uncovering the story.

Step with me into this issue for a minute. Where did "third world" countries come from? Why are they "third world?" Do we think about this much?

The following bits are from David Christian’s crazycomprehensive (not perfect) book Maps of Time (pp.434-437). Come into the story for a moment.
You see, Britain was at the center of a powerful network of interchange, and so its Industrial Revolution caused a global chain-reaction…:

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“Germany and the United States had also pioneered two new, multicellular forms of industrial organization: the national corporation, which vertically integrated tasks previously shared by many separate enterprises, from the production of raw materials to manufacture, wholesaling, and retailing; and the multidivisional corporation, which horizontally integrated what had previously been different sectors of production.
… As productivity rose in the industrialized hub region and the prices of goods such as British machine-made textiles fell, producers in other regions found their livelihood undermined by European imports. In entering global markets, small producers found themselves competing with large corporations using the most up-to-date technologies, and in the long run there was no doubt as to who would lose that competition. Wherever they had the power to do so, as in India and Pakistan, European powers accelerated such processes by juggling with tariff barriers or by forcing weaker powers and colonies to accept European exports…Even China’s once self-sufficient economy buckled as the pull of the Atlantic economies warped the topology of international trade…
The transformations of the late nineteenth century created a world divided between those that did and those that did not have industrial economies. The same processes that enriched the societies of the Atlantic seaboard ruined much of the rest of the world; and the gradients of inequality within nations, which had widened so spectacularly with the decline of the traditional peasantry, now became gradients between regions and nations. . . The twentieth-century term the third world could have made no sense in 1750, when today’s third world countries accounted for almost 75 percent of global industrial production. By the late twentieth century, they counted for less than 15 percent.
…As traditional rulers outside the industrializing core became aware of their vulnerability, they began to wonder if they would have to industrialize the lands they ruled. But how? …Matching the rates of innovation of the North Atlantic hub region meant changing political systems and cultural attitudes as well as economic structures in order to create well-integrated capitalist societies.” In other words, cultures to whom individualist, competitive economies were not necessarily indigenous or natural were squeezed into the race for 'first world'-ness.

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I don’t want to forget that all these developments affected many Westerners badly, too!... those pulled into long, monotonous lives of factory and mining work, those who were more victims than instigators of all this change. And the structure continues to adversely affect many Westerners; we aren’t all directly responsible for the system. I think of all the small producers-- though today, I think the Internet and other communication tools are putting more power back in those hands, which is great…

Nor do I think that all innovation and invention is bad, or that we should have all stayed on subsistence level, not developed vaccines, not tried to make new things, discover new things, etc. But you can see the ugly vein of greed running unmistakably through what happened, though people hid their greed behind words like ‘progress’ and ‘innovation’ and ‘rights’ to buy and sell, etc. … This is humankind, lording things over one another, stepping on one another for power… and, I hasten to add, making unintended mistakes, running into unforeseen consequences.

So. The love of money is the root of all evil. Not money, but the love of it. And the love does not make up all of evil by itself, but is the root of it all. What a world we’ve come to.
And now we use the term “third world” to look down on and pity those whom our own massive economies have essentially used and held down. ‘What’s the matter with them?’ the assumption behind the term runs. ‘Why couldn’t they keep up? Poor things. Guess we better give them our pocket change.’

I think, I really think, that the Internet can be a huge part of getting power to live and market and work humanely back in the hands of the ‘unincorporated.’ As well as a huge part of the networking process, the way that the West comes to realize what we are and to see the spot others are in—and so this connecting tool can enable us to see and reach out to one another in cool new ways. Lord willing. Lord willing. Oh, Lord, this time let us use the tools for Your glory by using them in love. This time let us not charge ahead for our own gain and luxury without thought for the ripples that tsunami into the rest of the world. We may not all have been directly responsible for how things came to be as they are. But we are responsible for now and for tomorrow. ( Is this so much to ask? )

"Frankly, Mister Shankly" just started playing. Oh Western society. Speaking of the bizarre fruits of Western society, I've got to post on Industrial musicals soon. Amaaaazing stuff.

On a different but related note, I've been convicted about making people into abstractions and theories lately. There is real lostness in the world. And it's person-by-person; it's in each face. And I know, I am reminded by every real encounter with a real person, that it is impossible for me to change even one of these millions of hearts in my own power. Thank God, thank God, He is the God of impossibilities.
Would you like to see faces instead of grand theories? Oh, please, go read these stories and rejoice in Word Made Flesh.

are you out there? dialogue with me. what do you think?