11 Facts About Third World

1.

Term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact.

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2.

Strictly speaking, "Third World" was a political, rather than an economic, grouping.

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3.

Third World was normally seen to include many countries with colonial pasts in Africa, Latin America, Oceania and Asia.

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4.

Third World's usage was a reference to the Third Estate, the commoners of France who, before and during the French Revolution, opposed the clergy and nobles, who composed the First Estate and Second Estate, respectively (hence the use of the older form tiers rather than the modern troisieme for "third").

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5.

Third World claimed that the attachment of Third World status to a particular country was not based on any stable economic or political criteria, and was a mostly arbitrary process.

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6.

Only characteristic that Bauer found common in all Third World countries was that their governments "demand and receive Western aid, " the giving of which he strongly opposed.

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7.

Thus, the aggregate term "Third World" was challenged as misleading even during the Cold War period, because it had no consistent or collective identity among the countries it supposedly encompassed.

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8.

Around the early 1960s, the term "underdeveloped countries" occurred and the Third World serves to be its synonym, but after it has been officially used by politicians, 'underdeveloped countries' is soon been replaced by 'developing' and 'less-developed countries, ' because the prior one shows hostility and disrespect, in which the Third World is often characterized with stereotypes.

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9.

However, based on the rapid development of modernization and globalization, countries that were used to be considered as Third World countries achieve big economic growth, such as Brazil, India, and Indonesia, which can no longer be defined by poor economic status or low GNP today.

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10.

The differences among nations of the Third World are continually growing throughout time, and it will be hard to use the Third World to define and organize groups of nations based on their common political arrangements since most countries live under diverse creeds in this era, such as Mexico, El Salvador, and Singapore, which they all have their own political system.

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11.

The Third World categorization becomes anachronistic since its political classification and economic system are distinct to be applied in today's society.

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