Here's my personal take on it. Being a first world country isn't a
matter of raw economics. There are some oil-rich authoritarian regimes
out there that have a per-capita income equal to the first world, but
can't really qualify.
First world countries have constitutional government, they have
government by the consent of the governed (some form of democracy),
they have a generally capitalistc economic system. Freedom from
crushing poverty isn't enough. First world countries traditionally
included the US, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the members of
the European Union, and a few odds and ends like Switzerland and
Iceland. We could call these neo-western countries. First-world
nation status also means that you are part of a community of nations.
All these countries work together, have shared values, shared
institutions, shared history. While there might be competition between
them it is recognized that continuing the game is more important than
winning or losing.
Second World countries used to mean the Warsaw Pact, the Soviet Union
and its conquered satelite countries. Even before the Soviet Union
officially collapsed people kind of stopped using this term.
The third world is everyone else. The only reason China's economy is
so big is its population. Per-capita it is still very low, although
rising. Latin American countries are improving, but most of them had
dictatorships only a decade ago.
We could make a distinction between healthy countries like in Latin
America and basket cases like in Africa. But we're pretty much stuck
with the terminology as it stands.
=====
Darryl
Think Galactically -- Act Terrestrially
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