The golden ‘salto mortale’ in the era of crisis

Abstract

As formulated by Marx ([1867] 1990. Capital. Vol. I. London: Penguin, 200), ‘the leap taken by value from the body of the commodity into the body of the gold is the commodity’s salto mortale’. Following autonomous Marxist literature (De Angelis 2007. The Beginning of History: Value Struggles and Global Capital. London: Pluto Press; Federici 2011. ‘Feminism and the Politics of the Commons.’ The Commoner, other articles. Accessed January 28, 2017, http://www.commoner.org.uk/?p=113; Hardt and Negri 2009. Commonwealth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), the circulation of capital could be interrupted by social, class, gender or ecological struggles. In order to unsettle this view, we build on recent critical scholarship on new enclosures, land-grabbing and the permanence of primitive accumulation and we explore the inter-articulation of gold mining projects and neoliberal policies in the era of crisis. In this effort, we examine the case of Greece, a country at the epicenter of the recent financial and social crisis. During the last decade, the Canadian company Eldorado has undertaken a gold mining investment in the environmentally sensitive area of Skouries. A fruitful social struggle has emerged against this project, both in the rural site and in the urban Greek metropolis. Through this examination we investigate how the financial crisis provides an opportunity for multinational mining corporations to expand their zones of exploitation and how social resistance can reclaim common resources.

Key words:

• Greece
• gold mining
• social struggle
• Skouries
• crisis

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the editor and the anonymous reviewers for all their comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Special thanks also to all the activists who participated in this study and contributed to the development of this work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The Greek debt crisis is the sovereign debt crisis faced by Greece in the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2007–2008. During the years 2008–14 the Greek government debt almost doubled and skyrocketed to 180%—debt to gross domestic product (GDP) (Trading Economics 2017). Consequently, the Greek government agreed to three economic adjustment programs with the so-called Troika (IMF, European Central Bank [ECB] and European Commission [EC]) that resulted in the economy shrinking by a quarter and unemployment increasing to about 25%. One of the main objectives of the adjustment programs is the liberalization of the economy and the attraction of foreign direct investments. It can be argued that the Skouries gold mining project became the experiment and engine of this process. Thus, according to the Federation of Industries of Northern Greece (2015), the creation of an investment-friendly environment is tested by the successful evolution of the Skouries extractivist project.

2 In June 2015, the Greek Prime Minister announced a referendum in order for the Greek society to decide whether to accept or not the bailout conditions that were proposed by the institutions (IMF, ECB, EC). Although the people voted against the institutions’ requirements, the government ignored the results and succumbed to the institutions’ demands. This move was considered as the big shift of the so-called ‘left government’. The grandiose manifestations in favor of the vote against the institutions were followed by great disappointment and anger on behalf of the voters.

3 Manolada is a rural area in Southern Greece where many migrants work in the fields. A scandal erupted in 2013 concerning massive abuse of migrants including torture, gunshots, blackmail and unpaid work in the strawberry fields.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Charalampos Tsavdaroglou

Dr Charalampos Tsavdaroglou, Urban Planner, School of Architecture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.

Konstantinos Petrakos

Konstantinos Petrakos, PhD Researcher, School of Architecture, National Technical University of Athens, Greece. Email: [email protected]

Vasiliki Makrygianni

Vasiliki Makrygianni, PhD Researcher, School of Architecture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. Email: [email protected]