Questions about First World
Short answers, pulled from the story.
What does First World mean and where did the term come from?
First World originally referred to countries aligned with the Western Bloc led by the United States during the Cold War. The term entered use in the late 1940s when the United Nations introduced the vocabulary of first, second, third, and fourth worlds to classify nations by wealth and political character. After the Cold War ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the definition shifted to describe politically stable liberal democracies with strong rule of law and high living standards.
Who coined the term Third World and how did it give rise to First World?
French demographer Alfred Sauvy coined the term Third World in 1952. He drew an analogy to the three estates of pre-revolutionary France, comparing the capitalist world to the nobility, the communist world to the clergy, and the unaligned nations to the third estate. By naming the Third World directly, Sauvy made the labels First World and Second World necessary by contrast.
Which countries were considered First World during the Cold War?
NATO members during the Cold War included Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. US-aligned states outside NATO included Israel, Japan, and South Korea. Australia and New Zealand were counted as former British colonies, while Austria, Ireland, Sweden, and Switzerland were neutral but industrialized capitalist countries also grouped with the First World.
How does the First World's environmental footprint compare to the Third World?
Each inhabitant of the United States, Western Europe, and Japan consumes thirty-two times as many resources and produces thirty-two times as much waste as each person in the Third World. The Kyoto Protocol, finalized in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio, proposed placing the burden of protecting the climate specifically on the United States and other First World countries.
What role does the European Union play in the concept of the First World?
The European Union is described as the most prominent example of globalization in the First World. It covers more than four million square kilometers, has roughly 450 million people across twenty-seven member states, and together its members produce almost a third of the world's gross national product. Its origins date to 1951 with the European Coal and Steel Community, and its 1993 Copenhagen criteria for membership mirror the characteristics of First World status: democracy, rule of law, and a functioning market economy.
How does outsourcing affect inequality between First World and developing countries?
Outsourcing transfers production activities from First World companies to lower-cost locations, which raises skill levels in receiving countries but can reduce them domestically. Economists Robert Feenstra and Gordon Hanson predict a rise of fifteen to thirty-three percent in inequality among developing countries as a result of competition that includes outsourcing.