Chapter 67 Chapter 12 The Third World 1

1 The liberation of colonies and revolutions everywhere have completely changed the political map of the surface.In Asia alone, the number of independent countries recognized by the international community has now jumped fivefold. Africa, which had only one independent country in 1939, also skyrocketed to about 50 countries at this time.Even in the Americas where more than 20 Latin republics emerged under the first wave of colonial liberation in the 19th century, the new wave of colonial liberation added a dozen new members to this place.Astonishing as these figures are, the most important significance lies not in the weight and pressure represented by the large and growing populations of these new countries.

After World War II, the population of dependent regions began to grow explosively, not only changing the balance of the world's population, but this change is still in progress.Since the first industrial revolution—perhaps since the 16th century—the focus of population growth has been largely on the "developed" world, that is, regions native to or derived from Europe; 20%, and by 1900 had jumped to almost one-third of the total human population.Although the population growth stopped temporarily during the "catastrophe period", since the middle of this century, the world's population has once again increased at an unprecedented triple jump. or conquered regions.If we take the member states of the "Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development" as the representative of the "developed world", their total population accounted for only 15% of all mankind by the 1980s; (Fortunately, there are still immigrant populations to support the scene), because the birth rate of several "developed countries" has been reduced enough to supplement the speed of their natural elimination.

Even if we assume that the world's population will eventually stabilize at the 10 billion mark sometime in the 21st century (according to current estimates), the phenomenon of population explosion in poor countries can be regarded as the most fundamental change in the 20th century , and at the end of the "golden age" for the first time aroused international concern. Since 1950, the world's population has tripled in 40 years; and the population of Africa alone is more likely to double in less than 30 years.Such a rapid growth is an unprecedented phenomenon, and the substantive problems caused are naturally unprecedented.Just imagine the social and economic situation in a country where 60% of the population is under the age of 15, and you can imagine how difficult the problem will be.

There are two reasons why the sudden increase in population in poor areas has caused such a major shock and concern.One is that compared with the "developed countries" in the past at the same stage of development in history, the population growth rate of poor countries today is too high; the second is that the death rate of the population has always been stable, and it has plummeted since the 1940s—— Compared with Europe in the 19th century, the rate of decline is 4 to 5 times (Kelley, 1980, p. 168).At the beginning, the mortality rate in Europe decreased very slowly, and it took effect after the living conditions and the environment gradually improved; however, this was not the case in the "Golden Age".Modern technology sweeps through poor countries like a hurricane.Under the wind of this modern drug and transportation revolution, since the 1940s, various innovative breakthroughs in medicine have begun to save a large number of lives (such as DDT and antibiotics).So for the first time in history, manpower seems to be able to return to heaven (the only successful case in the past, only the smallpox vaccine can be compared).The birth rate remained high (and continued to rise during economic prosperity), while the death rate plummeted (Mexico's population death rate was halved in the 25 years after 1944), and the population began to increase rapidly. However, the external environment, The economy, as well as various systems, may not necessarily undergo corresponding changes to the same extent.Population explosions have also created a greater gap between rich and poor, and the distance between advanced and backward countries has increased—even though the economies of both are growing at the same rate.It is also twice the GDP of 30 years ago. For a country with a stable population, if it is compared with another country such as Mexico whose population has doubled at the same time, the national distribution of income between the two Naturally, these are two completely different stories.

Any account of the Third World must place its population figures at the forefront, because population explosion is the central fact of the existence of the Third World.According to the experience of developed countries, sooner or later the third world will inevitably enter the stage of what population experts call a "demographic transition", that is, a combination of low birth rate and low death rate will lead to a stable population figure; The number is reduced, two are just right, a family that is not too small.This "demographic shift" trend, as expected, began to appear in some countries, especially in East Asia.However, by the end of the short twentieth century, most poor countries had not gone very far along this road—with the exception of the countries of the former Soviet bloc—and that is why poverty has slowed down in these countries. The main reason to go.In some countries, the population burden is so heavy that it is necessary to gather food for more than ten million newborns every year.Under heavy population pressure, the government had to enforce birth control or limit the number of children per family (the most famous of which were India's sterilization policy in the 1970s and China's "one-child" policy).However, such means obviously cannot really solve the population problems of any country.