It used to be said that OPEC – the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries – would never amount to anything, because Arabs could never agree with each other, let alone with non-Arabs; today it is clear that OPEC is the greatest cartel-monopoly the world has ever seen. It used to be said that the oil exporting countries depended on the oil importing countries just as much as the latter depended on the former; today it is clear that this is based on nothing but wishful thinking, because the need of the oil consumers is so great and their demand so inelastic that the oil exporting
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