Global Players, Mining and Crisis: The Crime of Value Production

Abstract

We propose a reflection on the structural and conjunctural elements underlying the process of iron ore exploitation in Brazil, necessarily tied to world market dynamics. We deal with the intrinsically destructive character of value production in the capitalist system since its rise, reflecting on its expression in the context of the systemic structural crisis as the modus operandi of the sector’s production, which was expressed in the recent breakage of residue dams owned by Vale, BHP Billiton and their joint venture Samarco in Mariana and Brumadinho, Minas Gerais. Associated with this process, we examine the role of the PT governments from 2003 to 2014 as the implementation of an “efficient” management of barbarism, which made possible the creation of global players through the insertion of Brazil as an “emerging” economy of energy production for the global market. Finally, we examine the consequences for social movements as forms of resistance, emphasizing the difficulties posed by the election of the extreme right to direct the federal government.