BRICS wants to expand

[Crezth]

Saudi Arabia is a responsible country that would never spread chaos and destruction throughout the Middle East

That's not the point. The point is that these are opposing interests. That makes BRICS self-justifying as long as American military bases continue to exist. It is a result of, a reaction to, the chaos created by imperial adventures. There is no other reason for it than the vacuums that American military intervention have created.

Saudi Arabia, for its part, actually does exist in the Middle East. Saudis have to live in proximity with the consequences of the chaos they create. They, like Iran, like Egypt, like Turkey, will move into areas made chaotic and attempt to secure their own interests (because all countries do). It is a reaction. Likewise, joining BRICS is a reaction. It is an attempt to reframe the context with which they interact with America and American imperialism with a little bit more leverage behind their own interests.

If the "global policeman" annihilated the country neighboring yours, you just might be an imperial periphery state with interests to juggle between the oh-so-good and "noble" west, and the "bad guys" who offer you the only real shot of resistance.

Also, Russia and China would never think about genocide or invasion. They're far too much better than the Evil West for that.

No, you see, they are not hypocritical like America. They would never invade a country and say they're doing it to protect ethnic minorities or to destroy political extremists.

Strawmen. Pathetic. I am arguing that they are exactly as hypocritical as America and that there are significant material benefits to being global police that anyone with a brain would want a piece of. It's also pretty easy to rally countries against chaotic interlopers. America makes this extremely easy when they annihilate countries like Iraq and leave millions of dead bodies in their wake. And the international picture of things is not so rosy as you want to believe. You've got the US assassinating journalists and Iranian top officials on their way to diplomatic missions but you actually think the answer is as simple as "America's the global policeman, why should anyone have a problem with that?"

It's just crazy. There's no desire, forthcoming, or willingness to honestly grapple with the consequences of American interaction on the world stage or how these things occur as reactions to existing circumstances. Nobody has to say Russia or China are heroic beacons of freedom and human rights, they just need to think critically about how someone in Russia or China might feel about watching the international news. Nope, no, it's just, America's the freest and most democratic country and anyone who doesn't get with the program gets drone struck. Well, that's why BRICS exists.

 

[Tee Kay]

You don't know what I actually think, I haven't given you anywhere near enough information.

Although the approving tone I adopted when talking about the mid-2000s BRIC should give you a hint.

 

[Crezth]

I want more than a hint. Make some real posts.

 

[Tee Kay]

What's the use?

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

Which currency? Is it making up a new one or using one of its member's current currency?

There really hasn't been much said about what will actually be the BRICS currency. I know they've talked about just using each member nations own currency, digital currency, Yuan, or something else altogether. From what I understand this particular topic was not discussed at the BRICS conference this week.

Many of the articles I've read seem to suggest there will be a singular BRICS currency. There is also a lot of talk about the desire to de-dollarize. So far, admittedly, it has been all talk. It is when I look at what other movement and action has been going on with BRICS that scares me into thinking maybe these guys have something here?

My main concern for all my friends here at CFC is to just don't be so quick to dismiss threats as impossible. Perhaps I need to learn not to be so quick to get super alarmed about threats as well.

 

[Crezth]

What's the use?

Yeah well look if you're gonna clutch pearls and well up because I "don't know what you think," you know, because that's so offensive, you don't have to kick up the dust to begin with making clever little remarks about how I think Russia and China are so much better than America. Who's putting words in whose mouth? Who's running away from a conversation they realized they're unqualified for?

 

[Verbose]

Many of the articles I've read seem to suggest there will be a singular BRICS currency. There is also a lot of talk about the desire to de-dollarize. So far, admittedly, it has been all talk. It is when I look at what other movement and action has been going on with BRICS that scares me into thinking maybe these guys have something here?

Frankly for the most part the BRICS countries don't really do much trade with each other yet – with the exception if China, common denominator is that they all (everybody does) trade a bunch with China.

So before they start de-dollarizing their mutual trade, they first have to generate some substantial trade to de-dollarize.

 

[Crezth]

Frankly for the most part the BRICS countries don't really do much trade with each other yet – with the exception if China, common denominator is that they all (everybody does) trade a bunch with China.

So before they start de-dollarizing their mutual trade, they first have to generate some substantial trade to de-dollarize.

This is already well under-way. For instance, check out the expanding Russia-China trade relationship since the Ukraine war started. There's a new paradigm emerging of Chinese financialization in these countries that Saudi Arabia is also very interested in.

 

[Verbose]

This is already well under-way. For instance, check out the expanding Russia-China trade relationship since the Ukraine war started. There's a new paradigm emerging of Chinese financialization in these countries that Saudi Arabia is also very interested in.

I just SAID everyone trades with China. They DON*T trade substantially with each other.

Come back when Russia finds something new and substantial it can actually sell to fx Brazil – for now its most fertilizer and potash – the Brazilan economy is still mostly a closed shop, not all that much engaged in international trade.

 

[Crezth]

Well but that's the point. China is coalescing the BRICS markets around its own markets. And those relationships are increasingly undollarized. The big one is that OPEC or Saudi Arabia might trade oil for yuan. That is a significant departure from the previous norm.

 

[Verbose]

Well but that's the point. China is coalescing the BRICS markets around its own markets. And those relationships are increasingly undollarized. The big one is that OPEC or Saudi Arabia might trade oil for yuan. That is a significant departure from the previous norm.

It's not what BRICS has claimed to be. If everyone is just there to service China, they can do that. Otoh, if something goes "Clonk" in the Chinese growth model (and it is, Xi is a cold, dead hand on it) then there will soon be no BRICS.

 

[red_elk]

If the Yuan is going to replace the dollar, China needs to up its game considerably. BRICS+ may become a thing, but dethroning the dollar will be a tough road.

It might be, but history shows that under right circumstances dethroning may happen in just few years.

 

[Joij21]

Very a lot of difference between China and US. US are capitalist, China not so much.
For example, in China there is only one party, the comunist party, and all big company are from State.
So, it's wrong don't call China a socialistic country just because it don't follow now a days all things Sovietic Socialism made, they are unique, they follow the Chinese socialism.

Except Soviet style socialism isn't even socialism, it's state capitalism whereby the state itself functions as the market but nevertheless dictates how labor should function unlike a true socialist system which is supposed to be syndicalist in nature whereby the workers themselves are self organized into workers councils which directly own the various places such as factories and offices where they work and democratically vote and share power on such councils to distribute who gets payed what at those places of work.

A state capitalist system is capitalist precisely because it simply replaces your bourgeois boss with a big "Papa Stalin" or "Papa Mao" type figure who now functions as your new defacto statist boss. Socialism is about removing the idea of bosses so as to eliminate class hierarchy, not shift the hierarchy to the role of the state.

Current day China though I would argue isn't even state capitalism but state managed capitalism whereby the state merely manages and regulates the capitalism going on below it without actually becoming and taking on the role of the capitalism as in true state capitalism. Foreign companies and their contractors like Foxcon who operate in China are proof that China no longer is the market but rather only has a managerial role over the market. The market is clearly semi-independent now ever since China globalized and went away from Maoism via Deng Xiaoping's reforms shifting it from state capitalism to state managed capitalism.

 

[Henri Christophe]

Except Soviet style socialism isn't even socialism

I guess you are confusing comunism and socialism. Russia and China never was comunist, but socialist instead.

 

[Joij21]

Strawmen. Pathetic. I am arguing that they are exactly as hypocritical as America

Yes but you have to consider that when you criticize a specific empire most people will just assume it's your personal preference proclaiming the alternative empires to be better than the one you criticized. Preferably you must make sure to criticize both sides (or all sides if we're referring to a plethora of empires) to avoid any confusion by others that you have a particular bias against one and consequently therefore support for the other.

Now most people cannot fathom a world without empires and nation states for such things seem monolithic and given like the Sun and the Moon.

Also other more intelligent people want to know what your "solution" is to remove empires and nation states from the world. Believing that solutions like proletarian rebellion to automatically be out of the question as a solution because it is childishly naive, for such proletarian rebellions were always highjacked and became just more empires without eliminating imperialism from the earth. Therefore you must have an actual believable solution otherwise people will just assume your critique of the current empire they reside in is just selling us out to a worse imperial alternative (because at least the American empire is pro LGBTQ+ so it's okay to be gay if your an imperial citizen of this empire but not okay if one were to suddenly become an imperial citizen of Russia. Therefore American Empire > Russian Empire).

 

[Joij21]

I guess you are confusing comunism and socialism. Russia and China never was comunist, but socialist instead.

No syndicalism is socialism, socialisms goal is to then transition to the communism.

In communism there is to be no state at all, and money is to be abolished and everyone lives in a sharing is caring utopia of industrial abundance and post-scarcity.

In syndicalist socialism (the only true socialism) the workplaces and the councils of workers who run these workplaces are the effective state. And there still is technically money based compensation making it socialism.

 

[Hygro]

So by 2024-01-01 the new members will be officially onboard with BRICS. As a result of those 6 new members being added 80% of the world's oil production will be controlled by BRICS. If they demand payment in a currency other than the dollar, it's good night Irene to the dollar. And since BRICS intends to back its currency with gold and the dollar is becoming increasingly worthless day by day as they print bills like no tomorrow it all is not going to end not well.

Where do you guys come up with these fantasies?

 

[Crezth]

Except Soviet style socialism isn't even socialism, it's state capitalism whereby the state itself functions as the market but nevertheless dictates how labor should function unlike a true socialist system which is supposed to be syndicalist in nature whereby the workers themselves are self organized into workers councils which directly own the various places such as factories and offices where they work and democratically vote and share power on such councils to distribute who gets payed what at those places of work.

A state capitalist system is capitalist precisely because it simply replaces your bourgeois boss with a big "Papa Stalin" or "Papa Mao" type figure who now functions as your new defacto statist boss. Socialism is about removing the idea of bosses so as to eliminate class hierarchy, not shift the hierarchy to the role of the state.

Current day China though I would argue isn't even state capitalism but state managed capitalism whereby the state merely manages and regulates the capitalism going on below it without actually becoming and taking on the role of the capitalism as in true state capitalism. Foreign companies and their contractors like Foxcon who operate in China are proof that China no longer is the market but rather only has a managerial role over the market. The market is clearly semi-independent now ever since China globalized and went away from Maoism via Deng Xiaoping's reforms shifting it from state capitalism to state managed capitalism.

No, this is a very one-armed view of socialism. Namely it ran into a great amount of controversy over the fact syndicalist orgs outside of "party political control" could or would ally with industrialist groups politically against either other syndicalist orgs or leftist parties. And it was not just a debate between Lenin on the one side and anarchists on the other. There was also a "middle" that considered Lenin an anarchist. Yet, Lenin distinguished himself on the basis of his approach to the state: that the capitalist state existed as an alliance of capitalist interests that defended those interests, and could only be overturned by a leftist movement of revolutionary workers and trade unions that explicitly armed and organized themselves along a political line - that of the Party - to seize that state and turn it against the reactionaries.

When they looked at the fate of the Left in the west, by the 30's, they saw a lot of syndicalist backrubbing and handshaking, and backstabbing the revolutionary factions, all with the end result of producing a social democratic order that was every bit as capitalist as the one that preceded it, and every bit as exploitative of Africa and Asia. Thus were sown the seeds of socialism in one country.

Yes but you have to consider that when you criticize a specific empire most people will just assume it's your personal preference proclaiming the alternative empires to be better than the one you criticized. Preferably you must make sure to criticize both sides (or all sides if we're referring to a plethora of empires) to avoid any confusion by others that you have a particular bias against one and consequently therefore support for the other.

Partly because most people cannot fathom a world without empires and nation states for such things seem monolithic and given like the Sun and the Moon.

The other reason being most people want to know what your "solution" is to remove empires and nation states from the world. Believing that solutions like proletarian rebellion to automatically be out of the question as a solution because it is childishly naive, for such proletarian rebellions were always highjacked and became just more empires without eliminating imperialism from the earth. Therefore you must have an actual believable solution otherwise people will just assume your critique of the current empire they reside in is just selling us out to a worse imperial alternative (because at least the American empire is pro LGBTQ+ so it's okay to be gay if you're and imperial citizen of this empire but not okay if one were to suddenly become an imperial citizen of Russia. Therefore American Empire > Russian Empire).

"Live Free or Die" is my motto and as a citizen of America, I could care less what Russia and China get up to. No I don't think I'm likely to be converted to a citizen of either of those empires, but I sure know as hell what my interests are here and they're not "keep paying for American businessmen's foreign adventures."

 

[Joij21]

No, this is a very one-armed view of socialism. Namely it ran into a great amount of controversy over the fact syndicalist orgs outside of "party political control" could or would ally with industrialist groups politically against either other syndicalist orgs or leftist parties. And it was not just a debate between Lenin on the one side and anarchists on the other. There was also a "middle" that considered Lenin an anarchist. Yet, Lenin distinguished himself on the basis of his approach to the state: that the capitalist state existed as an alliance of capitalist interests that defended those interests, and could only be overturned by a leftist movement of revolutionary workers and trade unions that explicitly armed and organized themselves along a political line - that of the Party - to seize that state and turn it against the reactionaries.

When they looked at the fate of the Left in the west, by the 30's, they saw a lot of syndicalist backrubbing and handshaking, and backstabbing the revolutionary factions, all with the end result of producing a social democratic order that was every bit as capitalist as the one that preceded it, and every bit as exploitative of Africa and Asia. Thus were sown the seeds of socialism in one country.

Well one could always proclaim those were not true syndicalists but unionists/laborists, and that a party based socialism is a perversion cause it's not libertarian enough and will simply become perverted and imperial (therefore state capitalist no longer socialist).

And well that's kind of what happens everytime socialism decides to go the more centralized route, the revolution ends up always being betrayed.

"Live Free or Die" is my motto and as a citizen of America, I could care less what Russia and China get up to. No I don't think I'm likely to be converted to a citizen of either of those empires, but I sure know as hell what my interests are here and they're not "keep paying for American businessmen's foreign adventures."

Just because you don't think you're likely to be converted to a citizen of one of the alternative empires via conquest doesn't mean your peers don't think so. Many people therefore find it offensive when you criticize the current empire that they perceive is militaristically protecting them via "containment" through proxy war of the other empires that they deem to be a worse deal to live in.

More simplistically if Putin isn't contained in the Ukraine then he'll conquer us and take away our LGBTQ+ rights and privileges. Therefore critiquing America's containment style intervention in Ukraine is seen by others as paramount to allowing a global anti LGBTQ+ hyper socially conservative retrograde revolution to take place around the world, and is seen as being complicit in queer genocide.

 

[EvaDK]

So by 2024-01-01 the new members will be officially onboard with BRICS. As a result of those 6 new members being added 80% of the world's oil production will be controlled by BRICS. If they demand payment in a currency other than the dollar, it's good night Irene to the dollar. And since BRICS intends to back it's currency with gold and the dollar is becoming increasingly worthless day by day as they print bills like no tomorrow it all is not going to end not well.

1. how do you arrive at the conclusion that BRICS will control 80% of the worlds oil production? What's your data?
2. Russia tried to blackmail Europe with natural gas export, remember? The result: a year later Russia lost ~70% of its gas exports - Europe now gets natural gas from other suppliers instead.
3. please name an example of a Chinese, Indian, South African, Saudi.... government or business that has refused to accept Dollars as payment for exported goods to the US.

'BRICS intends to back its currency with gold'... WTH are you even talking about? The BRICS currency doesn't exist and no nation on Earth base their currency on gold.