Desarrollo energético en América Latina y la economía mundial

ENERGY AND THE DEVELOPING COUNTRIES Professor Abbas Alnasmwi The University al Vermont l. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES A meaningful understanding of the current problems facing the Third World countries in the {ieId of energy production, consumption, pri– dng, cost and prospects requires an appredation of the evolution of t.he forces that brought about the present energy situation. The point oí departure in the analysis should start with some of the historie decisions that were made by the industrial powers oí the worId under the leadership of the United States to develop the oil resources of the Middle East. These decisions were undertaken in the aftermath oí the Second World War in order to provide, among other things, cheap sources of energy to the war ruined economies of Europe and Japan. The decisions toaccelerate the development of these resources turned out in retrospect to have been of monumental importance, not only to the countries of the regíon (and later on, the countries of North and West Africa), but also to all the deveIoped countries of the world and by extensíon to the countríes of the Third World. The ]973 decisions to raise the price of crude oil ushered in a new era in the pattern of economic relations between the developed countries of the Western world and the small group of developing oil-exporting countries which comprise the Organizatíon of the Pe. troleum Exporting Countries (aPEe). It was for the first time that the industrialized countries had to concede that the power of control over reserves, production, and prices had passed on to the producers. Such recognition of an uncomíortably symmetrical interdependence (or mutual dependency) brought with it the necessity oí bargaining. This necessity was rather unsettling to countries accustomed to assu· ming that power was their exclusive preserve, that the status quo was the right and natural order of things, and that they had a monopoly on wisdom (and power) which secured the peace 1 . EDITOR'S NOTE: This paper is a contribution of the OPEe Specia1 Fund. We thank Profesor Alnasrawi and Dr. Ibrahim F. I. Shíhata, Director-General of the Fund, for allowing us to publish it as part of the proccedings of the "International Variables of Energy Development" conference. lFor an elaboration of this point, sec Committee 011 Interior and Insular Affairs (U. S. Senate). Geopolitics al Energy (Washington. 1977). pp. 97-99. 27