UN General Assembly
1976

53. This skepticism is focused, above all, on this General Assembly, where it is claimed that a so-called automatic majority imposes its will without rhyme or reason, deaf to argument, contemptuous of compromise, coherent only in cant and prejudice, approving resolutions that cannot be realistically enforced, proclaiming objectives that cannot be reasonably achieved. What is more, it is charged that this majority is not a majority at all, but a conspiracy of willful minorities, each pursuing its own selfish purpose or advantage, or coercing the real majority into a meaningless unity under threats of exclusion and isolation. 54. There is an easy way to dismiss these accusations. One can reply that the skeptics, critics and cynics come from some of the rich industrial Powers that have seen their own automatic majorities of the past dwindle and disappear, that are frustrated by the united political will of their former colonies and clients, and that fear the end of the old international economic order, whose inequitable privileges and advantages they are determined to defend and preserve.