End of the Third World

Abstract

“But then China and India both began to fall apart at just the time that Europe began to rise,” Kristof observes. “China’s per-capita income was actually lower, adjusted for inflation, in the 1950s than it had been at the end of the Song Dynasty in the 1270s… Now the world is reverting to its normal state—a powerful Asia—and we will have to adjust. Just as many Americans know their red wines and easily distinguish a Manet from a Monet, our children will become connoisseurs of pu-er tea and will know the difference between guanxi and Guangxi, the Qin and the Qing. When angry, they may even insult each other as ‘turtle’s eggs’ ” (2008).

The world we are familiar with, dominated by America and Europe is a historical anomaly. Until the 1400s, the largest economies in the world were China and India, and forecasters then might have assumed that they would be the ones to colonize the Americas—meaning that by all rights this newspaper should be printed in Chinese or perhaps Hindi.

Nicholas D. Kristof (2008)

“The First National Asian and Pacific Islanders Social Work Education Conference in conjunction with the 54th Annual Program Meeting of Council on Social Work Education Sunday, November 2, 2008. Also published as “The fall and rise of the ThirdWorld,” Journal of Comparative Social Welfare, 2009, 25, 1: 71–78.