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Tooze: Gold Mining in Africa
https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-209-the-sudan-crisis-and
The activities of Africa’s artisanal miners have attracted media coverage around the world. This tends to concentrate on the primitive conditions in which they work. Dramatic pictures of artisanal mining conjure up comparisons to the “19th century” or some other imagined past. Frequently comments are made about the stark contrast between the smartphones that the rare earths end up in and the primitivism of the conditions in which gold, coltan etc are mined.
The contrast between affluence and poverty is only too real. But the idea that they reflect different eras of history, or different stages of development is an illusion.
The activity of artisanal mining is quite new in most of the places in Africa that have been caught up in the current resource boom. It has certainly never been practice on this scale before. Giant artisanal mine sites in Mali or Darfur are no more more natural or native to Africa than the deforested cocoa regions of CdI. Furthermore, all this activity involving millions of people organized across huge distance, would not be possible without the extensive use of modern technologies at the African sites of production. In 2018 Mali registered 150 cellphone subscriptions per 100 inhabitants and rising. But there is one gizmo of which the Sahel’s gold miners can claim to be the most important users worldwide - the cheap portable metal detectors, which became widely available in the region around 2008-2009.
By 2009 the Sahelian demand for metal-detectors was so intense that it produced a global shortage of the equipment, with order books backed up for 6-9 months, and Chinese imitators scrambling to steal technology from Western market leaders. At one point the British army in Afghanistan blamed its lack of mine detectors on the African mining boom.
https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-209-the-sudan-crisis-and
The activities of Africa’s artisanal miners have attracted media coverage around the world. This tends to concentrate on the primitive conditions in which they work. Dramatic pictures of artisanal mining conjure up comparisons to the “19th century” or some other imagined past. Frequently comments are made about the stark contrast between the smartphones that the rare earths end up in and the primitivism of the conditions in which gold, coltan etc are mined.
The contrast between affluence and poverty is only too real. But the idea that they reflect different eras of history, or different stages of development is an illusion.
The activity of artisanal mining is quite new in most of the places in Africa that have been caught up in the current resource boom. It has certainly never been practice on this scale before. Giant artisanal mine sites in Mali or Darfur are no more more natural or native to Africa than the deforested cocoa regions of CdI. Furthermore, all this activity involving millions of people organized across huge distance, would not be possible without the extensive use of modern technologies at the African sites of production. In 2018 Mali registered 150 cellphone subscriptions per 100 inhabitants and rising. But there is one gizmo of which the Sahel’s gold miners can claim to be the most important users worldwide - the cheap portable metal detectors, which became widely available in the region around 2008-2009.
By 2009 the Sahelian demand for metal-detectors was so intense that it produced a global shortage of the equipment, with order books backed up for 6-9 months, and Chinese imitators scrambling to steal technology from Western market leaders. At one point the British army in Afghanistan blamed its lack of mine detectors on the African mining boom.
Tooze: Globalization: The shifting patchwork
https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-198-globalization-the-shifting
Unmissable, nore sure where the graphs come from though
https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-198-globalization-the-shifting
Unmissable, nore sure where the graphs come from though
Tooze: The Closing of the Cocoa Frontier
https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-196-the-closing-of-the
What first catches the eye about this supply chain are the spectacular hierarchies of power. For journalistic purposes and in NGO campaigns, these hierarchies are commonly dramatized in two clichés. The first is the contrast between the tiny peasant producer and the agro-industrial multinationals. The second is that between Western consumers of chocolate and child labourers in the cocoa plantations.
https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-196-the-closing-of-the
What first catches the eye about this supply chain are the spectacular hierarchies of power. For journalistic purposes and in NGO campaigns, these hierarchies are commonly dramatized in two clichés. The first is the contrast between the tiny peasant producer and the agro-industrial multinationals. The second is that between Western consumers of chocolate and child labourers in the cocoa plantations.
Adam Tooze on Deglobalisation
On deglobalisation and polycrisis
"Imagine if China was attacking Apple’s manufacturing network, as the United States is attacking not just Huawei but the entire sector of high-tech microelectronics in China. And then imagine that Beijing blandly declared that this should not be taken as an attack on America’s economic development in general; just on the bits that matter for strategic purposes. Imagine how Washington and the American political system would react."
On deglobalisation and polycrisis
"Imagine if China was attacking Apple’s manufacturing network, as the United States is attacking not just Huawei but the entire sector of high-tech microelectronics in China. And then imagine that Beijing blandly declared that this should not be taken as an attack on America’s economic development in general; just on the bits that matter for strategic purposes. Imagine how Washington and the American political system would react."
Polycrisis Continued
https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-165-polycrisis-thinking
Continued from earlier.
https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-165-polycrisis-thinking
Continued from earlier.
Defining polycrisis – from crisis pictures to the crisis matrix
https://adamtooze.com/2022/06/24/chartbook-130-defining-polycrisis-from-crisis-pictures-to-the-crisis-matrix/
Polycrisis, where the whole is even more dangerous than the sum of the parts.
https://adamtooze.com/2022/06/24/chartbook-130-defining-polycrisis-from-crisis-pictures-to-the-crisis-matrix/
Polycrisis, where the whole is even more dangerous than the sum of the parts.