “Kidnap Insurance:  Peace of Mind for Global Executives,” The New York Times, August 21, 1997, p. D1.

"Critics said yesterday that an 'activist king' could lead to an abuse of undemocratic power and could undermine the monarchy if Charles expressed opinions which were divisive or invited ridicule.

"'This is a deeply distressing suggestion,' said Lord Taverne, the Liberal Democrat peer. 'Every constitutional monarchy that is successful keeps the monarch out of politics. What Charles talks about is highly controversial and highly damaging. For example, most plant scientists think his stance about genetic modification holds back the fight against disease and poverty in the third world. Having a monarch is something most people accept, but not as a political force.'"

—Robert Booth and Paul Lewis, "Monarchy: Critics rebel against Charles, the man who would be king - and still air his own views: Sovereign should stay out of politics, says historians: Allies believe new role would help public debate," The Guardian (UK), November 17, 2008.

"Central to the debate is a disagreement over whether the business of making and selling stuff can also be neatly divided into two quite separate processes: the shiny bits and the dirty bits. The shiny bits are the high-paying jobs that employ skilled workers such as designers and engineers. The dirty bits are the factory-type jobs that almost every Third World country seems grateful to take on."

—"The dinosaurs vs the dynamos," The New Zealand Herald, March 6, 2009.

"While the neo-liberals were slashing and burning their way through old social democratic arrangements, the left was dissipating its energies on cultural politics, 'identity' and ideological multiculturalism. Democratic idealism was once the domain of the left, including social democrats and liberals. In the United States, it had been John Kennedy's Democrats who promoted freedom around the world.

"But in the late 20th century, it became more important to many leftists to save 'Third World' culture, no matter how barbaric, from 'neo-colonialism' than it was to support equality and democracy. People on the left would defend brutal dictators (Mao, Fidel Castro, Pol Pot, Ruhollah Khomaini) simply because they opposed 'Western imperialism.'"

—Ian Buruma, "Thrown out with the bathwater; Social democrats lost when the Berlin Wall fell and they abandoned idealism to the neo-cons," The Globe and Mail, November 9, 2009.

"Several independent advocates and policy experts on hunger said that they had been bracing for the latest report to show deepening shortages, but that they were nevertheless astonished by how much the problem has worsened. 'This is unthinkable. It's like we are living in a Third World country,' said Vicki Escarra, president of Feeding America, the largest organization representing food banks and other emergency food sources."

—Amy Goldstein, “America's economic pain brings hunger pangs: USDA report on access to food 'unsettling,' Obama says,” The Washington Post, November 17, 2009.


Links

Related on eAlmanac
First World
Two-Thirds World

Beyond eAlmanac
Wikipedia article on Third World
"The Economist" article "Rethinking the 'third world': Seeing the world differently"


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URLs in this post:

[1] Cold War: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War

[2] Glenstal Abbey: http://www.glenstal.org/

[3] The Irish Times: http://www.irishtimes.com/

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