Mineração e entropia: notas sobre interação com processos de desenvolvimento

Abstract

This article presents theoretical and methodological assumptions that are relevant for the interpretation of the interactions between mining and regional development. It refutes the hypothesis of market mechanisms driving away the irreversibility of entropic processes, defended by the natural resources economy of neoclassical inspiration. The notion that the entropic degradation, from a social point of view, is inexorably negative – as proposed by the ecologic economy – is also refuted. Approaches of interpretation of the capitalist society as a system far away from balance are indicated as analytical alternatives. The author proposes that social repercussions of entropic degradation resulting from mining activities are connected to the interaction model between technical competence, historical, social, cultural and political features, and natural specialties and potentialities of a given social formation.