Regulating nature: The ecological origins and environmental implications of restructuring in the United States copper industry.

摘要

This research develops a theory of industrial restructuring in response to ecological contradiction which is grounded in an empirical analysis of restructuring in the U.S. copper mining industry during the 1980s. Its central objective is to integrate an analysis of the strategies of capital accumulation with an assessment of the ecological constraints and contradictions inherent to production, in order to explain both the ecological roots and implications of industrial restructuring.;The study examines the emergence of an unprecedented cost-price squeeze in U.S. copper in the early 1980s in terms of the rapidly diminishing ability of copper producers to manage the contradictory relationships inherent to established ways of producing copper from copper ores. This failure is shown to have manifested itself in two forms: a supply crisis, as the traditional technologies and ways of organizing production proved unable to provide the increases in productivity necessary to maintain profitability from declining ore grades; and a legitimation crisis, as the industry faced increasing opposition to its historical practice of environmental cost-shifting. The research illustrates how the multiple strategies adopted in response to the cost-price squeeze were able to restore profitability, in part by temporarily stabilizing and partially regulating these contradictions.;Drawing on a detailed assessment of strategies of technological, organizational, and regulatory change at two copper mines in New Mexico, evidence is presented which suggests that the strategies adopted by individual copper producers collectively constitute part of a new mode of regulation. The study concludes that while the new mode of regulation may have proved effective at temporarily stabilizing the contradictions which proved problematic for copper producers in the early 1980s and has facilitated a more productive and internationally competitive industry, there is no clear evidence to suggest that the new mode of regulation is significantly different in its implications for the environment. Thus the process of restructuring towards a "leaner", more competitive industry in the United States has not necessarily been associated with a parallel transition towards a "cleaner" copper industry.