World societies often appear to have more in common with Western élites
than with their own dispossessed masses (Berger, 1994, pp. 267–8).
Global stratification into rich, middle income and poor countries must not
be allowed to conceal internal social stratification. This is not to say that the
poverty that poor people in poor countries experience is solely to do with
the domestic maldistribution of power. It is not to say that it has nothing
to do with dependence on the more powerful economies in the world. But it
does alert us to the possibility that those two things are related – that
dependency within the world economic system actually benefits some
classes in the Third World. The term ‘comprador bourgeoisie’ was coined to
convey the idea of an alliance between an indigenous middle class and for-
eign investors, MNCs, bankers and military interests. There is thus a need to
relate thinking about global stratification to how that division and the rela-
tionships between those global strata affect relations between internal social
strata. To what extent would redistribution within a poor country be made
easier if there was no dependence on more powerful trading partners and
sources of foreign exchange?
There is thus a risk that the expression ‘Third World’ might obscure the
heterogeneity of social classes, each with its own political objective. The
concept of the Third World has consequently been denounced, notably by
Regis Debray, as mystification designed to conceal dependency and
exploitation, as well as a device allowing rulers of Third World countries to
present a common interest between themselves and the masses to disguise
their own alliance with metropolitan interests.
Conclusion: Third World values
Some think it is still important to retain the term ‘Third World’ in order to
preserve and convey the values associated with it. It could be dangerous to
stop talking about the Third World and so further fragment that group of
countries – that their solidarity must be somehow preserved simply because
as individual states they are bound to be weak in their relationships with the
developed world. The ‘Third World’ is seen by one Indian scholar as
‘a sound concept’ and a ‘flexible, resilient category’. Attempts to question
its validity are mischievous and misleading. It implies neither inferior values
nor some lower numerical order, but rather a set of specific characteristics
that are unique in more than one way to the countries of Asia, Africa and
Latin America. It represents the broadly similar, though not exactly identi-
cal, nature of these countries’ experiences in the processes of development,
The Idea of a ‘Third World’ 19