Prebisch's work undoubtedly provided an important justification for the NIEO platform, but his seminal thesis alleging deteriorating terms of trade for primary commodity exporters was published in 1950, more than two decades earlier. Thus in explaining why the NIEO emerged when it did, one must look to contemporary events, and specifically to the Arab oil embargo of 1973. The sense of economic and political dislocation generated by the oil shock, and the portentous predictions of the Third World's coming "resource power" that the energy crisis was thought to augur, were of decisive importance in explaining why the G-77 countries, despite having failed to secure most of the objectives laid out at the first UNCTAD conference ten years prior, nevertheless viewed the Sixth Special Session as an auspicious opportunity to advance their agenda (Doyle 1983).

Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, loc. 1743