[P2P-F] BRICS bk

[Michel Bauwens]

Marx & Philosophy Review of Books
<http://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviewofbooks> » 2015
<http://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviewofbooks/reviews/2015> » Parisot
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<http://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviewofbooks/books/2071>*Ana Garcia
<http://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviewofbooks/authors/g/2070> and Patrick
Bond <http://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviewofbooks/authors/b/2069> (eds) *
*Brics: An Anti-Capitalist Critique*
Haymarket, Chicago, 2015. 320pp., $19.95 pb
ISBN 9781608465330 <http://books.google.co.uk/books?q=isbn+9781608465330>
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<http://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviewofbooks/books/2074>*Ana Garcia
<http://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviewofbooks/authors/g/2070> and Patrick
Bond <http://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviewofbooks/authors/b/2069> (eds) *
*Brics: An Anti-Capitalist Critique*
Pluto, London, 2015. 320pp., £18.99 pb
ISBN 9780745336411 <http://books.google.co.uk/books?q=isbn+9780745336411>

*Reviewed by James Parisot
<http://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviewofbooks/reviewers/714>*
Comment on this review
<http://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviewofbooks/reviews/2015/2072#comments>
About the reviewer

*James Parisot
<http://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviewofbooks/reviewers/714>*

James Parisot is a PhD Candidate in Sociology at Binghamton University. He
has published on questions of American Empire and rising powers, and is
currently co-editing a book on cooperation and conflict in a multipolar
world.
Review

It appears global capitalism is going through a fundamental transformation.
Gone is the era of the American ‘unipolar moment’. Instead, while the
United States remains dominant, rising powers, particularly the BRICS
(Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) are building new political
alliances and economic relations, suggesting a shift towards a multipolar
world. On one hand, some scholars have argued this to be a cause for
celebration. Western hegemony was always armored with the force of
imperialism, forcing underdevelopment upon the global south since the age
of colonialism. In this case, the rise of the south may structurally
challenge centuries of western domination. On the other hand, some argue
that the BRICS are not providing an alternative to neoliberalism; rather,
they are reproducing relations of unequal exchange and uneven development,
albeit in south-south (or east-south) rather than north-south forms.

What does this mean for the international left? Should we celebrate the
rise of the BRICS as an alternative to western imperialism? Or condemn the
involved states for failing to provide an alternative to the unfettered
domination of global neoliberalism, but simply modifying its form?

This book is the most significant work yet published to examine these
issues through a critical lens. It features essays from leading leftist
scholars across the world such as Patrick Bond, Immanuel Wallerstein, Leo
Panitch, William Robinson, Elmar Altvater, and Vijay Prashad, among many
others. The overall shape of the volume is laid out in the introduction,
written by the editors. Here, the authors document the currently existing
positions on the BRICS: from those who celebrate it, are cautious of it, to
those who criticize it. It provides a useful and comprehensive overview of
the current state of debate on the topic and provides a clear way to
introduce the volume. The rest of the book is divided into three sections.

The first, titled ‘Sub-imperial, inter-imperial, or capitalist-imperial?’
examines the rise of the BRICS in light of the reorganization of world
imperialism. Highlighted especially throughout these essays is a
revitalization of the concept ‘sub-imperialism’ as originally conceived in
the 1960s Ruy Mauro Marini, to make sense of the role of Brazil in Latin
America. Bond, for example, sees sub-imperialism as defined by what David
Harvey called ‘accumulation by dispossession’, overaccumulation and uneven
development, and the use of neoliberal policies by countries previously
subjected to their impositions in order to strengthen their position within
the global neoliberal hierarchy, rather than replace it. For Bond the BRICS
seems to be creating new relations of sub-imperialism, as participants use
the meetings and emerging institutions as a way to solidify their regional
and international sub-imperial positions. This is further developed by
Mathias Luce who argues that sub-imperialism is ‘the highest stage of
dependent capitalism’. In other words, BRICS countries continue to be
dominated, or incorporated into the western order, at the same time they
dominate countries below them in the global inter-imperialist chain.

The second section of the volume is titled ‘BRICS “develop” Africa, Latin
America and Eastern Europe’. This section focuses on the ways that, rather
than looking for a more ecologically sustainable developmental path, the
BRICS are using resource extraction as central to increasing their
positions in the international hierarchy of global capitalism. Discussed in
this section, for example, are the ways that Chinese, Brazilian, and Indian
investment in Africa, while bypassing Washington Consensus style
conditionalities, do not necessarily provide an alternative to them for the
people of Africa. The main interests of these countries, and their
businesses, in what has been called the ‘new scramble for Africa’, rather,
has been less about helping poor countries ‘develop’, so much as accessing
the resources of these countries, at the expense of human rights, to fuel
the continued growth of the sub-imperial powers. And as Omar Bonilla
Martinez points out, the same relationship has occurred in China-Latin
America relations in the Andean region, as China’s main interest has been
in oil and natural resources, at the expense of indigenous peoples, who are
being deprived of their land and livelihoods. Two of the articles in this
section also discuss Russia. Russia’s development under Putin has been
based upon oil and gas in Russia itself, and Russia’s participation in the
BRICS has gone along with Russia increasingly asserting its regional
control in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, as seen in its activities in
Ukraine and, for example, the creation of a Eurasian Economic Union.
Overall, this series of papers empirically highlights the ways that the
BRICS, far from providing an alternative to neoliberalism and imperialism,
are simply reorganizing their shapes.

The final section, ‘BRICS within global capitalism’, consists of a diverse
series of short essays by leading scholars debating the significance of the
BRICS in global capitalism. This section is particularly useful for showing
the ways that different theoretical persuasions lead to differing analyses
of the current global conjuncture. It contains short pieces from, for
example, William Robinson, leader of the global capitalism school, who
emphasizes the importance of the transnationality of capital, and Immanuel
Wallerstein, founder of world-systems analysis, who sees the BRICS as one
component of the broader decline of US hegemony. In contrast, Ho-Fung Hung
emphasis the continued salience of American power, particularly as the role
of the dollar remains unchallenged, and Vijay Prashad sees the Bolivarian
Alternative of the Americas (ALBA), resulting from Latin America’s ‘pink
tide’, as a predominant alternative to neoliberalism in contrast to the
BRICS which have failed to provide a counter-hegemonic set of policies to
challenge the power of global neoliberalism.

Overall, *BRICS: An Anti-Capitalist Alternative* is required reading for
anyone concerned about what the development of the BRICS means for the
global proletariat, and for the structure of the capitalist world order
more generally. The difficulty of the volume is also its biggest strength
in that, while many diverse perspectives are expressed, it can lead the
reader to be somewhat bewildered as to what to make of the BRICS, and the
shape of the capitalist world order. Just as importantly, left open is the
question *how* to make sense of the BRICS, particularly in relation to the
possibility—or not—of US decline. In other words, many theoretical
frameworks are used, but, given the shortness of the essays, a space is not
provided to examine them critically against each other. This could be
particularly difficult for students new to the topic, as the volume
includes very short essays underlain with fundamentally different
conceptual frameworks, which only experts in the field who have read more
substantial works by the included authors might fully understand.

But even with such a diversity of perspectives a relatively clear picture
emerges on which, it seems, the global left agrees: the BRICS do not
provide an alternative to neoliberalism. Rather, their main goal is to
reposition themselves within it, in doing so continuing to cooperate with
the west while, simultaneously, gradually undermining centuries of western
domination. The risk that emerges is an even more authoritarian form of
global capitalism that is continually dependent on increasing amounts of
resource extraction in a world with decreasing amounts of available
resources. But if, as this volume suggests, the BRICS are simply
intensifying the contradictions of capitalism on a global scale, what might
an alternative be? This, perhaps, would be a question for a subsequent
volume.

*26 October 2015*


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