ABSTRACT
WHEN OPEC asserted control over oil at the beginning of the 1970's, many hoped, even believed, that a turning point in the history of world capitalism had been reached: A number of underdeveloped countries acting together would overcome the strategic resource and financial constraints which had previously blocked the realization of many of their own development ambitions. Oil revenues would make them independent of Western capital markets. Control over oil would provide them with the power to renegotiate the international economic and political order in their own interest and on behalf of all Third World countries (Baumgartner et ai., 1977).
