There’s a much more obvious link between the majority of third world countries, which is that until recently they were colonies. And quite a lot of previously third world countries have “got somewhere”, the more appropriate comparison is between these and the countries that have maintained or further declined from their colonial status, not between the victors and losers of the massively economically significant wars of the preceding centuries. And for that matter the various first world countries that failed to “get anywhere” relative to others in the same position as them at the beginning of the 20th. But to take the India’s failure to completely recover from the economic damage of the 19th century as evidence that they would never have got anywhere in the first place is, well, the just world phenomenon doesn’t quite cover it. Compare say, Italy, India, France and the DRC. Which have a political culture conducive to growth, and which ones have a history of famines, invasions and repressive governments conducive to poverty? Because as far as I can see, these two factors are only loosely correlated, and the latter is a much more significant predictor of third world status than the former.
more obvious link … which is that until recently they were colonies
I call BS on this. I think it is used pervasively as an excuse which panders to left-wing white guilt, but doesn’t actually do any explanatory work. E.g. America was once a colony (and had good growth not too long after), Hong Kong was a colony until 1999, Vietnam was until recently a colony but now has GDP growth that most first world countries would be proud of. Israel was until recently a colony, populated by people who have been until recently harshly persecuted, and to boot got invaded several times by surrounding hostiles. Yet has excellent GDP per cap, growth, etc. South Korea was until recently a colony. etc etc.
And one African country that didn’t start off as a colony, Liberia, is an utter disaster, having displayed the usual sequence of coup, civil war, dictatorship and ethnic tensions. Many Liberians live on less than $1 per day.
The independence of Ethiopia was interrupted by the Second Italo-Abyssinian War and Italian occupation (1936–1941).[67] During this time of attack, Haile Selassie appealed to the League of Nations in 1935, delivering an address that made him a worldwide figure, and the 1935 Time magazine Man of the Year.[68] Following the entry of Italy into World War II, British Empire forces, together with patriot Ethiopian fighters, officially liberated Ethiopia in the course of the East African Campaign in 1941, while an Italian guerrilla campaign continued until 1943.
Ethiopia is arguably another example of a non-colonized state, since it was only invaded and occupied for a few years. If we define that as colonization the same can be said of most of Eastern Europe, which would bolster your position even more.
I’d like to point out that America (i.e. the USA, and most other nations on the continent) are “successful colonies”: the colonizers have killed the natives (USA) or driven them out or made them into economically second-class citizens (Israel), and the financial success belongs to the colonists.
Whereas in African colonies, the natives have taken economic and political control, and the economic failures are theirs.
You need to explicitly dislaim any possibility of a racist/eugenicist connotation, at least I would say it wise to. Not for me, but for others reading.
Colonisation is the link between third world countries, not the common thread of their poverty, which varies massively within this group as we both pointed out, and I’m quite open to the idea that the post-colonial performance of these countries is down to cultural and institutional factors. But third world status is defined by their economic position at the start of the Cold War, at which point the majority of these countries were only just gaining independence. It’s ridiculous to assert their positions here were due to the culture of groups that were at best an advisory body to colonial administrators, rather than differences in colonial regimes. And culture being influenced heavily by economics, it is difficult to draw a line between these starting positions and the cultural structures that developed, or for that matter to see what purpose it serves except to “pander to left wing white guilt” (what does this even mean, is anticolonialism a primarily white phenomenon where you come from?)
That said, your using America and Vietnam as counterpoints to my argument suggests that we may be talking at cross-purposes somewhat.
Okay actually lets try and reel this in, this is how I see this conversation:
1) You claim that third world countries are an example of irrational collections of people, citing their poor economic performance as evidence
2) I point out that many third world countries have seen very good economic performance since gaining independence, and their low absolute wealth is more easily explained by their poor or negative performance under colonialism.
3) You point out that many third world and first world countries have performed well post-independence, and give one example of a country that did well under colonial rule as well.
4) I concede* that intra-Third World performance may be due to cultural/institutional factors, while reiterating that the First/Third world differences are a legacy of 19th century wars, both economic and military.
Can you see any failures of communication or understanding here? I don’t see how your response at 3 backs up your point at 1, so one of us must have misread the other.
*I feel the need to point out that this is implicit in my response at (2) though I would hope the obvious wrongness of the converse would make this obvious.
Are you sarcastic? Is there some UN body or other collection of idiots that is actually going around using “Third World” to describe whatever countries are in need of it’s poverty reduction mechanisms, or something like that? The term has always been understood to mean those countries that were neutral in the fight between the First and Second worlds during the Cold War, on account of their new independence. If what you meant was poverty in countries correlates well with cultural and institutional barriers to growth well, I have no quarrel with that, though that “in a sense” bit in your original post is doing a lot of work. But third world properly refers to a set of states which contain some of the most rational state-craft in the world, certainly better than some countries whose membership in the first world seems, at this point, to be mostly a matter of historical accident, though I’m aware that this is basically code for “set of circumstances I don’t yet understand”.
I genuinely didn’t know that the third world meant “those countries that were neutral in the fight between the First and Second worlds during the Cold War,”.
According to wikipedia, “The term continues to be used colloquially to describe the poorest countries in the world.”, which was what I meant. The cold war is ancient history now, so I guess I’m just too young to have come across the former meaning.
Well I could name you states whose leaders I admire but am wary about dragging this conversation even deeper into mind-killer territory than it already is, I think the more salient point is that few commentators would have difficulty coming up with a list, whether it’d be composed of Asian tigers or Kerala and Bolivia or BRIC (though I’m uncertain if Brazil was ever considered Third World). The difference in membership between the political category of the third world and the colloquial one is evidence of good governance in the former.
There’s a much more obvious link between the majority of third world countries, which is that until recently they were colonies. And quite a lot of previously third world countries have “got somewhere”, the more appropriate comparison is between these and the countries that have maintained or further declined from their colonial status, not between the victors and losers of the massively economically significant wars of the preceding centuries. And for that matter the various first world countries that failed to “get anywhere” relative to others in the same position as them at the beginning of the 20th. But to take the India’s failure to completely recover from the economic damage of the 19th century as evidence that they would never have got anywhere in the first place is, well, the just world phenomenon doesn’t quite cover it. Compare say, Italy, India, France and the DRC. Which have a political culture conducive to growth, and which ones have a history of famines, invasions and repressive governments conducive to poverty? Because as far as I can see, these two factors are only loosely correlated, and the latter is a much more significant predictor of third world status than the former.
I call BS on this. I think it is used pervasively as an excuse which panders to left-wing white guilt, but doesn’t actually do any explanatory work. E.g. America was once a colony (and had good growth not too long after), Hong Kong was a colony until 1999, Vietnam was until recently a colony but now has GDP growth that most first world countries would be proud of. Israel was until recently a colony, populated by people who have been until recently harshly persecuted, and to boot got invaded several times by surrounding hostiles. Yet has excellent GDP per cap, growth, etc. South Korea was until recently a colony. etc etc.
And one African country that didn’t start off as a colony, Liberia, is an utter disaster, having displayed the usual sequence of coup, civil war, dictatorship and ethnic tensions. Many Liberians live on less than $1 per day.
Ethiopia is arguably another example of a non-colonized state, since it was only invaded and occupied for a few years. If we define that as colonization the same can be said of most of Eastern Europe, which would bolster your position even more.
I’d like to point out that America (i.e. the USA, and most other nations on the continent) are “successful colonies”: the colonizers have killed the natives (USA) or driven them out or made them into economically second-class citizens (Israel), and the financial success belongs to the colonists.
Whereas in African colonies, the natives have taken economic and political control, and the economic failures are theirs.
Note also many succesful colonies in asia, e.g. Singapore, Hong Kong, postwar Japan, South Korea.
Certainly. I wasn’t commenting on your argument, but saying some of the supporting arguments are wrongly applied.
I agree with the factual content here. Though the connotation is dangerously close to racist/eugenicist.
This claim is rather unfairly discriminatory against eugenicists!
What connotation?
You need to explicitly dislaim any possibility of a racist/eugenicist connotation, at least I would say it wise to. Not for me, but for others reading.
I ask again: exactly what connotation are you talking about?
Colonisation is the link between third world countries, not the common thread of their poverty, which varies massively within this group as we both pointed out, and I’m quite open to the idea that the post-colonial performance of these countries is down to cultural and institutional factors. But third world status is defined by their economic position at the start of the Cold War, at which point the majority of these countries were only just gaining independence. It’s ridiculous to assert their positions here were due to the culture of groups that were at best an advisory body to colonial administrators, rather than differences in colonial regimes. And culture being influenced heavily by economics, it is difficult to draw a line between these starting positions and the cultural structures that developed, or for that matter to see what purpose it serves except to “pander to left wing white guilt” (what does this even mean, is anticolonialism a primarily white phenomenon where you come from?)
That said, your using America and Vietnam as counterpoints to my argument suggests that we may be talking at cross-purposes somewhat.
Okay actually lets try and reel this in, this is how I see this conversation:
1) You claim that third world countries are an example of irrational collections of people, citing their poor economic performance as evidence 2) I point out that many third world countries have seen very good economic performance since gaining independence, and their low absolute wealth is more easily explained by their poor or negative performance under colonialism. 3) You point out that many third world and first world countries have performed well post-independence, and give one example of a country that did well under colonial rule as well. 4) I concede* that intra-Third World performance may be due to cultural/institutional factors, while reiterating that the First/Third world differences are a legacy of 19th century wars, both economic and military.
Can you see any failures of communication or understanding here? I don’t see how your response at 3 backs up your point at 1, so one of us must have misread the other.
*I feel the need to point out that this is implicit in my response at (2) though I would hope the obvious wrongness of the converse would make this obvious.
I didn’t know this. I thought that it was a dynamic measure defined in terms of GDP per cap, literacy, Life-expectancy, etc.
Are you sarcastic? Is there some UN body or other collection of idiots that is actually going around using “Third World” to describe whatever countries are in need of it’s poverty reduction mechanisms, or something like that? The term has always been understood to mean those countries that were neutral in the fight between the First and Second worlds during the Cold War, on account of their new independence. If what you meant was poverty in countries correlates well with cultural and institutional barriers to growth well, I have no quarrel with that, though that “in a sense” bit in your original post is doing a lot of work. But third world properly refers to a set of states which contain some of the most rational state-craft in the world, certainly better than some countries whose membership in the first world seems, at this point, to be mostly a matter of historical accident, though I’m aware that this is basically code for “set of circumstances I don’t yet understand”.
I genuinely didn’t know that the third world meant “those countries that were neutral in the fight between the First and Second worlds during the Cold War,”.
According to wikipedia, “The term continues to be used colloquially to describe the poorest countries in the world.”, which was what I meant. The cold war is ancient history now, so I guess I’m just too young to have come across the former meaning.
Because of this confusion, I typically say “developing countries” instead of Third World.
The term I’d prefer would be “underdeveloped” countries.
I’m interested in details about this.
Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew seems a good example of a extremely well run state, though obviously it is no longer considered “third world”.
Well I could name you states whose leaders I admire but am wary about dragging this conversation even deeper into mind-killer territory than it already is, I think the more salient point is that few commentators would have difficulty coming up with a list, whether it’d be composed of Asian tigers or Kerala and Bolivia or BRIC (though I’m uncertain if Brazil was ever considered Third World). The difference in membership between the political category of the third world and the colloquial one is evidence of good governance in the former.
Of course it was. Russia is the odd one on the list since it is formerly a Second World state.