Oil and Beyond: Shifting British Imperial Aspirations, Emerging Oil Capitalism, and the Challenge of Crafting a Labour Policy in the First World War Iranian Oil Industry

This paper studies the labour policy adopted by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company and the British Government in the Persian oil industry during the First World War and after.

With the onset of the First World War, the British state crafted a new strategy of shifting its industry, military and navel units from consuming coal to oil energy. This transition effectively turned Persian oil into a strategic military as well as economic resource of fundamental importance to the British interests worldwide. With the rise in consumption of the oil, the expansion of the oil industry and consequently, the allocation and the maintenance of the labour force that was producing petroleum in its various forms became a priority for the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, especially as the British government had become its main shareholder since 1911. In this paper I examine the conceptualization, articulation, and implementation of the Oil Company’s shifting labour policy against the background of these greater global geopolitical shifts.