BRICS: An Anti-Capitalist Critique

321 Pages·2015·3.87 MB·English

by  Patrick Bond

BRICS
An Anti-Capitalist Critique
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B R I C S
An Anti-Capitalist Critique
edited by
Patrick Bond and Ana Garcia
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First published 2015 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright © Patrick Bond and Ana Garcia 2015
The right of Patrick Bond and Ana Garcia to be identified as the authors
of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7453 3636 7 Hardback
ISBN 978 0 7453 3641 1 Paperback
ISBN 978 1 7837 1687 6 PDF eBook
ISBN 978 1 7837 1689 0 Kindle eBook
ISBN 978 1 7837 1688 3 EPUB eBook

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed
and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are
expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin.
Printed in the United Kingdom
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Contents
List of contributors vii
List of abbreviations xiii
1. Introduction
Ana Garcia and Patrick Bond 1
Part 1: Sub-imperial, inter-imperial or capitalist-imperial?
2. B RICS and the sub-imperial location
Patrick Bond 15
3. Sub-imperialism, the highest stage of dependent capitalism
Mathias Luce 27
4. B RICS, capitalist-imperialism and new contradictions
Virginia Fontes 45
5. B RICS, the G20 and the American Empire
Leo Panitch 61
6. C apitalist mutations in emerging, intermediate and
peripheral neoliberalism
Claudio Katz 70
Part 2: BRICS ‘develop’ Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe
7. B RICS corporate snapshots during African extractivism
Baruti Amisi, Patrick Bond, Richard Kamidza,
Farai Maguwu and Bobby Peek 97
8. T he story of the hunter or the hunted? Brazil’s role in Angola
and Mozambique
Ana Garcia and Karina Kato 117
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BRICS
9. China’s geopolitical oil strategy in the Andean region
Omar Bonilla Martinez 135
10. T he transnationalisation of Brazilian construction companies
Pedro Henrique Campos 148
11. Behind the image of South–South solidarity at Brazil’s Vale
Judith Marshall 162
12. R io’s ruinous mega-events
Einar Braathen, Gilmar Mascarenhas and Celina Sørbøe 186
13. Modern Russia as semi-peripheral, dependent capitalism
Ruslan Dzarasov 200
14. R ussia’s neoliberal imperialism and the Eurasian challenge
Gonzalo Pozo 206
Part 3: BRICS within global capitalism
15. BRICS and transnational capitalism
William Robinson 231
16. BRICS at the brink of the fossil bonanza
Elmar Altvater 236
17. Scramble, resistance and a new non-alignment strategy
Sam Moyo and Paris Yeros 246
18. The BRICS’ dangerous endorsement of ‘financial inclusion’
Susanne Soederberg 251
19. C hina and the lingering Pax Americana
Ho-fung Hung 254
20. T he future trajectory of BRICS
Achin Vanaik 261
21. Does the South have a possible history?
Vijay Prashad 266
22. Whose interests are served by the BRICS?
Immanuel Wallerstein 269
23. BRICS after the Durban and Fortaleza summits
Niall Reddy 274
24. B uilding BRICS from below?
Ana Garcia 279
25. C o-dependent BRICS from above, co-opted BRICS from the
middle, and confrontational BRICS from below
Patrick Bond 286
Index 297
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Contributors
Contributors
Elmar Altvater was a Professor at the Free University of Berlin from 1970 to
2004. He coedited PROKLA: Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialwissenschaft. He is a
member of the Scientific Council of ATTAC Germany, and an associate of the
Berlin Institute for International Political Economy. His books include Das Ende
des Kapitalismus, wie wir ihn kennen (2005), Grenzen der Globalisierung (with
Birgit Mahnkopf) (1999) and The Future of the Market (1993).
Baruti Amisi is a visiting scholar in Development Studies at the University of
KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Civil Society in Durban. His PhD thesis addresses the
Inga Hydropower Projects on the Congo River, the world’s largest construction
and energy project. He is from the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo,
and a refugee leader in Durban. He has published academic articles on xenophobia,
refugee life, the Clean Development Mechanism, and water and sanitation policy.
Patrick Bond is Senior Professor of Development Studies at the University of
KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, where he directs the Centre for Civil Society, and also
a Professor of Political Economy at Wits University in Johannesburg. His recent
books include Elite Transition (2014), South Africa: The Present as Future (with
John Saul) (2014) and Politics of Climate Justice (2012).
Omar Bonilla Martinez is an Ecuadorian historian. He researches territorial
transformation, especially the expansion of extractive frontiers of oil and mining
industries. He is a member of the collective Critical Geography of Ecuador and
the YASunidos Collective. He has also worked extensively with local communities
situated along the proposed Manta–Manaus transport axis.
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BRICS
Einar Braathen is Senior Researcher in International Studies at the Norwegian
Institute for Urban and Regional Research. For the last years his main work has
been on Brazil, and until 2018 he heads the project ‘Insurgent Citizenship in
Brazil: the Role of Mega-Sports Events’.
Pedro Henrique Campos is Professor of History and International Relations
at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro. His PhD in Social History at
the Fluminense Federal University focused on the relationship of construction
companies to the Brazilian dictatorships (1964–1988).
Ruslan Dzarasov is the Head of the Department of Political Economy at the
G.V. Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, and Senior Research Fellow
at the Central Institute of Economics and Mathematics within the Russian
Academy of Sciences. He has written for the academic journals Debatte: Journal
of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe and the Cambridge Journal of
Economics. His recent book is The Conundrum of Russian Capitalism (2014).
Virginia Fontes is an historian based at the Fluminense Federal University in
Rio de Janeiro. Her major works include O Brasil eo capital-imperialismo: teoria
e história (2010), A sociedade civil no Brasil contemporâneo: lutas sociais e luta
teórica na década de 1980 (2006), Reflexões impertinentes: história e capitalismo
contemporâneo (2004), Capitalismo, exclusões e inclusão forçada (1997) and
História do Brasil recente: 1964–1992 (1996).
Ana Garcia is Professor of International Relations at the Federal Rural University
of Rio de Janeiro and an associate of the UKZN Centre for Civil Society and
the Institute of Alternative Policies for the Southern Cone of Latin America.
Her doctorate was completed at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de
Janeiro. She co-edited (with Patrick Bond) the special issue of Tensões Mundiais:
Perspectivas Críticas Sobre os BRICS (2014).
Ho-fung Hung is Associate Professor of Sociology at the Johns Hopkins
University. He researches global political economy, protest and nationalism. He
is the author of Protest with Chinese Characteristics (2013) and The China Boom:
Origins, Global Impacts, and Demise (2015).
Richard Kamidza holds a doctorate in Development Studies from the University
of KwaZulu-Natal and is a post-doctoral research fellow at North West University.
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Contributors
Karina Kato is a Professor in the Department of Development, Agriculture and
Society at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro and an associate of the
Institute of Alternative Policies for the Southern Cone of Latin America.
Claudio Katz is Professor at the University of Buenos Aires and a researcher
with the National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina. His
books include Bajo el imperio del capital (2011), Las disyuntivas de la izquierda
en América Latina (2008) and El porvenir de socialismo (2004).
Mathias Luce is Professor of Latin American History at Federal University of Rio
Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, where he heads the research group on the Economic
History of Dependent Capitalism. His writings focus on super-exploitation, sub-
imperialism and dependent capitalism. He is co-editor of Padrão de reprodução
do capital: contribuições da teoria marxista da dependência (2012).
Farai Maguwu is a PhD student at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre
for Civil Society in Durban, and Director of the Centre for Natural Resource
Governance in Harare. He is a recipient of the Human Rights Watch Alison Des
Forges Award for Extraordinary Activism based on his critique of the Marange
diamond looting.
Judith Marshall is a Canadian labour educator, writer and global activist.
She recently retired after 20 years in the Canadian steelworkers’ union, where
she coordinated Steelworkers Humanity Fund projects in southern Africa
and organised global exchange programmes linking workers and community
organisations affected by transnational mining companies like Vale. Her PhD at
the University of Toronto was published as Literacy, Power and Democracy in
Mozambique (1993).
Gilmar Mascarenhas is Associate Professor in Human Geography at the State
University of Rio de Janeiro. Since 2004 he has published several papers and a
book about the relations between mega-sports events and host cities, focusing on
territorial changes, conflicts and citizenship.
Sam Moyo is Professor of Agrarian Studies and Director of the African Institute
for Agrarian Studies and Honorary Professor at the University of KwaZulu-
Natal’s Centre for Civil Society. He has served as President of the Council for the
Development of Social Research in Africa (2009–11); his books include African
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