I remember being confused as a kid by the term Third World for poor or primitive. I was also confused that we were First World, and they were Third World. Were there intermediate Second World countries that just never came up?
The demographer, anthropologist, and historian Alfred Sauvy, in an article published in the French magazine L’Observateur, August 14, 1952, coined the term third world (tiers monde), referring to countries that were playing a small role in international trade and business.
His usage was a reference to the Third Estate (tiers état), the commoners of France who, before and during the French Revolution, opposed the clergy and nobles, who composed the First Estate and Second Estate, respectively (hence the use of the older form tiers rather than the modern troisième for “third”). Sauvy wrote, “This third world ignored, exploited, despised like the third estate also wants to be something.”
In the context of the Cold War, he conveyed the concept of political non-alignment with either the capitalist or communist bloc.
I nonetheless have zero memory of anyone referring to the Soviet Bloc as the Second World.
Third World is a lot politer than shithole. You know, an euphemism.
The Old World (Europe), the New World (America), the Third World (the rest)?
Obviously, yes, but as a rule not called so, curiously enough.
And if you happen to not believe in «the capitalist or communist bloc» as anything more than yet another layer of proxy civil wars in the same conjoined structure, mapping this on Estates of the Realm becomes even more straightforward, and rather brilliant.
My 1970s high school sociology books had explicit explanations of the terms:
First World: developed natural resources
Second World: undeveloped natural resources
Third World: no natural resources
Of course, as Paul Simon famously said, “When I think back of all the crap I learned in high school, it’s a wonder I can think at all.”
I’ve seen “First World” in recent memes, and “Third World” is just a synonym for “poor” nowadays. I don’t recall ever seeing “Second World” used anywhere.