This chapter examines the symptoms and assesses the contribution of global disorder to the problems of the Third World. A strong case can be made that many of the problems facing Third World countries at this time have their origins in structural changes in the world economy, and especially in the capitalist world economy, since the end of the 1960s. Since the late 1960s the countries of the Third World have, as a group, experienced severe economic instability and increasing economic difficulties. A key factor in the terms of trade deterioration of most Third World countries and in explaining the increased tendency to recession and economic crisis in the industrialized world was, of course, the oil price explosion of the 1970s. By 1978 the oil surpluses had all but disappeared, absorbed largely by higher import expenditures by oil producers, mirrored in the large surpluses of industrialized capitalist economies.