Where is the second world?

Factual Questions
1

I’ve searched your archives for the answer to this question but can’t find it. For reference titles, Europe is usually known as the old world, the Americas as the new world, how do these titles match to the often used term, third world? Is Europe 1, America 2, and everything else 3rd?

2

It’s somewhere between the first world (industrialized countries) and the third world (developing countries); countries such as Venezuela, Mexico, Brazil, etc. would fit in this category.

There’s also something called thhe fourth world, which is basically made up of the least developed countries (among which are several African nations).

3

I thought the definition refered to the former Soviet Union as the “Second World”. Criteria being not only economic power, but also democratic achievements. Which means many South-American countries should be “second world” indeed. North American and Western European countries are all “First World” though.

Coldfire

“You know how complex women are”

  • Neil Peart, Rush (1993)
4

Actually, the Second World was the communist countries during the cold war. Eastern Europe, Russia, and Communist Asia, to be specific. The First World is western democracies. Japan and (usually) the Phillipeans are included in the First World, because they are industrialized. The Third World is all of the poor counties that are ruled by dictator, military tribunal, or what I’ll charitably called “predetermined elections”. Mexico’s standard of living and worker’s rights record probably boot it into the Third World, although they do have a functioning democratic system. As was mentioned upthread, some people created the Fourth World to identify the absolute shitholes, like Haiti and Rwanda.

“I had a feeling that in Hell there would be mushrooms.” -The Secret of Monkey Island

5

I just heard an interesting story on NPR in which the guest argued that much of the second world has become third world since the decline of the USSR. I guess that means there is no second world. Or maybe the third world is now the second world. Or maybe it’s a tie.

6

Bad decision on my part: Being pretty sure of my facts, I chose to delete four letters (IIRC) at the beginning of my response so as to give it a more authoritative tone. I should have double checked:

First World: the chief idustrialized countries within the political power bloc of the world, including many of the countries of Western Europe, the United States, Japan and the Soviet Union.

Second World: 1. the industrialized countries of the world not including the United States and the Soviet Union.
2. the socialist or communist countries of the world.

Third World: the underdeveloped countries of the world, especially those of Africa, Asia and Latin America, without regard to their political alignment.

Fourth World: the world’s poorest and most underdeveloped countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The Second Barnhardt Dictionary of New English, 1980

Third World: Originally nations – usually underdeveloped – which were not aligned diplomatically with the “free world” of Western democracies or the “Communist world”; now the Arab-African-Latin American-Indian bloc.

Safire’s Political Dictionary, 1978
Even though both references are a bit dated, I guess they carry the gist.
:::standing humbly corrected and begging teeming millions’ forgiveness:::

7

Didn’t the Second World have a big war 60 years ago?

Everybody got to elevate from the norm - Rush

8

First World - Europe
Second World - North America (you might add Mexico, Argentina and Brazil)
Third World - everybody else, especially if they are poor

Sue me but that’s what I always thought. Of course it’s innaccurate even for 50 years ago and meaningless now, but…

9

Somebody call Barnhart’s and ask them what sort of lunch they were drinking. The definition they gave may be acceptable as a second (or even as an up-and-coming) definition, but it is not the current definition.

We just had this question a couple of weeks ago:

I’m not sure that Little Nemo’s last post, attributing the term to Nehru, is correct, but I have no better answer si I will not contest it.

Tom~

10

Well if it’s a cite you want, at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1941nehru.html there’s the following quote:

This site also gives an excerpt from Nehru’s 1956 speech in which he proclaimed India’s policy of nonalignment.