Patrick Bond on the "new scramble for Africa" and BRICS: An Anticapitalist Critique
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We're thrilled to host Patrick Bond, speaking on the “new scramble for Africa” and controversies surrounding the role of rising powers such as China, Russia, and South Africa. The event will also celebrate the release of BRICS: An Anticapitalist Critique, co-edited by Bond. As economies North and South engage in the “race for what’s left” around key natural resources, extractivism – plundering solely for profit – is playing an increasingly central role in their capitalist development and accumulation patterns. Extractivism and now neo-extractivism (which refers to an expanded role for the national state) are hotly debated throughout the left globally. For some it is seen as the only option for growth, and thus it must be socialized and mobilized as a lever of social and economic development. For others, it only enhances dependence on capitalist world markets controlled by monopolistic corporations, a problem further exacerbated by its ecological contradictions and reliance on practices of dispossession. Patrick Bond directs the University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Civil Society in Durban and is a political economist at the University of the Witwatersrand. He is author of Elite Transition (Pluto Press 2014) and Politics of Climate Justice (UKZN Press 2012) and co-editor of BRICS: An Anti-Capitalist Critique (Haymarket 2015). * * * About BRICS: An Anticapitalist Critique: The emergence of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa on a global stage has upset the dominance of the United States as the world’s only superpower. But can they chart a path toward a more just global economy? This collection, which brings together leading political economists from around the world, argues that the BRICS are actually amplifying some of the worst features of international capitalism. This book aims to fill a gap in studies of the BRICS grouping of countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). It provides a critical analysis of their economies, societies and geopolitical strategies within the framework of a global capitalism that is increasingly predatory, unequal and ecologically self-destructive — no more so than in the BRICS countries themselves. In unprecedented detail and with great innovation, the contributors consider theoretical traditions in political economy as applied to the BRICS, including “sub-imperialism,” the World System perspective and dynamics of territorial expansion. Only such an approach can interpret the potential for a “brics-from-below” uprising that appears likely to accompany the rise of the BRICS. Contributors: Elmar Altvater, Baruti Amisi, Patrick Bond, Omar Bonilla, Einar Braathen, Pedro Henrique Campos, Ruslan Dzarasov, Virginia Fontes, Ana Garcia, Ho-fung Hung, Richard Kamidza, Karina Kato, Claudio Katz, Mathias Luce, Farai Maguwu, Judith Marshall, Gilmar Mascarenhas, Sam Moyo, Leo Panitch, Bobby Peek, Gonzalo Pozo, Vijay Prashad, Niall Reddy, William Robinson, Susanne Soederberg, Celina Sørbøe, Achin Vanaik, Immanuel Wallerstein and Paris Yeros.