‘Dreaming with BRICs’

Abstract

Intertwinements of economic practices with economic knowledge have been of particular interest for sociologists and cultural anthropologists during recent years. This article discusses a particular case of such intertwinements: in 2001, Goldman Sachs economists invented the acronym ‘BRIC’ for grouping together the largest emerging economies – Brazil, Russia, India and China. The economists projected that over the course of 50 years, the BRICs would become the new core of the world economy. This article interprets the BRICs concept as an innovation in the classificatory regimes of finance. These classificatory regimes are understood as persistent cultural constructs. In the domain of international finance, classifications have traditionally been organized according to the distinction of developed and developing economies, with assumptions regarding return expectations and risks attached to this distinction. The BRICs concept alters these classificatory regimes and re-describes a selective group of emerging markets as solid, long-term investment destinations. In order to establish this innovation, the Goldman Sachs economists draw on calculative framings, narrative strategies and metaphorical language. As evidenced by descriptive statistics of portfolio flows, a preliminary analysis of investment discourses and of changes in the emerging market funds industry, Goldman Sachs' expertise on the BRICs indeed seems to have contributed to the emergence of a new cultural circuit of capital of post-emerging market investments to developing economies.