The idea that the BRIC countries are a new alternative comes - in my judgment - from their wonderful growth rates. The problem as I see it is that these growth rates are based on a bubble trade in Western credit instruments, oil and other commodities.
As these bubbles deflate, we would expect to see, for example, BRIC equity markets deflate quickly, property values deflate quickly and commodity prices deflate quickly. We're seeing all these things.
Last to go, I think, will be the trade in supplying Western consumers with value-added goods and services, because this is essentially the high-growth portion of generalized economic development. While the increase in this development is fantastic on a percentage basis, the problems with it as a world-changer are two:
1) It is too small on a "World GDP" basis.
2) It has failed to favor generalizable, post-capitalist structures.
If you showed me - just to make some crude examples - a BRIC open-source Internet, a BRIC financial system, or BRIC governmental structures that were perpetuating themselves and being adopted in other countries, I would say the BRIC-pole argument has legs.
But so far I see China and India using cheap labor and Russia and Brazil using expensive commodities to fuel their growth entirely within the existing capitalist context.
On Sat, Aug 23, 2008 at 9:18 AM, Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I find thw idea of trying to identify where a country sits on an ideological schema, rather than looking at how people in the country live, to be a little bizarre.
>
> --- On Sat, 8/23/08, dredmond at efn.org <dredmond at efn.org> wrote:
>
>> From: dredmond at efn.org <dredmond at efn.org>
>> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] The 'BRIC' countries as a new 'pole' in the global order - A bubble trade?
>> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>> Date: Saturday, August 23, 2008, 12:02 PM
>> On Thu, August 21, 2008 5:25 pm, boddi satva wrote:
>>
>> > But these structures you describe don't seem to be
>> trans-capitalist
>> > but pre-capitalist.
>>
>> Neither trans nor pre, but post.
>>
>> The developmental state is the gateway of 21st century
>> socialism. This is
>> the fundamental reality of contemporary geopolitics.
>>
>> -- DRR
>>
>> ___________________________________
>> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
>
>
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