although the former Soviet Union come close. The United States is critically
deficient in at least 20 minerals and has essentiallv no reserves at all for man-
ganese colbalt. chromium. aluminum. tin, and fluorine. Japan is more
dependent (Miller, 1991: 512-543l). In addition to lacking coal and lumber,
Japan has virtually no mineral resources whatsoever, A supply disruption Or
embargo would prove disastrous But if the main problem for MDCs is the
potential disruption of supplies, the problem tor LDCs is more serious, actual,
and ongoing. Simply put, the LDCs arc becoming the mineral suppliers for
the MDCs (as is elegantly illustrated above by my computer), that consume
eight to ten times per capita more than do the LDCs. This means that as
world mineral prices tend to fall. the MDCs are the main beneficiaries, While
the LDCs are left holding the bag with declining export incomes. Each
decline of a few cents per ton of Chile's copper or Zaire's cobalt means reces-sion and economic hardship. Hence the world trade in minerals tends to
amplify economic inequality and political tensions in the world system.
So even though the case made by neoclassical economists works better
for minerals than other resources we have discussed, you can see that there
are still environmental, economic, and geopolitical problems. Indeed,
current environmental concern is less with source problems than with the
enormous amounts of energy used in processing minerals and the land
erosion, pollution, and ecosystem disruption that their extraction causes.