Environment and Society: Long-Term Trends in Latin American Mining
Author(s)
Dore, Elizabeth
Abstract
Examines long-term trends in the ways in which mining has affected labor and the environment in Latin America. After providing a theoretical framework for analyzing the changing conditions of labor and the environment under capitalism, a periodization of Latin American mining is proposed: preconquest, conquest, colonialism, neocolonialism, capitalist modernization, and debt crisis. For each period except the first the major social and environmental transformations associated with the industry are reviewed. The central conclusion is that there has been an inverse relationship between two long-term trends: first, the brutality of labor conditions in the industry; and second, the scope of environmental destruction linked to mining.
