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By the 60’s: the term was already connected to poverty and backwardness
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1990/91: After the fall of Berlim’s Wall and the end of USSR, both UN and World Bank started to use other terms
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From 2000’s on: term is already considered obsolete in diplomatic and academic contexts
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We have other names and classifications: Global South, emerging economies, developed/developing countries or least developed, emergent markets, HDI(very high, high or medium, low), Income level (high,upper middle, lower middle, low), GDP, etc.
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Why do people keep using them anyway? Do they learn these terms at school yet?
Comments
Why do they call it first world or third world if there’s only one world?
Its very goofy.
Its essentially just used to describe the democratic allies of the usa/EU and the global western institutions
This is why latin america is excluded even beyond the developmental level
IMO, I think it’s inadequate because reinforces a colonial idea of underdevelopment places where actually you can find developed and not so developed areas while, at the same time, keeps a quite false conception of a non existence of basic services and resources, pushing agendas and soft powers in favour of the most developed countries. Both UN and World Bank don’t use these terms since 90’s.
What’s your take on that?
Don’t care for it, I’m not going to get offended by that crap, call it what ever you want, third world, developing countries, it’s all the same to me.
i don’t mind, tbh we even use the term “tercermundista” to refer to ourselves a lot of times.
To me, it is always a sign that the people using these terms have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. No clue whatsoever about macroeconomics, international relations and geopolitics lol
It is the same thing with “developing” and “developed” countries. This terminology has been outdated for at least 3 decades now. It is far more accurate to use “high income”, “middle income” and “low income” countries or even regions.
It’s true that the geopolitical origin of this term is pretty much no longer valid, but the term stuck as a code word to represent what typically holds us back as a region, such as political (and layman’s) corruption, lack of civility, lacking infrastructure, disorganised and untidy urban and rural environments.
Not sure whether the term is taught with this definition at schools now (left school ages ago) but the word, as a synonym of underdeveloped is well known by the general public.
It sounds offensive or nostalgic depending on the context. You don’t listen people talking like this anymore unless it’s an American or European trying to show off or a guy from human sciences who didn’t catch up with the rest of the people. Emerging markets is the proper way to refer to a country that is growing later and faster and trying to fill the gap with developed countries. When it’s a really poor economy we say low income. When it’s a low/middle income that doesn’t grow like South Africa or a middle income facing long term challenges like Argentina, we analyze case by case. I mean, bottom line, generalizations feel stupid.
Usually I hear ignorant USA people that have never left the country use those words. They have no idea how much closer their country is to a so-called “third world country” than a Nordic country.
I like it better than other euphemisms like “global south”, “less developed economies” or “growing countries”.
Getting people hung up on terminology is a great way to defuse and neutralize activism. Works like a charm, in fact.
I find it accurate to describe us, most of the bad connotations apply to us
Don’t care tbh. It is an outdated term and I think even the simple “low/middle/high income” countries, while still very incomplete and broad, is better than those outdated divisions
Funny we use the term around here to refer to shitty social attitudes like squatting, littering and cutting in lines.