What is the third world, and why are some countries developing while others claim to be developed?
I found the task to find differences in the ways of talking and expressing values in the text of Escobar quite difficult. Some, I think ridiculous thoughts, were easy to point out, for example, The UN's declaration that 'very few communities are willing to pay the full price of economic progress' or Truman's 'Greater production is the key to prosperity and peace.' Escobars conclusion is that 'third world' is a discourse we make in a matter of talking and expressing thoughts. We use the language in a way that shows our valuations. And we tend to keep ourselves to be on the top of the world.
What is the third world?
I have learned to keep majority of countries in Africa, Asia, Middle and South America undeveloped or developing areas. The indicator that first comes in mind is poorness. Other issues that are often pointed out are still on-going industrialism, many perhaps easily preventable diseases, hunger, criminality and that the countries have been or are still colonized.
I have a head full of questions! Why are these countries mutually called as third world? What is the first world and second world? Would that be too rude to start calling our own culture, Europe the First World? Aren't we just doing it in between the lines? An why do we want to put all these countries together by saing they are the third world?
What are the developed countries?
The countries of Europe, North America, some parts of Asia (i.g. China and Japan), and Australia are usually kept as developed countries. Their indicator is the GDP, or gross domestic product, which can be calculated by using country's average wages, consuming, and incomes and outcomes of the trade. Many times these developed countries rely on their 'long history.' For hundreds of years they have had culture, education, great philosophies etc. These countries are great importers of feedstock and raw goods, as well as their export items are more refined or technical. Many of the developing countries have been the colonizing rulers and have exploited the subordinate countries.
Are these so called developed countries more advanced? Why do we use mutual meters to compare all countries? Is it for anyone's benefit to try measure and equalize everything? The GDP shows the economical status of a country. New measurements of welfare or development, like GPI (Genuine Progress Indicator) takes to account many other valuable things, as well as work done home, and the access and cost of clean water. As decreasing points to welfare, some models measure polution, costs of divorces, criminality etc.
By using the term third world we put countries together and diminish their own cultural identities. But we do the same when we talk of developed countries. I think, at some point having statistics of different areas and doing comparisons are useful. We can quite often share the thoughts of having rights for such ideals as equality, liberty, freedom of speech, and religion should be rights of everyone. We can learn from other countries why they succeed in keeping human rights important, why some manage to keep criminality low, or try find keys how some nations have equalized the salaries to be the same for both sex.
I understand the worry of creating differences with common discourses we don't even think of. We should be careful in what cases we can use the terms developing or underdeveloped countries, as well as developed countries. And as my conclusion, the term Third World should be deleted!
