The Third World Perspective on Petroleum: The Travails of the ‘Haves’ and the Plight of the ‘Have-Nots’

The term ‘third-world’ has come to denote those 120-odd countries which represent the balance of the. world community after excluding the industrialized developed countries of both the market economy (the first world) and the centrally planned economy (the second world).As such, the third world is a very big and mixed bag indeed, which itself may well be divided into two or three distinct categories or smaller worlds. In spite of the fact that the term might not be precise or entirely satisfactory, it would seem to have at least the redeeming value of practical convenience.