104 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
long, instabilities whch brought about the 1973 crisis, and will undoubtedly precipitate many more crises of increasing severity in the future.
SAUMITRA CHAUDHURI
' The term "majors" has been used to denote the seven largest firms which have dominated the international oil industry for quite some time now. They are the five US companies: Standard Oil of New Jersey (now Exxon), Standard Oil of California, Standard Oil of New York (Mobil), Texas Oil Company and the Gulf Oil Company. The non-American majors are the mixed British-Dutch Royal Dutch Shell and the British Petroleum Company (originally Anglo-Iranian), The French company, Compagnie Francaise des Petroles (GFP) is often called the 'eighth' major.
2 John D Rockefeller founded the Standard Oil Trust, which was dissolved in 1911. Of the 38 progeny of the original trust, three are majois. Sir Henri Deterding was the major architect of the Royal Dutch Shell empire, while William Knox D'Arcv was the founder of Anglo-Iranian (later British Petroleum) . ^ IdaTarbell, The History of the Standard Oil Company, Macmillan, New Yoik, 1904;
Louis Fischer, Oil Imperialism, 1928; Harvey O'Connor, Empire of Oil, Monthly Review Press, New York 1955 and Woi Id Crisis in Oil, Monthly Review Press, New York 1962. 4 Harold U Faulkner, The Decline of Laissez Fair e 1891-1917, Rinehart & Co Inc,
New York, 1951.
•'• Gerald D Nash, United States Oil Policy 1890-1964, University of Pittsburgh Press 1968; H F Williamson and A R Daum, The American Petroleum Industry^ North Western University Press, Evantson, 1959.
h Permission to sail bulk tankers through the Suez Canal had been sought repeatedly by Standard and with the same regularity turned down by the British authorities. This bit of blatant discrimination was of inestimable importance for Shell to grow into the behemoth that it eventually became. Cf Robert Henriques, Marcus Samuel First Viscount Bearstead and Founder of the 'She/l^ Transport and Trading Company, 1853-1927, Bassil and Rockliff, London, ]960. 7 R W Hidy and M E Hidy, Pioneering in Big Business 1882-19 II: Hi\1ofy of Standard
Oil Company (N J), Harper and Bros, New York 1955, pp 499-501. h In 1910, the Austrian government imposed severe restrictions, amounting to virtual expulsion, on foreign oil companies. Diplomatic representation from the USA achieved no result. But the French governments pressure succeeded in rehabilitating the French firm Limanowa— reflecting the correlation offerees existing at that time. Hidy and Hidy, op.cit., pp 514-515.
9 Quoted in Robert Henriques, op. cit.
10 See Ludwell Denny, We Fight for Oil, Hyperion Press, reprint, 1 976, and S B Petten-gill, Hot Oil, Hyperion Press, reprint, 1976.
11 Harvey 0' Connor, op. cit., pp 62-77.
12 JG McLean and Robert W Haigh, The Growth of Integrated Oil Companies, Harvard University Press, Boston, 1954, pp 333-334.