The US: A Third World Country?

For those of us who live in what has over the last 30 years been called the "Rust Belt" (the former industrial corridor from Lowell, MA to Minneapolis, MN), the question of whether or not we have reached third world status is not even a question. I guess a definition is in order first, what do we mean when we say the third world? During the Cold War politicos and economists wanted to differentiate between the socialist bloc countries (Soviet Union, East Germany, Hungary, etc...) that had achieved a high level of industrialization and distribution of wealth and the capitalist countries that had industrialized and created substantial wealth for a large section of the working class through unionization and the welfare state (US, Germany, Japan, etc...). They also wanted to label the nations of the world, the overwhelming majority, that had achieved very little industrialization and remained tied to primarily agricultural economies that created little wealth to be shared by the population (Guatemala, Bolivia, Indonesia, Mali, etc...). Thus the classification of first, second and third world.

The main characteristics of the third world were/are inequality in wealth and power, repression and a lack of investment in infrastructure (both physical and human) because of the ruling classes hoarding of resources. If one were to visit say Guatemala or Mali a direct parallel between the United States and said countries would not immediately come to mind given our massive investment in roads, hospitals, schools, parks, etc... but the inequality in our society is undeniable. In our 11 trillion dollar economy 60 million people have no health insurance, 50% of students in cities like Milwaukee, Cleveland, Buffalo, Chicago do not graduate from high school, Native Americans, Blacks and Latinos die significantly earlier than their white counterparts and the top 1% of the population controls more wealth than the bottom 40. And then there is the repression. Per 100,000 the United States incarcerates more people than any other society in the world. We also use the death penalty which has not been banned only in only a handful of repressive states like China, Iran and Russia. The political system while nominally democratic has pitiful levels of participation because of the obvious lack of accountability except to the most well heeled.

In the post-industrial nightmare that I live in (Milwaukee, where 60% of the relatively high paying industrial jobs shipped out in the early 80's thanks to deliberate monetary policy of the unaccountable Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volker appointed by Jimmy Carter along with deregulation) the central city has only recently been rebuilt/gentrified with yuppie condos, a convention center and a new jail. The work, relatively high pay, low skill entry level jobs, no longer exist and the social safety net has been eliminated, replaced with forced work in return for miserly government assistance. The white population has long abandoned the schools and uses the city for a playground-sports, plays and restaurants. The racial question is so obvious that the dominant white radio programs overtly tout racist themes and blame the poor and brown for the entire collapse of the community. The tax cutting in the state was so successful in the 80's and 90's that the tax burden is now almost entirely based on the working class and middling classes that own some property.

Back to our question: is the US a third world country? In the strictest sense the answer is no because the basis of the economy is still manufacturing, a thriving service sector and FIRE; finance, insurance and real estate but the abandonment of entire cities and rural areas because of the mantra of libertarianism and individualism since the 1980's has left massive sections of the country either in jail or within a paycheck of being on the street.

A story on NPR on how the US is viewed around the world since Iraq and Katrina.