As for the DR being a third world country ,no it is not . It is a free country with a good democratic model and a framework for law and order that at present is not funcioning too well ,There are no people dying in the strests as in China and India , there are no political prisoners and there are no civil wars between tribes .It has numerous universities and a good collection of artists and musicians . It also has a very good central bank as well as severalgood private banks that weathered the economic storms better than elsewhere . But the DR is a developing country , definitely .
- Thread starter SantiagueroRD
- Start date
Is the Dominican Republic a Third World Country?
I think it will depend on where one came from and where one lives now. For example, I'm from the South and have never been to NYC and and not impressed by large cities in the least bit. I kind of like the smaller towns even with rural feel. Based on that, Santiago is more than enough city for me and has practically everything I need.
However, if one grew up in say NYC or Chicago and then moved to Sosua or some small town I could see how the DR could seem more backwards.
Since the end of the cold war i.e. the fall of the U.S.S.R (the 2nd world), the buzz words have changed from underdeveloped, developing, and developed. D.R. would fall in the "developing" however, more on the middle range of these counties. If you prefer the old school definition, then the answer is an absolute yes, D.R is a third world country. I think the daily power outages, literacy rate, health indicators, corruption, etc. make that quite easy to see. It is getting better, but lets be realistic here.
I found this in the 2001 Archives....interesting...
Guest 1st/2nd/3rd/4th world definitions & descriptions
THIRD WORLD -- the economically underdeveloped countries of Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Latin America, considered as an entity with common characteristics, such as poverty, high birthrates, and economic dependence on the advanced countries. The French demographer Alfred Sauvy coined the expression ("tiers monde" in French) in 1952 by analogy with the "third estate," the commoners of France before and during the French Revolution-as opposed to priests and nobles, comprising the first and second estates respectively. Like the third estate, wrote Sauvy, the third world is nothing, and it "wants to be something." The term therefore implies that the third world is exploited, much as the third estate was exploited, and that, like the third estate its destiny is a revolutionary one. It conveys as well a second idea, also discussed by Sauvy, that of non-alignment, for the third world belongs neither to the industrialized capitalist world nor to the industrialized Communist bloc. The expression third world was used at the 1955 conference of Afro-Asian countries held in Bandung, Indonesia. In 1956 a group of social scientists associated with Sauvy's National Institute of Demographic Studies, in Paris, published a book called Le Tiers-Monde. Three years later, the French economist Francois Perroux launched a new journal, on problems of underdevelopment, with the same title. By the end of the 1950's the term was frequently employed in the French media to refer to the underdeveloped countries of Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Latin America.
Characteristics
The underdevelopment of the third world is marked by a number of common traits; distorted and highly dependent economies devoted to producing primary products for the developed world and to provide markets for their finished goods; traditional, rural social structures; high population growth; and widespread poverty. Nevertheless, the third world is sharply differentiated, for it includes countries on various levels of economic development. And despite the poverty of the countryside and the urban shantytowns, the ruling elites of most third world countries are wealthy.
This combination of conditions in Asia, Africa, Oceania and Latin America is linked to the absorption of the third world into the international capitalist economy, by way of conquest or indirect domination. The main economic consequence of Western domination was the creation, for the first time in history, of a world market. By setting up throughout the third world sub-economies linked to the West, and by introducing other modern institutions, industrial capitalism disrupted traditional economies and, indeed, societies. This disruption led to underdevelopment.
Because the economies of underdeveloped countries have been geared to the needs of industrialized countries, they often comprise only a few modern economic activities, such as mining or the cultivation of plantation crops. Control over these activities has often remained in the hands of large foreign firms. The prices of third world products are usually determined by large buyers in the economically dominant countries of the West, and trade with the West provides almost all the third world's income. Throughout the colonial period, outright exploitation severely limited the accumulation of capital within the foreign-dominated countries. Even after decolonization (in the 1950's, 1960's, and 1970's, the economies of the third world developed slowly, or not at all, owing largely to the deterioration of the "terms of trade"-the relation between the cost of the goods a nation must import from abroad and its income from the exports it sends to foreign countries. Terms of trade are said to deteriorate when the cost of imports rises faster than income from exports. Since buyers in the industrialized countries determined the prices of most products involved in international trade, the worsening position of the third world was scarcely surprising. Only the oil-producing countries (after 1973) succeeded in escaping the effects of Western, domination of the world economy.
No study of the third world could hope to assess its future prospects without taking into account population growth. In 1980, the earth's population was estimated at 4.4 billion, 72 percent of it in the third world, and it seemed likely to reach 6.2 billion, 80 percent of it in the third world, at the close of the century. This population explosion in the third world will surely prevent any substantial improvements in living standards there as well as threaten people in stagnant economies with worsening poverty.
Role in World Politics
The Bandung conference, in 1955, was the beginning of the political emergence of the third world. Two nations whose social and economic systems were sharply opposed-China and India-played a major role in promoting that conference and in changing the relation between the third world and the industrial countries, capitalist and Communist. As a result of de-colonialization, the United Nations, at first numerically dominated by European countries and countries of European origin, was gradually transformed into something of a third world forum. With increasing urgency, the problem of underdevelopment then became the focus of a permanent, although essentially academic, debate. Despite that debate, the unity of the third world remains hypothetical, expressed mainly from the platforms of international conferences.
Economic Prospects
Foreign aid, and indeed all the efforts of existing institutions and structures, have failed to solve the problem of underdevelopment. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) held in New Delhi in 1971 suggested that one percent of the national income of industrialized countries should be devoted to aiding the third world. That figure has never been reached, or even approximated. In 1972 the Santiago (Chile) UNCTAD set a goal of a 6 percent economic growth rate in the 1970's for the underdeveloped countries. But this, too, was not achieved. The living conditions endured by the overwhelming majority of the 3 billion people who inhabit the poor countries have either not noticeably changed since 1972 or have actually deteriorated.
Whatever economic development has occurred in the third world has not been distributed fairly between nations or among population groups within nations. Most of the third world countries that have managed to achieve substantial economic growth are those that produce oil: Algeria, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Oman, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. They had the money to do so because after 1973 the Organization of Oil producing Countries (OPEC), a cartel, succeeded in raising the price of oil drastically. Other important raw materials are also produced by underdeveloped countries, and the countries that produce them have joined in cartels similar in form to OPEC. For example, Australia, Guinea, Guyana, Jamaica, Sierra Leone, Suriname, and Yugoslavia formed the Bauxite International Association (BIA) in 1974; and Chile, Peru, Zaire, and Zambia formed a cartel of copper producing countries in 1967. But even strategic raw materials like copper and bauxite are not as essential to the industrialized countries as oil, and these cartels therefore lack OPEC's strength; while the countries that produce cocoa and coffee (and other foods) are even less able to impose their will. Indeed, among the countries that do not receive oil revenues, only Brazil, the Ivory Coast, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan have enjoyed significant economic growth. And because the underdeveloped nations are collectively so weak, the so-called "new economic order" proposed by some of them will probably remain a phrase, and no more for the foreseeable future.
Nonetheless, the relationship between the underdeveloped and the industrialized countries has improved somewhat. In 1975 the nine-nation European Economic Community (EEC) concluded an agreement, called the Lome Pact, with 46 African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) nations that exempted most ACP exports from tariffs. The Lome II Pact, signed in 1979 by the EEC and 57 ACP countries, consolidated and broadened the Lome I agreement-for example by guaranteeing income from agricultural exports.
Nonetheless, excepting only a few oil-producing countries with low populations, the economic crisis of the 1970'5 was more detrimental to the third world than to the West; and there did not seem to be much chance in the foreseeable future for any significant change in the relationship between the industrialized and underdeveloped countries. Nor did the prospects for economic development in the third world appear to be very bright: Between 1960 and 1980 half of the African countries had actually regressed. Almost the only countries to receive some of the capital needed for development were those lucky enough to have a significant amount of raw materials, especially oil, to export.
All international agencies agree that drastic action is required to improve conditions in third world countries, including urban and rural public work projects to attack joblessness and underemployment, institutional reforms essential for the redistribution of economic power, agrarian reform, tax reform, and the reform of public funding. But, in reality, political and social obstacles to reform are a part of the very nature of the international order and of most third world regimes.
Gerard Chaliand - author
****************************
The First World is the developed world - US, Canada, western Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, etc.. The Second World was the Communist world led by the USSR. With the demise of the USSR and the communist block, there is no longer a Second World. The Third World is the underdeveloped world - agrarian, rural and poor. Many Third World countries have one or two developed cities, but the rest of the country is poor, rural and agrarian. Eastern Europe should probably be considered Third World. Russia should also be considered a Third World country with nuclear weapons. China, has always been considered Third World, and still is. In general, Latin America, including Mexico, Africa, and most of Asia are still considered Third World. The Asian tigers - South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, except for their big cities, their maquiladora-type production facilities, a small middle class and a much smaller ruling elite should probably be considered Third World countries as well, since their populations are overwhelmingly rural, agrarian and poor.
Some of the very poorest countries, especially in Africa, that have no industrialization, are almost entirely agrarian (subsistence farming), and have little or no hope of industrializing and competing in the world "marketplace", are sometimes termed the "Fourth World".
***
The term "Third World" is not universally accepted. Some prefer other terms such as - the South, non-industrialized countries, underdeveloped countries, undeveloped countries, mal-developed countries, emerging nations.The term "Third World" is probably the one most widely used in the media today.
No term describes all non-"First World", non-industrialized, non-developed, non -"Western" countries accurately. In comparison, the United States has been categorized as being part of : the West, the First World, the industrialized world, the developed world, the North.
Guest 1st/2nd/3rd/4th world definitions & descriptions
THIRD WORLD -- the economically underdeveloped countries of Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Latin America, considered as an entity with common characteristics, such as poverty, high birthrates, and economic dependence on the advanced countries. The French demographer Alfred Sauvy coined the expression ("tiers monde" in French) in 1952 by analogy with the "third estate," the commoners of France before and during the French Revolution-as opposed to priests and nobles, comprising the first and second estates respectively. Like the third estate, wrote Sauvy, the third world is nothing, and it "wants to be something." The term therefore implies that the third world is exploited, much as the third estate was exploited, and that, like the third estate its destiny is a revolutionary one. It conveys as well a second idea, also discussed by Sauvy, that of non-alignment, for the third world belongs neither to the industrialized capitalist world nor to the industrialized Communist bloc. The expression third world was used at the 1955 conference of Afro-Asian countries held in Bandung, Indonesia. In 1956 a group of social scientists associated with Sauvy's National Institute of Demographic Studies, in Paris, published a book called Le Tiers-Monde. Three years later, the French economist Francois Perroux launched a new journal, on problems of underdevelopment, with the same title. By the end of the 1950's the term was frequently employed in the French media to refer to the underdeveloped countries of Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Latin America.
Characteristics
The underdevelopment of the third world is marked by a number of common traits; distorted and highly dependent economies devoted to producing primary products for the developed world and to provide markets for their finished goods; traditional, rural social structures; high population growth; and widespread poverty. Nevertheless, the third world is sharply differentiated, for it includes countries on various levels of economic development. And despite the poverty of the countryside and the urban shantytowns, the ruling elites of most third world countries are wealthy.
This combination of conditions in Asia, Africa, Oceania and Latin America is linked to the absorption of the third world into the international capitalist economy, by way of conquest or indirect domination. The main economic consequence of Western domination was the creation, for the first time in history, of a world market. By setting up throughout the third world sub-economies linked to the West, and by introducing other modern institutions, industrial capitalism disrupted traditional economies and, indeed, societies. This disruption led to underdevelopment.
Because the economies of underdeveloped countries have been geared to the needs of industrialized countries, they often comprise only a few modern economic activities, such as mining or the cultivation of plantation crops. Control over these activities has often remained in the hands of large foreign firms. The prices of third world products are usually determined by large buyers in the economically dominant countries of the West, and trade with the West provides almost all the third world's income. Throughout the colonial period, outright exploitation severely limited the accumulation of capital within the foreign-dominated countries. Even after decolonization (in the 1950's, 1960's, and 1970's, the economies of the third world developed slowly, or not at all, owing largely to the deterioration of the "terms of trade"-the relation between the cost of the goods a nation must import from abroad and its income from the exports it sends to foreign countries. Terms of trade are said to deteriorate when the cost of imports rises faster than income from exports. Since buyers in the industrialized countries determined the prices of most products involved in international trade, the worsening position of the third world was scarcely surprising. Only the oil-producing countries (after 1973) succeeded in escaping the effects of Western, domination of the world economy.
No study of the third world could hope to assess its future prospects without taking into account population growth. In 1980, the earth's population was estimated at 4.4 billion, 72 percent of it in the third world, and it seemed likely to reach 6.2 billion, 80 percent of it in the third world, at the close of the century. This population explosion in the third world will surely prevent any substantial improvements in living standards there as well as threaten people in stagnant economies with worsening poverty.
Role in World Politics
The Bandung conference, in 1955, was the beginning of the political emergence of the third world. Two nations whose social and economic systems were sharply opposed-China and India-played a major role in promoting that conference and in changing the relation between the third world and the industrial countries, capitalist and Communist. As a result of de-colonialization, the United Nations, at first numerically dominated by European countries and countries of European origin, was gradually transformed into something of a third world forum. With increasing urgency, the problem of underdevelopment then became the focus of a permanent, although essentially academic, debate. Despite that debate, the unity of the third world remains hypothetical, expressed mainly from the platforms of international conferences.
Economic Prospects
Foreign aid, and indeed all the efforts of existing institutions and structures, have failed to solve the problem of underdevelopment. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) held in New Delhi in 1971 suggested that one percent of the national income of industrialized countries should be devoted to aiding the third world. That figure has never been reached, or even approximated. In 1972 the Santiago (Chile) UNCTAD set a goal of a 6 percent economic growth rate in the 1970's for the underdeveloped countries. But this, too, was not achieved. The living conditions endured by the overwhelming majority of the 3 billion people who inhabit the poor countries have either not noticeably changed since 1972 or have actually deteriorated.
Whatever economic development has occurred in the third world has not been distributed fairly between nations or among population groups within nations. Most of the third world countries that have managed to achieve substantial economic growth are those that produce oil: Algeria, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Oman, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. They had the money to do so because after 1973 the Organization of Oil producing Countries (OPEC), a cartel, succeeded in raising the price of oil drastically. Other important raw materials are also produced by underdeveloped countries, and the countries that produce them have joined in cartels similar in form to OPEC. For example, Australia, Guinea, Guyana, Jamaica, Sierra Leone, Suriname, and Yugoslavia formed the Bauxite International Association (BIA) in 1974; and Chile, Peru, Zaire, and Zambia formed a cartel of copper producing countries in 1967. But even strategic raw materials like copper and bauxite are not as essential to the industrialized countries as oil, and these cartels therefore lack OPEC's strength; while the countries that produce cocoa and coffee (and other foods) are even less able to impose their will. Indeed, among the countries that do not receive oil revenues, only Brazil, the Ivory Coast, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan have enjoyed significant economic growth. And because the underdeveloped nations are collectively so weak, the so-called "new economic order" proposed by some of them will probably remain a phrase, and no more for the foreseeable future.
Nonetheless, the relationship between the underdeveloped and the industrialized countries has improved somewhat. In 1975 the nine-nation European Economic Community (EEC) concluded an agreement, called the Lome Pact, with 46 African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) nations that exempted most ACP exports from tariffs. The Lome II Pact, signed in 1979 by the EEC and 57 ACP countries, consolidated and broadened the Lome I agreement-for example by guaranteeing income from agricultural exports.
Nonetheless, excepting only a few oil-producing countries with low populations, the economic crisis of the 1970'5 was more detrimental to the third world than to the West; and there did not seem to be much chance in the foreseeable future for any significant change in the relationship between the industrialized and underdeveloped countries. Nor did the prospects for economic development in the third world appear to be very bright: Between 1960 and 1980 half of the African countries had actually regressed. Almost the only countries to receive some of the capital needed for development were those lucky enough to have a significant amount of raw materials, especially oil, to export.
All international agencies agree that drastic action is required to improve conditions in third world countries, including urban and rural public work projects to attack joblessness and underemployment, institutional reforms essential for the redistribution of economic power, agrarian reform, tax reform, and the reform of public funding. But, in reality, political and social obstacles to reform are a part of the very nature of the international order and of most third world regimes.
Gerard Chaliand - author
****************************
The First World is the developed world - US, Canada, western Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, etc.. The Second World was the Communist world led by the USSR. With the demise of the USSR and the communist block, there is no longer a Second World. The Third World is the underdeveloped world - agrarian, rural and poor. Many Third World countries have one or two developed cities, but the rest of the country is poor, rural and agrarian. Eastern Europe should probably be considered Third World. Russia should also be considered a Third World country with nuclear weapons. China, has always been considered Third World, and still is. In general, Latin America, including Mexico, Africa, and most of Asia are still considered Third World. The Asian tigers - South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, except for their big cities, their maquiladora-type production facilities, a small middle class and a much smaller ruling elite should probably be considered Third World countries as well, since their populations are overwhelmingly rural, agrarian and poor.
Some of the very poorest countries, especially in Africa, that have no industrialization, are almost entirely agrarian (subsistence farming), and have little or no hope of industrializing and competing in the world "marketplace", are sometimes termed the "Fourth World".
***
The term "Third World" is not universally accepted. Some prefer other terms such as - the South, non-industrialized countries, underdeveloped countries, undeveloped countries, mal-developed countries, emerging nations.The term "Third World" is probably the one most widely used in the media today.
No term describes all non-"First World", non-industrialized, non-developed, non -"Western" countries accurately. In comparison, the United States has been categorized as being part of : the West, the First World, the industrialized world, the developed world, the North.
Exactly why I used those examples. "For the good of society, at large" should not translate into "At the cost of individual liberties". That is why ham handed sweeping laws (like "drive 55") ended up looking more like your toalitarian perspective than my rosie colored one. Especially when one tried to drive from NY to Miami or across Arizona or Nevada at 55 Mph, the law made less and less sense and eventually the Federal government conceded that it had overstepped it's role and left the set speed limits in the hands of the local and state authorities which were in a much better position to determine a reasonable balance between public safety and the need to get down the road.
Social order cannot be effectively mandated from the Federal government down. The family is the primary resource for societal development, then the community, then the larger community, County, State, etc. The only thing the Federal government is there for is to facilitate the needs of those other entities and keep them from stepping on one another using broad guidelines, more specific where necessary...not "mandates", settling disputes, maintaining fairness and backing order and rule of law.
In many part of the world including the USA driving is not a privilege but a necessity. I will consider driving to be a privilege in places like NYC, Chicago, Boston, London, Paris and Madrid etc.. Where they have good public transportations.
Which States are suffering more here in USA now that the gas prices are in the clouds? Those States that the public transportations are minimum or nonexistent.
Those people living in rural areas and isolated places need to have a car, truck or a van out of necessity not because it is a privilege.
Unplanned outages?
Don't think so.
Portal de Circuitos - CDEEE
Also, 51% of electrical circuits from the CDEEE receive electricity over 99% of the time.
Different universes. Not connected.
Regardless of "need" it is a priviledge to operate a vehicle on public thoroughfares. You still must obtain a proper license and operate a vehicle within the constraints of that priviledge.
But it is. Every time a law is written, whether for the "greater good" or not, someone's liberties are being taken away. Choice has been eliminated.
Law after law after contrived crisis after solution in a law after law...until there is no more freedom to take away.
And every dollar you confiscate from an individual for purposes other than those outlined in Federal, state and local constitutions or municipal incorporation you take a dollar choice...and thus free will...from that person.
We have become slaves of the states, following the Judas goats we call "elected officials" who promise us majik unicorns and rainbow Gummi bears.
We'd be better off if it was OK to lynch elected officials as a function of their being elected...
[
Law after law after contrived crisis after solution in a law after law...until there is no more freedom to take away.
And every dollar you confiscate from an individual for purposes other than those outlined in Federal, state and local constitutions or municipal incorporation you take a dollar choice...and thus free will...from that person.
We have become slaves of the states, following the Judas goats we call "elected officials" who promise us majik unicorns and rainbow Gummi bears.
We'd be better off if it was OK to lynch elected officials as a function of their being elected...[/QUOTE]
HERE HERE Couldnt have been better said................
Law after law after contrived crisis after solution in a law after law...until there is no more freedom to take away.
And every dollar you confiscate from an individual for purposes other than those outlined in Federal, state and local constitutions or municipal incorporation you take a dollar choice...and thus free will...from that person.
We have become slaves of the states, following the Judas goats we call "elected officials" who promise us majik unicorns and rainbow Gummi bears.
We'd be better off if it was OK to lynch elected officials as a function of their being elected...
[/QUOTE]HERE HERE Couldnt have been better said................
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It was a question I posed to my brothers lawyer at dinner...... He is Dominican and we were speaking of this exact issue after I had returned from there........ He explained it this way....... Is Republica Dominicana 2nd or 3rd world?
He said You know when you see a rainbow (DR 3rd world) and when you see it, you make a run to the end of it...... and no matter how much you reach for it you come up just a bit short..... They advanced on many things over the years, however the greater good and prosperity comes up short.... I ask of all of you, it seems its free but i sense a small percent that also appears socialist.... IMO
He said You know when you see a rainbow (DR 3rd world) and when you see it, you make a run to the end of it...... and no matter how much you reach for it you come up just a bit short..... They advanced on many things over the years, however the greater good and prosperity comes up short.... I ask of all of you, it seems its free but i sense a small percent that also appears socialist.... IMO
All the DR needs is a couple Nimitz Class Carriers, a Trident Boat and they become a first World country..Ooops, need a couple F/A 18 D's to chain to deck also
Better than a Metro for prestige and makes almost as much sense
Better than a Metro for prestige and makes almost as much sense
New definitions also include terms like "middle-income country" (WB) and "emerging economy" - the World Bank classifies the DR as upper middle income.
It could also be said to be an "emerging economy".
Dominican Republic | Data
It could also be said to be an "emerging economy".
Dominican Republic | Data
Well, you know, technically they are able to provide 24 electricity. They do that at Christmas time and election days. The question is not whether they CAN but rather whether they WANT. They don't want, because of rampant losses that are estimated at anywhere between 40 to 60 percent of the generated power. Transmission inefficiencies are a part of the problem, but non-payment for electricity is the most important factor. It was said over and over, if everybody would pay for the "juice" then the power would be 24 hours, and even the rate could go down. The 3rd world mentality is not in not having 24/7 power (bacause it can be done) but rather in having people not pay for electricity and the government being OK with that.