Book Launch: Randall Hansen: War, Work & Want: How the OPEC Oil Crisis Caused Mass Migration & Revolution

War, Work & Want asks why global migration, which should have fallen after 1970, tripled over the next fifty years. Hansen argues that the OPEC oil crisis unleashed economic and geopolitical changes that led to over 100 million unexpected migrants. The quadrupling of oil prices permanently halved economic growth in the West, leading to a five-decade stagnation in wages. The middle classes responding by rebuilding their inflation-shattered standards of living on the back of cheap migration labor, leading to millions of low-skilled migrations – documented and undocumented. In the oil-rich Middle East and Russia, a sudden rush of oil money destabilized Iran, led to the fall of the Shah, and resulted in multiple military conflicts: the Iran-Iraq War, two Gulf Wars, and, in a more complicated way, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The result was tens of millions of refugees. The overall result was over 100 million unexpected – and unwanted – migrants.