BRICS: Little sense of purpose

Can it at least develop the will and ability to provide a counterweight or alternative to some of the policies and practices of the Western powers that have dominated the post World War-II order?

Or do BRICS lack the necessary cohesion and gumption? Will it remain, in words attributed to Russian president Vladimir Putin, a motley gathering of Africa’s big-game trophy animals — the lion, elephant, leopard, buffalo and rhinoceros — each independently strong, but loathe to accept another as the leader, and too diverse to cohere?

Going by BRICS’s Durban summit, the answer lies between the two extremes, but closer to the second. True, BRICS account for over 40% of the world’s population, 18% of its market-exchange GDP (about 27% in purchasing-power parity), 15% of world trade and two-fifths of its foreign currency reserves. Since 2000, BRICS have contributed about one-half the increase in global output.

However, this doesn’t translate into proportionately greater global power given the skewed nature of the world’s political, economic and financial governance system, whose agenda is set by the West, dominated by the US. BRICS don’t quite have the resolve to reset the agenda radically.

Their leaders play by the system’s established rules, and are content to rub shoulders with the representatives of the US, Britain, France and Germany in forums like G-20, the group of the world’s 20 largest economies, elevated to heads-of-government status in 2008. Meanwhile, the “world’s steering committee” remains firmly with the OECD-dominated G-7.

BRICS are politically disparate. Brazil, India and South Africa pride themselves as democracies. Russia and China can’t. These two are permanent Security Council members, the others aspire to membership — without success. South Africa has traditionally been pro-US. India is hewing close to Washington as part of its China-containment strategy. BRICS rarely agree among themselves enough — even to prevent Western intervention, as in Libya. They want a multipolar order, but have no strategy to create it. Neither China nor Brazil is a full member of the Non-Aligned Movement or the developing-country G-77.

Instead of challenging neoliberalism [...], they allowed the West to dictate (non)-solutions to the crisis, which perpetuate corporate dominance, speculation and inequality [...].

If this sounds uncharitable, consider BRICS’ response to the global Great Recession beginning 2008. Instead of challenging neoliberalism at its weakest moment, and demanding a thorough reform of the global financial system through multilateral forums, they allowed the West to dictate (non)-solutions to the crisis, which perpetuate corporate dominance, speculation and inequality, and impose harsh measures.

During the World Bank “voice reform” debate (2010), ostensibly to promote voting-power “parity” between developing and transition countries (DTCs), and developed countries, BRICS went along with cosmetic changes. Although DTCs’ vote-share nominally increased from 42.60 to 47.19%, the low-income countries’ share only rose from 34.67 to 38.38%, with the rich cornering over 60%.

Even after this “reform”, China’s share (3.23%) remains smaller than France or Britain’s (4.20), and Brazil’s lower than the Netherlands’ or Saudi Arabia’s. Japan, Germany, Britain, France and Canada have since increased their vote-share by 4.1 percentage points!

BRICS isn’t promoting a 1970s-style New International Economic Order, North-South equality, even South-South equality. It’s imitating the North in exploiting Southern natural resources and has become Africa’s top land-grabber, having appropriated 56 million hectares.

There’s much talk of a BRICS Development Bank since last year’s Delhi summit. There’s no time-frame, only the promise of a $100-billion currency-stabilisation Contingency Reserve Arrangement whose source and modalities are to be negotiated. BRICS will remain half-way significant by default, as Western hegemony weakens, not because it has political, strategic, economic or cultural alternatives to offer.

Image by Blog do Planalto