Oil in International Economic and Power Politics in the 1970s and 1980s

Since the depression of the early 1930s never has the world economy been so threatened as in the 1970s and 1980s. Inflation reached an unprecedented level for most advanced countries and for all developing countries, which are import-dependent. The Organisation of Petroleum-Exporting Countries established in 1960 is a union of the major oil producing countries. For decades oil multinationals of American, British, French and Anglo-Dutch origins were the masters of the world oil industry. Although the United States government has not directly intervened militarily there is evidence to suggest that it may be doing so indirectly. The United States government is diplomatically very active in the Middle East because of oil. The exportable commodities of most African economies are inelastic and bedeviled with price instability. Prices of raw materials such as cocoa, cotton, palm kernels, palm oil, timber, sisal, coffee and groundnuts are fixed through bilateral agreements.