Industrialized Countries

Development Indicators

The United Nations Program for Development (UNDP) considers two definitions for the developed countries:

• countries with a human development index greater than or equal to 0.8: this concerns, in 2007, 70 countries;
• countries of the OECD , the Eastern Europe , the Central Europe and the CIS (the definition used for classification by the human poverty index HPI-2): this geographical concept is political and arbitrary and no longer shows the reality of the distribution of developed countries, many countries of Europe Central, Eastern Europe and the CIS is now regarded as emerging or developing.

Because of this distribution, we often speak of "the North" to refer to developed countries, as opposed to "the South" ( developing countries ).

Overall, the most advanced countries:

• are democracies (see Human Development );
• have an average standard of living higher than developing countries and therefore a good market economy.

History

These are countries which at the time of industrial revolutions , have benefited from labor and raw materials extremely cheap that helped develop the industrial base, the knowledge and the economy. After the Second World War , the industrialized countries began to implement a help to the countries 'underdeveloped' (a word then used by Harry Truman in 1949). Subsequently, some developed countries have managed to regulate social disparities created by pursuing policies of distribution of wealth through the tax and public services : education , health , social protection.

Through gaining much of their population to wealth (increase revenues and lower living expenses such as health), these countries have expanded their market to a large part of the population: people who supported them were vital could begin to purchase goods and services superflux, comfort ... What has kept the economic machine.

Some developed countries have been developing and upgrading later (late ^nineteenth - early ^twentieth century) by a considerable effort on the population, voluntary and sacrificial (the case of Japan in the Meiji era ) or forced (case the USSR after the Russian Revolution ). A new wave of development after the second World War has a few other countries, including the " Asian Tigers "( South Korea , Hong Kong , Singapore , Taiwan ) to join the ranks of developed countries towards the end of last century.

Current Status

Since the 1990's and the emerging requirements of sustainable development , developing countries most advanced technically , as it has developed during the Industrial Revolution , is being questioned because of the strong environmental impact industrial activities, and general lifestyle type western. The experts from NGOs such as WWF have highlighted, through the concept of ecological footprint , the so-called "developed" have a lifestyle that is not generalizable as such to the entire planet. This poses problems of equity between the social world's most technically advanced ( the North ) and others ( the South ).