[WS:] This seems to confirm my theory on the perception of others that I outlined in an earlier posting. Evidently, the "third world" concept occupies a rather salient place in your cognitive frame and thus is a key factor in how you construct the "master frame" for others. I think what I wrote about "third world" comprises a rather small share of what I posted to this list - mostly as tongue in cheek responses to Yoshie's rants. I wrote more about unions and labor issues, comparative politics and institutions, electoral politics, social class, urban development, transportation, land use, or behavioral models in general - yet you noticed only my views on the third world.
My views of the "third world" are very different from my views of individual countries in Africa, Latin America or Asia. "Third world" is an interpretative category used mainly among intellectuals - either with a positive or a negative value attached to it - and as such it has little to do with the actual histories or political economic conditions of individual countries. My critique of "third world" is a critique of a certain political discourse that has little to do with the objective conditions in the respective countries.
Wojtek