BRICS nations announced a new currency designed to replace the dollar.The creation of this new gold and commodity backed currency will be discussed at the BRICS summit this August.
BT’s Kei Pritsker explains how this new currency could overturn the hegemony of the US dollar.
I think this is the single most important development that’s come out of the whole Ukraine affair.
The lack of national liberation struggles and proletarian revolutions since the fall us the USSR isn’t just happenstance and not simply due to the CIA, USAID, NED, not even due to US military pressure, it’s due to dollar hegemony and the US dominated global financial system.
As the video correctly says “countries need the US dollar to function”. No access to the dollar - your country is fucked. Afghanistan is the prime example for this. This meant no proletarian movement ever had a chance these past 30 years, because it literally couldn’t have functioned in this global economy. US doesn’t like you, no dollar, no oil, country stops - material basis for national liberation gone. Possibly the only country in the world capable of extracting itself from the dollar and surviving is/was Russia because of its unique position in history (emerging from the USSR) and the globe. The biggest producer and exporter of critical commodities, a large manufacturing base, bordering China with good relations to the Global South inherited from the USSR.
The US sanctions regime and especially the economic war on Russia since last year has essentially created dual power globally. The largest material force for counterrevolution - the US dollar system - is fading and only because of this can national liberation and proletarian movements even have a chance at success and survival again.
So while history isn’t deterministic and it is not predetermined that socialism will emerge out of this, the singularity of US counterrevolutionary hegemony is dying and it can’t be replaced by anything remotely similar, because the conditions for the emergence of US hegemony (2 world wars, global position, etc) can’t be replicated. But we finally have the possibility of success again.
But we should also be careful. As empire’s profits and ability to project power externally fades, class antagonisms and repression will heighten internally. We’re already seeing this and it will not decrease. Inflation and real-wage decreases are only the beginning. As the imperial core declines, the material necessity for lowering compensation of domestic workers to bare subsistence levels will increase and accordingly will repression.
I think there’s two things that we need to figure out.
what happens in the imperial core when the middle class falls?
what happens in the semi-industrialized 3rd world when the core can’t afford to buy consumer goods?
You definitely raise the right questions and it’ll be worrisome and interesting as hell watching this unfold. It’s critical we have some deep understanding of them going forward, but just from the top of my head:
1.) Judging by history external military defeat, falling profits and the proletarization and pauperization in the imperial core lead to fascism. Without the USSR as a counterweight and much much weaker labour and communist movements than in the 20s this seems fairly likely.
2.) Much more interesting and much more difficult to answer imo. Actually I can’t even give an offhand answer to that. The only good thing for those countries are those industrial capabilities. Unlike eg China and Russia on the eve of their revolutions, they already are at a much more advanced stage of development of the productive forces. Those aren’t just cashcrops either, so there’s value to them beyond Western consumption. As for their states, we can only hope a lack of imperial money and coercion as stabilizers would leave them ripe for revolution.
But what does “fascism” look like in this context? Does the USA invade Mexico and Canada? Does it invade Europe? Africa? Clearly it can commit mass atrocities on its own people, but there’s got to be a strategy in mind beyond just domestic cruelty.
@freagle @genzedong Whoops sorry this is an accident ignore this please