Martín Arboleda. Planetary Mine: Territories of Extraction under Late Capitalism

Abstract

In his book, Planetary Mine: Territories of Extraction under Late Capitalism, Martin Arboleda advances arguments aimed at reframing discourse around the nature of extractivism and the diffusion of mining as a world/global or planetary system, rather than being limited to the nation-state locality with only bounded impacts. Throughout the book, he presents the mine (to be construed as the act of mining and associated activities, benefits to society and externalities hitherto) as a “transnational infrastructure” whose configurations are both embedded within the nation-state locality, but transcends national (and even planetary) borders and whose impacts take many different forms. Though solid arguments were advanced toward the understanding of current workings of capital through the expansion of the “mine,” Arboleda failed to present a framework for materializing this knowledge base toward pushing back against capital accumulation. If not careful, we risk totalizing differential and local struggles in our attempt to address the “total struggle” against capital. Notwithstanding, this book represents an attempt at critically assessing the power dynamics and approaches of various global economic superpowers such as the USA and China in exporting their dominant paradigms to influence the organization of global capital.