The socio-economic divide of the 1970s, hard to dissociate from oil crises, is recognized as a major turning point in modernity. 1973 book marked the end of the "Trente Glorieuses" (a period of economic growth in France starting in the post-war period), and the end of a certain abundance and exuberance. This turning point in human history is linked to a military event, the short-lived Yom Kippur War in October 1973, when the "oil weapon" was successfully wielded for the first time. The focus on this period in the long Arab-Israeli conflict has helped macroeconomists analyze the nature of the profound changes that were then at work in our societies. Fifty years on, global tensions, climate change and the war in Ukraine are powerful echoes of this past.

1973: the economic recession that hit the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) was followed by a further contraction when a second oil shock hit in 1979. The West looked for alternatives to Middle Eastern oil: coal mining was revived and nuclear power was developed. No matter, oil remained inescapable and was sought in the Arctic and in the deep sea, to support an insatiable appetite for growth.

2023: macroeconomists initially claimed that the energy crisis orchestrated by Russia would have little impact on the European economy. Worse still, this lack of understanding of the central role of energy could explain the belated realization of the titanic efforts required for society to free itself from fossil fuels, if we really want to decarbonize the economy.

1973: The oil shock-triggered inflation of the 1970s was enormous. In the 1990s, macroeconomists invented the concept of the "great inflation" of the 1965-1982 period, which they claimed was monetary in origin, rather than energy-driven. They forgot about oil and the long Vietnam War, which had a strong inflationary impact, and then a deflationary one with demobilization in 1972.

2023: the Western world emerges from a period of "quantitative easing" (2008-2014), unbridled money creation that facilitated the emergence of shale oil and unprofitable investment in Texas, with long anti-inflationary impacts. The end of the "shale miracle," combined with the wave of post-Covid-19 money creation, triggered the return of energy-related inflation, which had been present prior to the invasion of Ukraine.

1973: the OECD's watchword was oil sobriety, which in 1974 became known as "rational energy use." It was everywhere. In 1974, the OECD developed a monitoring system for "national actions to conserve energy and limit demand." Fuel rationing in the United States, finalized in 1973, was implemented during the second oil crisis. Speed limits were introduced in 1973 almost everywhere in the OECD, whereas the 18,000 road deaths in France in 1972 had little effect.

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