The new international economic order

Abstract

The spokesmen for the heterogeneous group of countries known as the Third World have long expressed dissatisfaction with the existing institutional arrangements and policies which govern international economic intercourse. Dissatisfaction, however, has increased in recent years and has become highly vociferous, at times even acrimonious. This change in mood is due to a series of factors: the increase in the number of newly independent poor countries and their emergence as an organised majority in several international institutions, notably in the General Assembly of the United Nations; the success of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in raising prices and thereby substantially increasing their real income, largely at the expense of the rich industrial countries; the decline in the political power and influence of the West, particularly after the defeat of the United States in Vietnam; and the combination of depressed production and rapidly rising prices which has characterised the world economy for most of the present decade.