Study is based on concepts such as “neoextractivism” and “ecologically unequal trade”
The idea that developed economies are going through a phase of “dematerialization”, focusing on creative activities and services that consume little material and are not harmful to the environment, such as research, design and sales, is a kind of illusion provided by the fractionation of industrial production into global chains, and masks the environmental and social damage produced in the countries where the raw materials are extracted, says researcher Beatriz Macchione Saes. She is the author of the doctoral thesis “Ecologically unequal trade in the 21st century: evidence from Brazilian insertion in the international iron ore market”, defended at the Institute of Economics (IE) at Unicamp.
“As advanced economies specialize in stages located at both ends of production chains, based on intangible assets (research, design, marketing, etc.), the material weight of their economies reduces in relation to GDP, but capturing the largest portion of the chains' added value maintains high consumption patterns, based on 'hidden' material stocks in other countries”, says the introduction of the thesis.
In developing the thesis, Saes uses concepts such as “ecologically unequal trade” and “neoextractivism”. “The idea of unequal trade is several decades old,” she said. “Its proponents, such as Celso Furtado, discuss the deterioration of the terms of trade: they think about prices and the relationship between the prices of industrialized products and raw materials, and how this relationship, over time, tends to produce more favorable prices for industrialized products”, in an imbalance between developed countries and peripheral countries, suppliers of raw materials.
“Ecologically unequal trade starts from there but adopts another perspective, thinking much more about environmental and material issues, not monetary ones”, explains the researcher. “I believe that one of the first authors to raise this idea was Stephen Bunker [American sociologist, author of the book 'Underdeveloping the Amazon', or 'Underdeveloping the Amazon', who died in 2005]. He was studying the Brazilian Amazon and saying, well, we don't need to look too much at prices, but just look from a material and energy perspective, and it's possible to see that countries producing raw materials feed the global social metabolism and particularly the core countries”.
“Social metabolism”, says Saes, is the energy and material flow of economies, what they consume to produce their final goods. “The purpose of countries producing raw materials would be to feed this social metabolism of developed economies, and this would lead to difficulties in the development of these countries, aggravated by the absence of a stronger political power, which would absorb benefits from international trade. It was in the 80s that this discussion of international trade emerged from the perspective of the flow of materials, not just money”.
The ton of iron ore that effectively crosses the border towards developed countries, the researcher exemplifies, demands many other resources from the country of origin that are mobilized to produce it, such as water and loss of biodiversity. “From the 90s onwards, this idea began to consolidate itself into the so-called ecological footprint, or material footprint, which is what I discuss most in my work: each final product produced, which exists because of this material that crosses the border and leaves a mark in the original country, it required a large amount of material” which ends up not being considered by those who see the “dematerialization” of developed economies.
Neoextractivism
The term “neoextractivism” appears in the context of a criticism of the so-called progressive Latin American governments, which emerged from the beginning of this century, which stimulated the production and export of commodities. “In structural terms of the economy, these governments act much more to stimulate primary sectors than other more complex sectors, and to this extent some authors will say that this is neo-extractivism, some speak of 'progressive neo-extractivism'”. Argentine sociologist Maristella Svampa will refer to a “Commodities Consensus”, in parallel to the Washington Consensus of the 1980s.
But if this new “Consensus” allowed Latin America to take advantage of the commodities boom and gave more left-leaning governments the opportunity to invest in social programs, it also left behind large environmental liabilities, social problems involving indigenous peoples and displaced populations, and it represented a “subordinate integration” into global production chains. “Subordinated in the sense of exporting primary products and not seeking to advance in stages that generate greater added value in these chains”, says Saes.
In her thesis, the researcher describes the development of iron mining in Brazil as a neo-extractive process. The text says: “The 'neoextractivist' model was evidenced by the disputes surrounding Brazilian environmental legislation, in which the 'national interest' as defended by the mining sector prevailed, despite other interests and values competing with mining. Thus, the absence of alternative visions and development models contributed to reinforcing the structural character of ecologically unequal North-South trade”.
