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To me "The West" grew out of Western Europe, which includes the former First World colonies like the US, Canada, and Australia. I don't consider Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Serbia, Bosnia etc to be part of the West. My definition of the West is a combination of cultural, religious, political, and economic criteria that must ALL be met, that's just how I personally see it. I'm from the USA.
Sure. At the same time, there's good reason for other people to disagree with that definition. There are some fuzzy boundaries there as you didn't mention Spain or Portugal as included. If they are, then it also opens up a lot of Latin America since there are first world colonies there. Singapore is a first world former colony of the UK that also has the bulk of its population descended from immigrants that came within the last few centuries which is also why I stated it's arguably on fuzzy boundaries--however, Singapore didn't have the bulk of come from the British Isles, France, the Low Countries, or the native German-speaking countries. This also holds true for First World former colonies that are English speaking in some of the Caribbean.
Then there are countries that aren't generally considered Western Europe, but are closely tied such as the Scandinavian / Nordic countries, more recent Central / Eastern European additions to the general sphere such as the Visegrád Group and the Baltic countries, and then there are Italy and Greece which are often cited as the foundational basis of the West in general, but generally not included as part of Western Europe.
I'm curious as to what your cut-off for a First World economy is as well as your cut-off for European countries. Is it because it's Orthodox or not economically prosperous enough that Greece is disqualified? Does Spain, Portugal, or Italy get included? Do Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, or Czech Republic get included?
There are some fuzzy boundaries there as you didn't mention Spain or Portugal as included. If they are, then it also opens up a lot of Latin America since there are first world colonies there.
The GDP per capita of Uruguay, Chile, Argentina or Mexico are below that of Spain, Italy, Portugal or Greece.
The surprising country is Guyana. Didn't know it was doing so well.
For me, in order to be Western, ALL of the following criteria must be met...
- the pre-expansion, pre-Brexit NATO and EU as in the old "West" before the Iron Curtain or former colonies of these countries
- must have an advanced First World economy
- must be majority Protestant or Roman Catholic
- be politically democratic and aligned with the US and the free world
…
In Israel, the Ashkenazi Jewish culture is a Western culture, but the Mizrahi Jews, Ethiopian Jews, Russian Jews, and Israeli Arabs are all non-Western and together they form a slight majority.
According to this even though the Ashkenazi name started in Germany - they moved North and East - majority went to Russian Empire - which included Poland, Ukraine, Baltic countries.
However, Israel is NOT of a Western culture.
Perhaps you are not aware that they apply very strict religious teachings to civil life often - similar to Islamic countries.
Just watch the Israeli movie “Gett” to get an idea
If you honestly apply your own criteria - they are absolutely not, even if they are the US “allies” - when it is beneficial to Israel.
Turkey is the only one that’s a grey area. They’re part of NATO but are also the crossroads between Europe and Asia (similar to Russia). Japan has no business on this list.
Yea, and they set up a sovereign wealth fund for it a few years ago in 2019 and it's now at over 1.4 billion USD which is about the size of Louisiana's oil & gas sovereign wealth fund that was created in 1986.
Outside of the US and Canada, the Bahamas is another country in the Americas that's doing well now and have been doing well for a while. There's a good chunk of the Americas outside of the US and Canada that's doing better than the global average though I think really only Chile has a particularly good shot at getting to as good or better than one of the Southern European countries in the near future given how some of its primary industries are likely to be global growth industries. Chile, too, has a massive sovereign wealth fund that was set up to not completely knock out all other sectors of their economy and to make it difficult for all of it to be spent solely by leadership in the boom years. Trinidad also has somewhat of a shot, but less so as it has a lot of public debt and it unfortunately followed US/Canada like development patterns that uses up a lot of space for a very space-scarce land and is a massive drain on time and resources with everyone in their own vehicles which is incredibly ill-suited for a small and dense island nation and has meant that it's domestically using a very intense amount of its main export products.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 03-24-2024 at 08:08 PM..
A Singaporean is married to one of my close friends. She is very "Western" though not racially.
Some singaporeans or people from asia are western but the education and culture there are still very asian.
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Guyana: ah yeah. Doing pretty good.
