The Third World was invented in the 1950s to identify the third political alternative to that offered by the United States and its European allies on the one hand, and the Soviet system on the other. But it was also an economic alternative—a formula whereby the mass of poor countries of the world could use the mechanisms of the state to achieve a firmly based national independence, both political and economic. By the 1980s, however, much of this was under challenge. Some countries had achieved an astonishing pace of development. In others, the development of underdevelopment had reached appalling levels. The Third World alternative was becoming no alternative at all. What had gone wrong? What are the lessons for both the developed and developing worlds? The End of the Third World lays out the theories and matches them against what happened in practice. It assesses the development of the Asian "Gang of Four" (Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore) and the two largest Latin American countries (Mexico and Brazil) and examines the world trade performance of the developing world as a whole. Does national economic production based on an expanding state sector achieve either economic independence or economic development? Do exports reduce independence and produce fewer jobs? Does expansion of manufacturing in the less developed countries produce economic crisis—deindustrialization—in Europe and North America? Nigel Harris shows how both left and right were seriously mistaken in their view of the state and its role in economic development. He describes a newly emerging global economy that is superseding the old national state and the politics based upon it. But the issues raised by the concept of the Third World still remain, even if the Third World itself is disappearing.
