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Well, you have heard of First and Third World nations...

What would you consider 2nd-World?

I this simply an oversight or something more sinister?

Depends on whose definition you want to use.

Mao labeled the first world as the superpowers (US, USSR), the second world as their allies (Europe, parts of asia) and the third world as the non-aligned nations (Africa, parts of the ME and South America).

Churchhill (I think, might have been some other Englishman) divided the world into a first world of democratic countries (US, western europe), a second of socialist/communist countries (USSR, Eastern Europe), and the third world of unaligned countries.

The perspective is entirely from a Cold War standpoint at biccat explained.

I originally was given the idea of Second World Nation in college as a new definition in a post-Cold War world to explain a nation as one that is between First and Third; developing nations with strong or improving economies that are beginning to suffer the problems of a First World nation rather than a Third World nation (or going down the slippery slope to 3rd world status).

The way it's been explained to me...

3rd world countries are developing countries which are usually in too much strife to actually develop very far, such as the two Republics of Congo nations. Meanwhile 2nd world countries are countries which are developing towards becoming first world and are much closer than third world countries, such as the India and China. And finally, 1st world countries are those countries which are currently modern, such as the NATO countries and the European Union.

Mind you, this is an attempt to adapt cold war language to a modern mindset.

France?

biccat wrote:
Churchhill (I think, might have been some other Englishman) divided the world into a first world of democratic countries (US, western europe), a second of socialist/communist countries (USSR, Eastern Europe), and the third world of unaligned countries.

Churchill's Iron Curatin speech established the division between the East and the West. The model you're talking about is usually attributed to Alfred Sauvy.

dogma wrote:

biccat wrote:
Churchhill (I think, might have been some other Englishman) divided the world into a first world of democratic countries (US, western europe), a second of socialist/communist countries (USSR, Eastern Europe), and the third world of unaligned countries.

Churchill's Iron Curatin speech established the division between the East and the West. The model you're talking about is usually attributed to Alfred Sauvy.

Just remember that Churchill plagiarized the term as it appeared earlier in history.

So the Big C only got a Big Fat C for his Iron Curtain speech. It barely squeezed him by in his Communications class.

AvatarForm wrote:Well, you have heard of First and Third World nations...

What would you consider 2nd-World?

I this simply an oversight or something more sinister?

As has been said, the 3 world model used to denote the distinction between Communism and Capitalism, or the power hierarchies which they supported.

Now, since the 3 worlds are usually determined by HDI. That said, since HDI is a quartile system, you're probably going to get a lot of arguments over the margins of the 2nd and 3rd quartile and whether or not they belong in world X.

That said, the 3 world model is basically just a colloquialism now, no one uses it as an accurate descriptor.

dogma wrote:

That said, the 3 world model is basically just a colloquialism now, no one uses it as an accurate descriptor.

Except FOXnews pundits, demagogues, repugs, and tories.

I was always under the impression that Developing-world was synonymous to second world and no one used the phrase second world *shrug*

LordofHats wrote:I was always under the impression that Developing-world was synonymous to second world and no one used the phrase second world *shrug*

Yeah, but you get a lot of disagreement over what that constitutes.

For example, a lot of people place Pakistan in the developing world, but a lot of others don't.

First world countries are when people have plenty to eat.
Third world countries are when people don't have enough to eat.

That means that second world countries are places where people have enough to eat, but it's no one is happy about the quality of food. For example: England.

(This is an old joke from Scott Adams, not my creation)

SilverMK2 wrote:France?

Very good!

Not really Developing (Kenya)= 3rd World
Developing (Mexico)= 2nd world
Developed (France)= 1st world

That's how I see it anyways.

Cheesecat wrote:Not really Developing (Kenya)= 3rd World
Developing (Mexico)= 2nd world
Developed (France)= 1st world

That's how I see it anyways.

The only problem with this list is that it has France in it, and it's not titled "Countries to bomb"

As I was originally taught, it's an old Cold War idea...

1st World = Capitalist Nations of the West, and their allies.
2nd World = Sino-Soviet Bloc
3rd World = Neutral States.

Over the years, it's altered so that the 1st world became synonymous with 'developed' and 3rd world became synonymous with 'undeveloped/developing'. 2nd just kinda faded away...

An old textbook I had from the '80s said, as ChrisWWII wrote, that it's the Soviet bloc.

But the same book referred to the third world in the same terms as we would now.

Nowadays I think of the second world as being countries like Libya or Syria... places where, y'know, things aren't that bad but they ain't exactly shiny either

I always thought that:

1st world - Developed (USA, Germany, Britain, Norway etc.)
2nd world - ex soviet bloc/communist countries (estonia, latvia) , and developing countries (mexico, india, china)
3rd world - places where your charity money goes (ivory coast, DR congo, ethiopia)