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沃尔夫教授：金砖国家的扩张是对美国主导的世界秩序的巨大挫折
https://openthemagazine.com/feature/expansion-brics-huge-setback-world-order-dominated-us-prof-wolff/
金砖国家新增六名成员，人口占世界一半以上，石油产量占全球 43%
乌勒克 NP | 2023 年 8 月 25 日
理查德·沃尔夫（Richard D. Wolff），美国经济学家、公共知识分子和电台主持人
从明年 1 月 1 日起，金砖国家集团（目前由巴西、俄罗斯、印度、中国和南非组成）将有六个新成员加入，这是一个响亮的宣言，表明新的世界经济已经到来，一个不再是过去的经济体。 美国著名经济学家和公共知识分子理查德·D·沃尔夫表示，美国及其盟国主导了这一领域。
“现在，每个南方国家在获得发展贷款、赠款、投资和贸易伙伴方面都有两种选择，而不是一种。 两者（西方和金砖国家）将争夺合同和交易，”马萨诸塞大学阿默斯特分校经济学名誉教授、新学院国际事务研究生项目客座教授沃尔夫指出。
沃尔夫是哈佛大学、斯坦福大学和耶鲁大学的校友，他表示这一发展意义重大，因为它改变了 1945 年以来的全球经济现状。 现在比金砖国家的 GDP 总和（在扩展到五个现有金砖国家成员之前）小几个百分点。”
约翰内斯堡峰会上宣布的金砖国家新成员是沙特阿拉伯、伊朗、阿联酋、阿根廷、埃及和埃塞俄比亚。 这意味着新金砖国家将占世界人口的一半以上，并且由于中东主要产油国的存在，其石油产量将占全球的43%。 埃塞俄比亚是非洲增长最快的经济体之一，阿根廷是重要金属的主要生产国，最近锂矿开采业蓬勃发展。
《经济更新》周刊的作者和主持人、“工作中的民主”媒体平台创始人沃尔夫指出，从长远来看，金砖国家的崛起和扩张标志着美帝国的进一步衰落， 美国资本主义在很大程度上依赖于这个帝国。 “美国全球经济足迹的下降，美元作为央行储备持有量的下降，美元作为全球贸易、投资和贷款货币的下降——这些都是美国角色减弱的迹象和症状， ”这位曾在耶鲁大学和纽约城市大学教授经济学的资深经济学家说道。
尽管与联合国或世界银行不同，金砖国家是一个多边组织，但金砖国家的重点领域包括地缘政治和经济合作。 金砖四国成立于2009年，由俄罗斯发起，南非于2010年加入该组织。其成立的目的是挑战美国主导的世界秩序。 截至目前，已有40个国家表示有兴趣加入金砖国家。
据路透社援引南非政府声明的报道，阿尔及利亚、玻利维亚、印度尼西亚、古巴、刚果民主共和国、科摩罗、加蓬和哈萨克斯坦等国家表示有兴趣加入该论坛， 主持了 8 月 24 日结束的金砖国家年度峰会。顺便说一句，金砖国家于 2015 年创建了新开发银行（NDB），原名金砖国家开发银行，旨在“为新兴国家的基础设施和可持续发展项目调动资源”。 市场和发展中国家”。
沃尔夫表示，美国现在的经历就是大英帝国和英国资本主义在 1945 年之前的一个世纪所遭受的苦难。 特朗普、白人至上主义的复兴等等。 总而言之，这些都是美国不稳定的症状。”
对于扩大后的金砖国家集团所面临的挑战，沃尔夫解释道：“金砖国家之间当然存在分歧、紧张和冲突（包括前五个国家，现在甚至更多的金砖国家）。 七国集团的情况也大致如此。 此外，两个集团的国家内部也存在分歧：每个集团的领导层在如何参与新的全球经济方面存在分歧，两个集团每个国家的雇主和雇员之间也存在分歧。 这些分歧将决定集团如何演变，就像不断发展的新全球经济对这些分歧的影响一样。 当我们考虑到气候危机的影响以及世界迄今为止对此反应不足时，一个简单的预测是，一个重大社会变革的时代正在向我们所有人逼近。”
他还警告说。 “现在的一个关键问题是，美国是否会部署军事手段来试图控制或扭转其衰落，或者七国集团和金砖国家之间的全球和解是否会成为美国的外交政策。” 他表示，美国商界内部的强大力量支持并资助宽松政策。 他警告说，那些渴望回到美帝国时代及其资助的美国经济增长的人将推动军事冒险，例如乌克兰战争中的军事冒险。
Expansion of BRICS a huge setback to the world order dominated by the US: Prof Wolff
Thanks to six new members, BRICS represents more than half of the world’s population and 43% of global oil production
Ullekh NP 
| 25 Aug, 2023
Richard D. Wolff, American economist, public intellectual and radio host
The inclusion from January 1 next year of six new members to the grouping known as BRICS, which currently comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, is a loud proclamation that a new world economy is here, an economy that is no longer dominated by the US and its allies, says renowned American economist and public intellectual Richard D. Wolff.
“Every Global South country now has two options, not one, in securing development loans, grants, investments, and trading partners. The two (the West and BRICS) will compete to secure contracts and deals,” notes Wolff, Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs at the New School.
An alumnus of Harvard College, Stanford University, and Yale University, Wolff says that this development is momentous as it alters the global economic status quo in place since 1945. “The single key statistic cementing this situation is that the total GDP of the G7 is now several percentage points smaller than the total GDP of the BRICS (before expansion beyond the five current BRICS members).”
The new members of BRICS, announced at its Johannesburg summit, are Saudi Arabia, Iran, the UAE, Argentina, Egypt and Ethiopia. This means the new BRICS will represent more than half of the world’s population and, thanks to the presence of major oil-producing countries in the Middle East, account for 43% of global oil production. Ethiopia is one of the fastest-growing economies in Africa, and Argentina is a major producer of crucial metals and has seen a boom lately in lithium mining.
Wolff, author and host of a weekly programme titled ‘Economic Update’ and founder of the media platform ‘Democracy at Work’, points out that in the longer run, the rise and expansion of BRICS mark the further decline of the US empire and thus of US capitalism that significantly depends on that empire. “The declining global economic footprint of the US, the decline of the US dollar as a central bank reserve holding, the decline of the dollar as the global trading, investment and loan currency – these are all signs and symptoms of the reduced US role,” says the veteran economist who had earlier taught economics at Yale University and City University of New York.
Although it is a multilateral organization unlike the United Nations or the World Bank, BRICS’ focus areas include geopolitics and economic cooperation. Formed as BRIC in 2009 and initiated by Russia, South Africa was added to the grouping in 2010. It was founded with the aim of challenging the world order dominated by the US. As of now, 40 more countries have expressed interest in joining BRICS.
Algeria, Bolivia, Indonesia, Cuba, Democratic Republic of Congo, Comoros, Gabon, and Kazakhstan are some of the countries that have expressed interest in joining the forum, according to a report by Reuters that quoted a statement from the government of South Africa, which chaired the latest BRICS annual summit that ended on August 24. Incidentally, BRICS had in 2015 created the New Development Bank (NDB), formerly called the BRICS Development Bank, with the aim of “mobilising resources for infrastructure and sustainable development projects in emerging markets and developing countries”.
Wolff says that the US’s experience now is what the British Empire and British capitalism had suffered in the century before 1945. “The consequences of the US decline are already visible domestically in a strange and dangerous domestic civil splitting, the bizarre politics of (Donald) Trump, the resurgence of white supremacy, and so on. Taken together these are symptoms of a destabilising US.”
As with the challenges for an expanded BRICS bloc, Wolff explains, “There are, of course, differences, tensions, and conflicts among the BRICS (both the first five and now even more among the additions to come). Much the same is true among the G7. Then too there are splits within countries in both blocs: splits in each blocs’ leaderships over how to engage in this new global economy and also splits between employers and employees within each country in both blocs. These splits will shape how the blocs evolve every bit as much as the evolving new global economy will influence those splits. When one adds to all that the effects of the climate crisis and the world’s inadequate response to that so far, the easy prediction is that a time of major social change is bearing down on us all.”
He also cautions. “One key question now is whether the US will deploy military means to try to control or reverse its decline or whether a global accommodation between the G7 and the BRICS will become US foreign policy.” According to him, strong forces within the US business community favour and fund movement toward accommodation. Those desperate for a return to the times of the US Empire and the US economic growth it funded will push toward military adventures such as those in play in the Ukraine War, he warns.
