That map is nonsense. The first, second, and third world designations have always been political divisions. First world being western, second being communist, and third world being everything else. Even more inexplicable is that they note this fact in the text and then just disregard it.
I mean I sort of understand what they are trying to do and I know other people sometimes make this mistake but it just ends up being confusing.
Mexico and Thailand aren't second world countries unless you just arbitrarily decide to misrepresent what the phrase means, since the whole point of the damn distinction in the first place was to represent the global battle for supremacy between capitalist modern countries (first world) and communist planned economies (second world). The big issue in the cold war was which of those two worlds would win the battle for the third world countries.
So when a former third world country modernizes and becomes more market driven with a more western style economy but you mark it as a second world country, you've literally described the opposite of what actually happened.
I mean I sort of understand what they are trying to do and I know other people sometimes make this mistake but it just ends up being confusing.
Mexico and Thailand aren't second world countries unless you just arbitrarily decide to misrepresent what the phrase means, since the whole point of the damn distinction in the first place was to represent the global battle for supremacy between capitalist modern countries (first world) and communist planned economies (second world). The big issue in the cold war was which of those two worlds would win the battle for the third world countries.
So when a former third world country modernizes and becomes more market driven with a more western style economy but you mark it as a second world country, you've literally described the opposite of what actually happened.