Origin of the terms First, Second & Third World

[Ucy]

So I Googled the origin of the words " Third World"   and this is what I found;


A Third World country is a country whose views are not aligned with NATO and capitalism or the Soviet Union and communism. The use of the term "Third World" started during the Cold War and was used to identify which of three categories the countries of the world aligned with.



What is the meaning?

[gentlemand]

Interesting. It's something I never really reflected on before. I took Third World to mean skint and nothing else.

This is a better explanation which acknowledges the origins of the term are now a bit archaic - http://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/third-world.asp

[Ucy]

Interesting. It's something I never really reflected on before. I took Third World to mean skint and nothing else.

This is a better explanation which acknowledges the origins of the term are now a bit archaic - http://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/third-world.asp

I thought exactly thesame but got curious when someone on facebook refer to China as third World country.

This is why I just avoid politics where you find some of the most ignorant and narrow minded people.

[joebrook]

So I Googled the origin of the words " Third World"   and this is what I found;


A Third World country is a country whose views are not aligned with NATO and capitalism or the Soviet Union and communism. The use of the term "Third World" started during the Cold War and was used to identify which of three categories the countries of the world aligned with.



What is the meaning?

I just googled and got the same result, what this basically means is that these countries don't share the views of the Western Powers with regards to capitalism and more inclined towards the government owning all assets of the country which is basically communism.

[mvidetto]

As I tried to search for meanings of this term it also says it is offensive to call these countries as a Third World. But generally yeah, it is a ranking scheme for the state of development of countries.

[Foxpup]

The terms strictly refer to a country's alignment during the Cold War: the First World is NATO, the Second World is the Eastern Bloc, and the Third World is everyone else. While the Third World is comprised mainly of countries that were too poor to get involved in the conflict, it also includes a few rich countries that remained neutral for political reasons, such as Switzerland. So it's incorrect to use the term "Third World" to refer to poor countries generally, and these terms are really only of historical interest these days. China is a Second World country, by the way, not a Third World country, which is why you shouldn't rely on Facebook for such things.