The task of a scribe is long and boring
recording the facts of life outpouring
emotions eaten by beetles of time
facts best uttered in tongues of mime.
Second World
by Ted L Glines
The term "Second World" is a phrase that was used to describe the Communist countries within the Soviet Union's sphere of influence. Along with "First World" and "Third World", the term has been used to divide the nations of Earth into three broad categories. The term has largely fallen out of use because the countries to which it referred mostly abandoned Communism, and their mutual interests, after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. The other two terms remain in widespread use.
The three terms did not arise simultaneously. After World War II, people began to speak of the NATO and Warsaw Pact countries as two major blocs, often using such terms as the "Western bloc" and the "Eastern bloc". The two "worlds" were not numbered. It was eventually pointed out that there were a great many countries that fit into neither category, and in 1952 French demographer Alfred Sauvy coined the term "Third World" to describe these countries; retroactively, the first two groups came to be known as the "First World" and "Second World"
The term was used to refer to nations within the Soviet Union's sphere of influence, e.g. the Warsaw Pact countries, as well as farther-flung Soviet Allies such as Cuba and North Vietnam. Besides the Soviet Union proper, most of Eastern Europe was run by satellite governments working closely with Moscow. The term "Second World" may or may not also refer to Communist countries whose leadership were at odds with Moscow, such as Albania, and Yugoslavia. After the Sino-Soviet split.
There were a number of countries which did not fit comfortably into this neat partitioning of the world, including Switzerland, Sweden, and the Republic of Ireland, who chose to remain neutral. Finland was under the Soviet Union's sphere of influence but was not communist, nor was it a member of the Warsaw Pact. Austria was within the United States' sphere of influence, but in 1955, when it became a fully independent republic, it did so under the condition that it remain neutral. Yugoslavia, a communist southeast European country, was a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement. Albania was a communist east European country which withdrew from the Warsaw Pact over ideological differences in 1968 and had stopped supporting the Pact as early as 1962.
Alternatively, First World countries may be defined as having developed market economies, Second World as having developed planned economies, and Third World as having developing economies that may follow either the market or the planned model. The fall of communism and the end of most planned economics has also made this distinction largely moot.
Additionally, the term is often used incorrectly, to describe a moderately developed country. This is most likely based on the misconception that the First World refers to the developed world, the Third World the developing world, and thus the Second World is an intermediate level between the two.
In recent years, as many "developing" countries have industrialized, the term Fourth World has been coined to refer to countries that have lagged behind and still lack industrial infrastructure.
Alternatively, Fourth World has also been used to describe nations with no visible industry, with their economy relying on oil production.
The term "Second Superpower" in spite of its similarity refers to civil society rather than the Soviet Union.
Excerpts from: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_World)
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education, and standard of living for countries worldwide. It is a standard means of measuring well-being, especially child welfare. It is used to determine and indicate whether a country is a developed, developing, or underdeveloped country and also to measure the impact of economic policies on quality of life. The index was developed in 1990 by Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq and has been used since 1993 by the United Nations Development Programme in its annual Human Development Report.
The HDI measures the average achievements in a country in three basic dimensions of human development:
A long and healthy life, as measured by life expectancy at birth.
Knowledge, as measured by the adult literacy rate (with two-thirds weight) and the combined primary, secondary, and tertiary gross enrollment ratio (with one-third weight).
A decent standard of living, as measured by gross domestic product (GDP) per capita at purchasing power parity (PPP) in USD.
Each year, UN member states are listed and ranked according to these measures. Those high on the list often advertise it (e.g., Jean Chrétien, Former Prime Minister of Canada), as a means of attracting talented immigrants (economically, individual capital) or discouraging emigration.
An alternative measure, focusing on the amount of poverty in a country, is the Human Poverty Index.
The report for 2006 was launched in Cape Town, South Africa on November 9, 2006. Its focus was on "power, poverty and the global water crisis." Most of the data used for the report are derived largely from 2004 or earlier, thus indicating an HDI for 2004. Not all UN member states choose to or are able to provide the necessary statistics.
The report showed a stagnation in world HDI, as the continued improvement of developed countries was offset by a general decline of the developing world. Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia showed an important decline in HDI, in comparison with last year's report. Other developing regions showed little to no improvement.
An HDI below 0.5 is considered to represent low development and 29 of the 31 countries in that category are located in Africa, with the exceptions of Haiti and Yemen. The bottom ten countries are all in Africa. The highest-scoring Sub-Saharan countries, Equatorial Guinea and South Africa, are ranked 120th and 121st, respectively (with a shared HDI of 0.653).
An HDI of 0.8 or more is considered to represent high development. This includes all developed countries, such as those in North America, Europe, Oceania, and eastern Asia, as well as some developing countries in Eastern Europe, Latin America, Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, and the oil-rich Arabian Peninsula.
Excerpts from: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index)
HDI Top Ten Ranked Nations (2006)
1. Norway 0.965
2. Iceland 0.960
3. Australia 0.957
4. Ireland 0.956
5. Sweden 0.951
6. Canada 0.950
7. Japan 0.949
8. United States 0.948
9. Switzerland 0.947
10. Netherlands 0.94
The Happy Planet Index (HPI) is an index of human well-being and environmental impact, introduced by the new economics foundation (nef), in July 2006. The index is designed to challenge well-established indices of countries’ development, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the Human Development Index (HDI), which are seen as not taking sustainability into account. In particular, GDP is seen as inappropriate, as the ultimate aim of most people is not to be rich, but to be happy and healthy.
The HPI is based on fairly utilitarian principles - that most people want to live long and fulfilling lives, and the country which is doing the best is the one that allows its citizens to do so, whilst avoiding infringing on the opportunity of future people and people in other countries to do the same. Operationalising this is obviously tricky. Long and fulfilling lives is operationalised as Happy Life Years. Infringement on the opportunity of future people and people in other countries is proxied for using the ecological footprint per capita, which attempts to estimate the amount of natural resources required to sustain a given country's lifestyle. A country with a large ecological footprint uses more than its fair share of resources, both by drawing resources from other countries, but also by causing permanent damage to the planet which will impact future generations.
As such, the HPI is not a measure of which are the happiest countries in the world. Countries with relatively high levels of life satisfaction, as measured in surveys, are found from the very top (Colombia in 2nd place) to the very bottom (the USA in 150th place) of the rank order. The HPI is best conceived as a measure of the environmental efficiency of supporting well-being in a given country. Such efficiency could emerge in a country with a medium environmental impact (e.g. Costa Rica) and very high well-being, but it could also emerge in a country with only mediocre well-being, but very low environmental impact (e.g. Vietnam).
Each country’s HPI value is a function of its average subjective life satisfaction, life expectancy at birth, and ecological footprint per capita. The exact function is complex, but conceptually it approximates multiplying life satisfaction and life expectancy, and dividing that by the ecological footprint. Most of the life satisfaction data is taken from the World Values Survey, but some is drawn from other surveys, and some is estimated using statistical regression techniques.
The best scoring country in 2006 is the island state of Vanuatu, followed by Colombia and Costa Rica, while Burundi, Swaziland and Zimbabwe form the bottom of the list.
Some have questioned the validity of the explanation for the selection of the factors constituting the index, as well as the methodology of the formula by which they are combined to produce the index results, and the methodology behind determining life satisfaction. Judging by officially released statistics, the Happy Planet Index appears to have no correlation to the level of poverty (either on a basis set out in the CIA Fact Book, or the UN Human Poverty Index), unemployment or migration in that country.
Excerpts from: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Planet_Index)