For the monarchies of the Arabic-speaking Persian Gulf, tribal capitalism is often used as short-hand to explain the power of pre-capitalist social relations and hierarchies to shape such things as contemporary governance and labor policies. The result of this perspective is that tribal capitalism becomes the primary explanation for contemporary social relations in the Gulf. This understanding of the Gulf States does not give adequate attention to the role of laborers, oil companies, and the British colonial government in the development and maintenance of contemporary governance. To address contemporary labor hierarchies in the Gulf and the role of both pre-oil social forms and the oil industry in shaping these hierarchies, this paper will focus how capitalism can, and often does, create relations of exploitation and oppression that appear pre-capitalist. I will argue that stratification and naturalization of social relations arises out of worker struggles with capitalists. This paper will draw on strikes by Gulf Arab workers in the 1960s in Qatar and Abu Dhabi and the responses by oil company management and the British administration. In formulating a response to worker action, oil company managers and colonial officials relied on tropes concerning tribal relations to explain worker collective action. This resulted in the reification of tribal relations, the invalidation of worker requests and, ultimately, the restructuring of the workforce so that it is made up of migrants who are precariously positioned.