When California’s gold rush struck in 1848, people flocked from around the world chasing a fortune in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Unfortunately, the boom was over by the time most people heard about it, so few latecomers were rewarded with more than dysentery.

Mining has always been a boom-and-bust industry, but recently a “super cycle” theory has emerged to claim that, while economic cycles would remain, the peaks of activity would be a step-change higher than in the past. Billions more consumers in China, India and elsewhere, it was claimed, would create new levels of demand for iron ore, copper, aluminium and other raw materials, underpinning commodity prices and creating a long-term mining boom.

However, it is now clear China is not immune to forces at work in the global economy, potentially bursting the mining bubble. The “super cycle” looks little more than a normal cycle with bells on.

Ironically, this comes just as multinational miners such as Rio Tinto had finally persuaded themselves that the “super cycle” was here to stay.

The debt-laden Rio, whose furious denials on the need for a rights issue look ominously like a hostage to fortune, is responding to the downturn, as others will soon, with job cuts, lower production and by mothballing projects. In short, by reverting to type.

Having been burnt in previous busts, miners have traditionally been reluctant to invest when the next boom starts, only to be lulled into doing so just as it is ending. It’s a cycle, of sorts, but far from super.

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