Capitalism and resource extraction: A Marxist value-theory approach to Latin American socio-environmental conflicts

Abstract

This review-essay takes Planetary Mine by Martín Arboleda (2020) as an opportunity to analyse whether a Marxist theoretical framework can provide an adequate point of departure to understand extractive industries in an accurate way, both for theoretical and practical purposes. To this end, I address a dialogue between extractivist scholars and Marxism and evaluate the criticisms of Marxism put forth by E. Gudynas (2015) and M. Duer (2017) on this topic. These objections can be grouped into four main points: a) Marxist categories alone cannot adequately explain the allocation of primary commodity production in the Southern Cone, b) nor can they account for the colonialism that pervades the Latin American landscape; c) Marxist value-theory is anthropocentric, as it does not acknowledge the agency of non-human nature in the production of wealth; d) the Marxist framework reproduces the view of liberal economic theories, treating non-human nature as an external object. In order to respond to these objections, I explore the philosophical premises of Arboleda's investigation on the mining industry and the practical consequences which stem from this theoretical approach. Overall, I conclude that, although some metatheoretical guidelines could be further refined, the book still offers a brilliant intervention in extractivist debates.