At the 17th BRICS+ summit, held in Brazil on June 6-7, the assembled governments claimed to continue their shift away from the U.S.-dominated world order by “strengthening Global South Cooperation for a more inclusive and sustainable governance.”
On the surface, these goals might seem to align with socialist and anti-imperialist positions. Western neoliberal institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank guarantee the rule of a few big capitalist powers. This leads some socialists, like the Party of Socialism and Liberation (PSL), to see BRICS+ as having “the potential to create openings for this [socialist] project by challenging imbalances among nations in the global economy and diplomacy.”
However, BRICS+ is full of internal contradictions. Its aim of democratically reforming the United Nations does not go beyond giving a select few Global South nations a seat at the exploiters’ table. It is a reformist solution which does not address the root of global inequality.
The New Development Bank, established by the BRICS states and headquartered in Shanghai, claims to offer “sustainable infrastructure development” in a multilateral spirit, yet its development projects still operate on foreign debt. Patrick Bond, Professor of Sociology at the University of Johannesburg, summarises this as “maintaining policies of economic liberalisation that lower national economic barriers and generate huge gains for already wealthy elites holding property or stock market shares.” In other words, these are new organs in the framework of an inherently exploitative system, and are not intended to negate that system.
BRICS+ says it aims for multilateral cooperation, yet all of the member states defend private property, which is based on exploitation. Wealth inequality remains a significant issue in Brazil, India, and South Africa, over a decade since the first summit. Especially notable are Russia’s oppressive policies in Ukraine, which show imperialist ambitions (despite the country’s economic weakness). China, for its part, is attempting to develop into an imperialist power itself.
Looking past the progressive talk, the material interests driving BRICS+ do not actually differ much at all from the global imperialist powers and their institutions. These are capitalist states defending and furthering the interests of their own capitalists. Trade between BRICS+ and other countries in Africa and South America often has a similarly extractive dynamic as North-South trade, as Laurent Delcourt outlines. BRICS+ aims to continue the dominance of corporations and private capital, including commodification, privatisation, and extractivism — which has nothing to do with South-South cooperation.
The BRICS+ countries position themselves as challengers to the global hegemonic powers. Yet these weaker capitalist states are simply trying to refunnel capital flows for their own benefit — they do not embody an alternative to global imperialism.
BRICS+ does nothing to advance class struggle on the global stage, nor inside its member states. Instead, its members aim to secure a bigger seat at the table for capitalists from relatively weaker states. But just like with the Great Powers, their wealth is built on the backs of the working class. The BRICS+ countries are only fighting to redirect the profits of exploitation — their concern is whether capital ends up in Washington or Johannesburg, in Shanghai, Moscow, Mumbai, Sao Paolo or somewhere else.
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