The following is my answer to a Quora
question: “Would
you rather be wealthy in a Third World country, or poor in the United States,
assuming you cannot move?”
It is always better to be wealthy, no
matter where you are. As long as you
have wealth, you have options and opportunities. Poverty robs people of that. One assumption in this question is that being
in the US is somehow desirable. That may
have been true in the 1950s, and 1960s, when the US lead the world in standard
of living. Those times have long passed.
In terms of crime, healthcare,
education, infrastructure development, and every other major indicator outside
weapons development, the US is like a developing nation, not a developed one.
Secondly, the Third World refers to
nations that did not officially side with the US and her allies, the First
World; and the Soviet Union and her allies, the Second World. This term is a legacy from the Cold War era. Nowadays, many people mistakenly use the term
to refer to developing countries, which is itself, a somewhat nebulous term. There are “Third World” nations such as
Singapore which have a standard of living that far outstrips the US. There are “Third World” nations such as the
UAE, Qatar and Oman that are wealthier than the US per capita GDP.
Even were we to consider the latter
meaning of Third World, as a synonym to “developing countries”, to be poor in
America is hardly better than being poor in the “Third World”, in places like
Rwanda, China or eve Malaysia, where there are better opportunities for
socioeconomic advancement, where gun violence is not at warzone levels, and
where medical care is actually reasonably affordable.
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