Of Colony and Collaboration.

When thinking about Northeastern Minnesota and the Iron Range in particular, writers and reporters focus on the last three decades of economic decline. Most often,  the proposed solutions for today's problems follow, the range of debate limited between the  pro-mining and diversification arguments. However, today's debate often avoids historical context. Historian Jeff Manuel's recent study,Taconite Dreams: The Struggle to Sustain Mining on Minnesota's Iron Range, 1915-2000, is invaluable to understanding today's Iron Range.

Another possible interpretation of Northeastern Minnesota and of the Iron Range is that of a resource colony, a view once common to workers but long forgotten . In this view, one sees not only today's workers, but local and state political officials and their government institutions as colonial collaborators, often personally benefiting from the resource exploitation. Now, they are often the principal project drivers in a (usually) claimed  attempt to save the region from economic depression. 

This once held view disappeared in the taconite plant building boom, where for nearly two decades the economic troubles were largely forgotten as money fell from the sky. While Duluth, especially Western Duluth, faced an exodus as plants closed, the Range grew for the entire decade. It was that era's Western North Dakota. 

What is forgotten, however, is that while workers and local elites benefited,  the ownership still existed elsewhere.  The profits were  shipped out with the ore. 

The State had actually done much of the work developing the method to use taconite, and then altered the tax system, increasing the profits in exchange for building the plants and exploiting the resource. Under the federal tax system at the time, the incentive was to build physical capital as a tax advantage. There was a limit to how much cash could be extracted in any given year.  The plants were thus built and run in a cost-plus structure, not fully subject to market conditions until the early 1980s. 

The histories of this time are of workers with little to do and inherent corruption. Workers often slept, and both theft and destruction of equipment was common.  Businessman and contractors exploited the system, often subject to the whims of purchasing agents and plant managers. But, since the money was flowing freely, there were few complaints other than the occasional strike. The area struggled with growth, not decline.

This changed quickly in the early 1980's, and the Range diaspora continues to this day.

We are a colony. 

It is easy to see the early timber and mining industries as nothing more than financial rapists exploiting both people and nature. An entire ecosystem was destroyed, requiring decades of public intervention and natural re-stocking simply to get inferior second growth forests. Early mining is also easily viewed as exploitative, between mine worker deaths, large scale destruction and blacklisted workers. It is also easy to see the clear assistance of the government, between police assistance during strikes or legal maneuvers such as splitting off mineral from surface property rights, now a source of much absurdest humor. They, and the company men, were collaborators. 

When local, state or federal governments collaborate with the industry, it is now called "economic development." Despite this renaming, at no time is any amount of profit other than taxes and wages exchanged for this. And, at the same time, the industry  exploits the other natural resources, especially water, without compensating either society or the natural world. The state funds basic research, and the IRRRB returns collected taxes if the plants "upgrade", better called a promise to continue the industry. More could be added. In short, they collaborate.

There is no alternative seen but collaboration with far off capital, no matter how they treat the colony. And we are left begging.  

The collaborators are now more extreme than ever. They  use government power and financing to assist multi-national corporations, such as Glencore-Xstrata, naming it "economic development" or a "jobs" program rather than assistance to a private corporation with a record of human rights violations and environmental destruction. Other assistance has been doled out, whether Essar, Mesabi Nugget or Magnetation. Despite this, the people sit begging and waiting again. 

The collaborators have created and refined the system, from IRRRB to state government, so they can extract their own wealth from it. Whether as lobbyists or employees of various agencies, consortia and a myriad of other means, they have learned to skim the cream of the remaining taconite revenue directly, or by funneling it in to favored schemes. The communities and people have not benefited, and both show it. The storefronts are closed, and the diaspora continues, and the officials promise. Yet ultimately, the profits and power go elsewhere, and the collaborators continue. Only occasionally do the the Sepoy's rebel. 

To be continued...