Developed or Not? – That is the Question

Developed or Not? – That is the Question

How can we know if a country is developed? When we think about developed countries, we think about 1^st world countries. However, the term “First World” really refers to the countries that are considered a part of the “West” as a political bloc. This means the US, Canada, Australia, Western Europe, Japan, South Korea, Greece and Turkey. Second World refers to the countries that were aligned to the Soviet Bloc. And Third World is, well… all the rest. Generally speaking though, people confuse “First World” with Developed. Meaning countries that do not belong to the First World (which is really a political bloc), are not developed.

There are really many ways to measure a country's development. According to the United Nations Statistics Division: "There is no established convention for the designation of "developed" and "developing" countries or areas in the United Nations system. And it notes that: "The designations "developed" and "developing" are intended for statistical convenience and do not necessarily express a judgement about the stage reached by a particular country or area in the development process".

On a personal level, I consider that countries that have functioning public healthcare and educational systems are of course, developed. Let us take a look at the famous Human Development Index (HDI), which combines an economic measure, national income, with other measures, indices for life expectancy and education has become prominent. This criterion would define developed countries as those with a very high (HDI) rating.

Let us analyse the following graph. We see that the landscape has changed, compared to the “First, Second and Third World” division. Most of the countries in the “First World” remain and appear as Very Highly Developed, except for Turkey. Central Europe also makes the list, with a strong educational and health system. Saudi Arabia, surprisingly, makes the list. But what are those two dark blue countries in SouthAmerica? Could it be possible? Oh yes, it is, Argentina and Chile are actually considered developed countries. We can also see that the two least developed countries in South America: Bolivia and Paraguay, have actually the same levels of developments as South Africa and India. So if you travel to South America expecting to find “Indians”, you should probably travel to Bolivia. The rest of the region has achieved quite good levels of development. Central America though is another story. Most countries there are quite underdeveloped. Although the worst levels of developments are, of course, found in Africa.

World map by quartiles of Human Development Index in 2014.

  Very High

  High

  Medium

  Low

  Data unavailable

But let us not stay there, let us take a look at other indicators. The World Bank high-income economy map extends our previous HDI chart, and includes also countries like Russia and Uruguay. A high-income economy is defined by the World Bank as a country with a gross national income per capita above US$12,735 in 2014.  Some high-income countries may also be developing countries. Thus, a high-income country may be classified as either developed or developing. A good example could be Venezuela, that even with a high GPD x capita is not a developed country being an Oil Nation.

So we see that the map has changed a lot, from that “First World” economies map. So how could it be that most of the world population get it so wrong? Very simple, the evil doings of the IMF (International Monetary Fund). Thought of as an organization to finance or fund developing nations, the IMF has done nothing for development, and acts as a gigantic vulture fund. See now that, according to the IMF, the map of advanced economies has remained unchanged since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Only the Baltic region and some central european countries are added. This is the mental picture most people have of today’s world. This is a WRONG picture of the world. Unless, of course, you are still living in the Cold War.

Your friendly economist,

Cristian “Nash” Bøhnsdalen.

Source:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developed_country