RE: The term was coined to name those countries that, during the cold war. identified with neither the “free” world nor the communist.
Now c’mon, you’re not seriously asking us to believe that a neutral country like Switzerland was and is considered third world by that definition are you?
Well.....in the 1960’s many of the “nonaligned nations” were notorious for shaking down both the U.S. and the Soviet Union by threatening to align with each other’s adversaries if they didn’t get what they wanted. Nasser’s Egypt and Mobutu’s Congo were standouts in this regard.
At one time, the distinction between “third world” and grinding poverty was sufficient to designate some countries as “fourth world”, such as Bangladesh or Haiti.
Anyway, who needs ‘em?