BRICS: An Anti-Capitalist Critique, by Patrick Bond and Ana Garcia, eds.

Abstract

Reviewed by : Giselle Thompson, York UniversityThere is no irony fact that BRICS: An Anti-Capitalist Critique is largely written by a cadre of interdisciplinary scholars who are associated with academic institutions Global South. This observation evokes sentiments of Antiguan-American author Jamaica Kincaid, who posits that the bureaucracy and the Gross National Product are inventions of Rostowian Western modernity that were forcefully imposed on Rest.[1] In this compilation of essays, editors Patrick Bond and Ana Garcia, along with notable authors Leo Panitch, Canada Research Chair Comparative Political Economy, and Immanuel Wallerstein, progenitor of world-systems analysis, present a critical response to emerging regional bloc known as (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and most recently, South Africa).In introduction, Garcia and Bond suggest that demanding a seat at international table, nations engage antagonistic cooperation, which means in practice, that [in] areas ranging from world finance to climate change to super-exploitative relations with periphery and even to soccer, bloc aims not to overturn tables at proverbial temple, but to collaborate holding them up (1) - despite China's and Russia's occasional inter-imperial stances against West. According to editors, project is not antithetical to existing state of affairs West with regard to economic stabilization, generating capacity of a lender of last resort, and steadying multilateral governance, especially with its ongoing demand for US dollar.Garcia and Bond's central problematic, which sets thematic tone for succeeding chapters, is BRICS' extractive, high-carbon economic (3). They argue that this model positions bloc for mimicry of Western social, political, and economic failings, thereby threatening to amplify destructive qualities of advanced capitalism our time.In his chapter BRICS, G20 and American Empire, Panitch calls for a more sober assessment (65) of brochure presentation of regional bloc as reflection of a fundamental change global economic and political power[2] and promoter of cooperation and solidarity with peoples... achievement of sustainable development, and eradication of poverty,[3] sentiments of former chief economist of World Bank, Joseph Stiglitz, and of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, respectively. Panitch is concerned with counter narrative: readiness of World Bank to welcome New Development Bank because of its resource depleting and export-oriented (65) strategies that are consistent with its own.Admittedly, aforementioned are prodigious and inflammatory indictments, but are nonetheless necessary for scholars and students to consider - which is why BRICS: An Anti-Capitalist Critique occupies a unique space expanding literature about bloc.Reviving Ruy Marini's (1965) application of sub-imperialism to Brazilian dictatorships, BRICS and sub-imperial location Bond suggests that appear to be sub-imperialist since they maintain global neoliberal policies and practices that benefit imperial powers as well as themselves. In other words, much like Wallerstein's semi-periphery, sub-imperialist power helps to broaden West's accumulation of capital by brokering extraction and exploitation of resources. …