Talk: Third world
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What are the First and Second Worlds, then? If the First World was mainly Western Europe and America, was the Second World the Communist bloc or some intermediately industrialized group of countries?
- Yes, that's exactly what it was. This is really a Cold War term.
I think that's a problem with the term itself, not with the explanation of it. I've never heard mention of a "first" or "second" world either. --KQ
Oh come on--of course you have heard the term "first world" as in first world nations. --LMS
Um, well, no. Sorry. --KQ
Well, now you have! :-) Follow that Google link. I think Lee can tell you what the name for the way the word "first world" was coined... --LMS
I'm not sure there is a word for this case. It's kind of like a "back-formation", where an original word that looks derived or inflected causes the coinage of the presumed uninflected form, the way "pea" was coined from "pease". The term "third world" came first, then "first world" (which I have indeed heard in news reporting and such, though I've never heard "second") was coined by analogy. --LDC
I always believed the original distinction was "Old World" (Europe/Asia), "New World" (Americas) and "Third World" (everywhere else), and the first/second thing came (much) later, I can't back this up with evidence, though. GWO
- Seems wrong, as the Third World is split between the Old and New.
A columnist recently wrote:
- Modifying the meaning of the term "Third World," which originally described the poor nations not aligned with the United States or Soviet Union, Buchanan defines it as pretty much any non-white nation, no matter how wealthy (say, Hong Kong) or how Western (think: Catholic, Spanish-speaking Latin America).[1]
Ed Poor, Wednesday, April 10, 2002
- It makes no sense: to consider Latin America non-white, we would have to consider Spain as non-white and, therefore, in the third world.User:Marco Neves
- This should really be considered only a Cold War term.
The term has, I believe, gone out of use since the 1970s. It is a indicator of development that has been replaced with DCs (Developed Countries), LDCs (Less Developed Countries - the Third World), NICs (Newly Industrialized Countries) and some other terms which I don't remember. There is a joke that when LDCs object to being called LDCs they will be renamed HRRCs (Human Resource Rich Coutries), that is over-populated and poor.
- Yes, it has been replaced with developing nation versus developed nation, or South versus North. Another term is "human capital exporter" (no one goes *to* these countries only *from* them).
Since there is obviously some dispute between this page and the developing countries page on which term is really politically correct I have at least cross referenced them BozMo(talk)
Neutrality of article
The fifth paragraph (as at 13.08.04 15:20 AEST) is sounding a little too much like democracy was the sole saviour of the third-world nations, while those that remained as they were or chose to adopt communism had no option but to fail economically. Perhaps a little re-wording, and clarification of the circumstances behind these events should be added.
I think that the claim that without the Cold War pressures, in some countries corrupt dictatorships were replaced by democracies which led to economic booms is just nonsense. Where did this happen? Yugoslavia? Albania? I'm removing the relevant para--XmarkX 04:29, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
