BRICS Breakthrough? Economists Richard Wolff & Patrick Bond on Growing Alliance, Challenge to U.S.

this is democracy Now democracynow.org The War and Peace report I'm Amy Goodman we end Today's Show with the summit of brics Nations that concluded Thursday in the Russian city of kazen as President Putin made a comeback to the global stage hosting 36 world leaders and representatives from countries including China India South Africa Iran even Palestine Israel's war on Gaza took center stage with many heads of States demanding an immediate ceasefire Putin also faced direct calls at the summit from some of Russia's most important allies from Moscow to end the war in Ukraine meanwhile the brics

Coalition which was founded by Brazil Russia India China and South Africa officially added 13 new nations to the alliance's partner countries including Bolivia Cuba Nigeria and turkey for more we're joined by two guests here in New York Richard wolf professor of economics and Meritus at the University of Massachusetts ammer visiting professor in the graduate program in international Affairs at the new school founder of democracy at work author of several books including most recently understanding capitalism and in Johannesburg South Africa we joined by the political Economist Patrick Bond distinguished professor and director of the center for

social change at the University of Johannesburg his recent counterpunch article headlined Rising dangers of Imperial and sub Imperial partnering we're going to begin with you Patrick talk about the significance of this brick Summit I must quickly say thank you for having me but also in the 10 or 11 days uh you may know whether the great teams at democracy at work and democracy Now need to be in Exile because democracy won't be allowed and you'll come to Johannesburg and we'll have you a very fine site for your production systems it's a great address here at

the moment and I think the U fact that we had the bricks Summit just 14 months ago I was chatting and debating with VJ Pasad along with my colleague Trevor uani and it means that in the current period where the dollarization rhetoric coming up to this bricks because Russia hosting it and being shut out of the Swift system having 600 and some billion dollars seized illegally by the Western Banks and not getting loans even from the brics new development Bank suffering sanctions that meant a lot of attention has been on whether Vladimir Putin and his

team can generate a dollarization strategy unfortunately unfortunately that didn't uh transpire and then since we've just come out of the Israeli uh genocide story not using genocide in the Kazan Declaration on Wednesday night not calling for sanctions even though the United Nations General Assembly effectively did last month and not acknowledging that nine out of the 10 bricks countries have very profitable relationships like South Africa number one coal exporter to um to Israel and China and India having companies that run the H Port they could turn those off and really put pressure on Israel if they

really had the guts but we see them talking left walking right and Richard wolf you're takeaway from this brick Summit how historic was it in my judgment and even though Patrick is right about a number of his criticisms this is a historic turning point I cannot overstress it here we have for the first time in a century a serious economic competitor to the United States and its role in the world we've never seen this before in the lifetimes you me and the people watching this program and listening to it here are a group of countries

that together have a larger GDP a greater production than the G7 the United States and its allies we haven't had that before and the gap between them is growing the economic growth of the United States this year by the IMF is scheduled to be 2.8% in China 4.8% in India 7% so they are growing faster than we are they've been doing it for decades it is a New Economic world and as an economist and an American I I am a gased that our presidential election isn't putting that front and forward this is a new world

everybody else in the world is adjusting to this reality the American Empire and our system is in a decline relative to what the bricks are about are there problems among them for sure do do they have their faults absolutely this is not good and bad but it is a radical alteration and if we continue as a nation to pretend it isn't happening or it isn't important we will continue to make big strategic mistakes not the least of which is to bring us into a war kind of situation that people are already sensing might be in

the air I want to go to Vladimir Putin the president of Russia uh for his comments at The Brick summit we're in touch with the leadership of Iran in a very close contact we see our role in creating conditions to settling the situation by finding Mutual compromises I think it is possible Patrick Bond your response the Russia Iranian Alliance and also the latest news that North Korea is sending soldiers to Russia perhaps to fight in Ukraine well those conflicts of Russia Ukraine are are just so tragic since some several hundred thousand Ukrainian workingclass people and

maybe 100,000 Russians uh have been killed in what is a power grab that I think goes outside my line of argument that it's a sub Imperial it's a rogue sub Imperial the way Janet yellen's Rogue Imperial grab of all those assets could be described but you know if I come back to where where Richard was saying that this is an alternative it's something new it's it's a real challenge I must fight you on that my old friend because I think there's not an anti-imperial but a sub Imperial not um against but within just think of

the global value chain my phone that has the Cobalt from child labor in China in Chinese Minds in the Eastern DRC then coming back into a to a western uh phone and these are the sorts of relationships we really have to be restructuring not just a sort of Shifting of the deck chairs on the global capitalist Titanic certainly as the multilateral system exps next month there will be you know a G20 last year in Delhi the African Union was added as it expands to have more legitimacy without changing the IMF and the World Bank and

the WTO in any substantive way the bricks are playing a great role I think in amplifying the worst aspects just as one final example the 51% of global emissions come from these 10 countries but they only produce 29% of GDP what it means is the bricks next month go to azerbijan for the cop 29 I'm sure democracy now as usual will go there and do Cutting Edge analysis you'll find that the bricks and the West are tightly Allied against the rest of us last word goes to Richard wolf yeah history does not happen in in

in a morality play you're not going to have the bad disappear and replaced by the good it's never worked that way what you have to have is an analysis of what's actually going on and the unanimity the dominance of the United States is over and the whole world is trying to figure out every company in the world every country how do you navigate a new international order the United States is pretending that as a nation it doesn't have to worry about this and I'm afraid Patrick's remarks will lead people to think well there there's problems

on their side too which there are but that misses the larger historical phenomena this is the first serious economic competition this country has faced and the consequences of that will be overwhelming to us