ABSTRACT
The 1970s may well go down in history as the decade when Murphy's Law was dominant in the world economy – whatever could go wrong did. Great expectations for prosperity and stability were nurtured by the experiences of the 1960s; this expectational bubble has been burst by the events and the uncertainties of the 1970s. The effectiveness of commodity power, particularly over time, depends to a large extent on economic fundamentals of the sort that have always limited the durability of private cartels. Even though natural resources account directly for a relatively low percentage of total economic activity in industrialized nations, they are an essential indirect input to a wide range of production processes. Price increases in this sector tend to cascade through the entire economic system, and supply shortages tend to have a pronounced negative multiplier effect on an economy's output.
