The paper presents a general overview of the intellectual history of the question of mining in the development fi eld. It describes the leading development theories and their normative claims with respect to mining, based upon the work of landmark theorists in the fi eld. The contention of this paper is that development theories, swinging like a pendulum back and forth with the question 'Is mining good for development?', have a troubled relationship with the question about mining. The theories that embrace a positive view of capitalism in the classical political economy tradition and mainstream development economics generally support mining for development. The theories that are critical of the capitalist order, including structuralism, dependency, neodependency, worldsystem, feminist and discourse theory, generally have a strong opposition to mining for development.The unsettled question of mining shows that important questions about the relationship between development and technology, and the equity requirements of such a relationship, remain unsettled in the scholarship. The overarching goal of the paper is to provide initial ground upon which to discuss the normative history of the topic of mining in the development scholarship.
Sovereign ownership of mines and taxation were fundamental principles governing the mining economy of the territories of the Castilian crown during the medieval period. Ownership of mines meant that mineral wealth, discovered or undiscovered, belonged to the crown estate. Only the sovereign could grant mining rights to ‘private’ persons and impose mineral taxation. Particularly during the last three centuries of the Reconquista (thirteenth to fifteenth centuries), these principles were used to unify the situation in those territories falling under the sway of a sovereign with expansionist ambitions. Increasing globalisation of the metal trade in the thirteenth century and the formation of capital markets in Europe firmly put the Castilian crown in competition with other economic agents aiming to win a monopoly in metallic wealth. Castile's mining laws aspired to solve the ensuing tension by attracting merchant capital to the mines, aiming to absorb the comparative advantages of mining capital. In a protracted process, the mineral laws of the sixteenth century were a testimony to the decisive influence of the sovereign in the history of mining.
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