Financialization, mining, and Newmont in Mexico

This chapter analyzes the links between financialization and the actions of foreign-owned mining companies in Mexico, with an emphasis on tracking the gold extraction activities of Newmont Mining Corporation. It is argued that, within the framework of contemporary financialized capitalism, the role of finance disrupts decision-making processes, the behavior of productive investment, and the mechanisms of natural resource appropriation by transnational companies. This is a financialized accumulation regime that partially redesigns the regressive international insertion patterns of Latin America—with a reprimarized export model—and where the management model of non-financial companies operates under the principle of “maximizing shareholder value” (a managerial practice that seeks to always extract greater profitability from the operational business and systematically drive up the value of their shares, which are traded in the company’s home country). However, the flip side of this phenomenon in the Latin American countries where the transnational company operates has a double aggravating factor: (a) “maximizing shareholder value” has meant funneling increasing resources into intensifying mining production; and (b) the accelerated exploration and exploitation of mines operated by large global companies in the region undermine the ability of local governments to have agency over the management of their natural resources.