Thread:Comments:California's same-sex marriage ban ruled unconstitutional; appeal expected/The US finally begins to crawl out of the third world/reply (5)

I concede the point about etymology. I shouldn't have said the "distinction has always been" such and such, but still, the primary, current use of the term is purely economic. Whether or not there is some peripheral similarity between a U.S. policy and some policy of some Third World country remains a matter of indifference and your usage was still not clearly metaphorical.