Why are "third world countries" called so?

Question

Less developed countries are always reffered to as "third world countries". The last time I checked, we were all living in ONE world. Where did this word come from and why do people use it?

Answer 1

The term "third world" was created by a French guy Alfred Sauvy who was writing in L'Observateur in the 1950s. Because the Cold War (Soviet v West) was going on at the time, the "third world" countries (i.e the less developed Latin America, Asia and Africa) were essentially those which were neither on the side of Russia (second world) or the Capitalist (NATO- first world) countries during the war. It seems the phrase was a reference to a French term "Tiers Etat" or "Third Estate", referring to the commoners of France who revolted during the Revolution. Now the term "developing country" seems to be more widely accepted, which personally I think is a closer reflection of what such countries (e.g. India, Brazil) are trying to achieve.

Answer 2

'Third world' is a term we use to differentiate the civilized developed countries of this planet (first world) from those who are up and coming (second world), and finally those that are at the bottom of the barrel (third world).

If you don't like your country being third world, you need to work harder and invent stuff and contribute to the planet, rather than just take big grain shipments and have all your loans written off cause your nation is too poor to afford to pay them back.

Life is cruel.  So are we.