This can be a rush transcript. Replica might not be in its ultimate shape.AMY GOODMAN: That is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Struggle and Peace Document. I’m Amy Goodman.
We finish these days’s display with the summit of BRICS countries that concluded Thursday within the Russian town of Kazan as President Putin made a comeback to the worldwide level, internet hosting 36 international leaders and representatives from nations together with China, India, South Africa, Iran, even Palestine. Israel’s warfare on Gaza took middle level, with many heads of states difficult a direct ceasefire. Putin additionally confronted direct calls on the summit from a few of Russia’s maximum essential allies for Moscow to finish the warfare in Ukraine.
In the meantime, the BRICS coalition, which used to be based by way of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, formally added 13 new countries to the alliance as spouse nations, together with Bolivia, Cuba, Nigeria and Turkey.
For extra, we’re joined by way of two visitors. Right here in New York, Richard Wolff, professor of economics emeritus on the College of Massachusetts Amherst, visiting professor within the Graduate Program in Global Affairs at The New Faculty, founding father of Democracy at Paintings, writer of a number of books, together with, maximum lately, Figuring out Capitalism. And in Johannesburg, South Africa, we’re joined by way of the political economist Patrick Bond, outstanding professor and director of the Centre for Social Trade on the College of Johannesburg, his contemporary CounterPunch article headlined “Emerging Risks of Imperial and Sub-Imperial Partnering.”
We’re going to start with you, Patrick. Communicate concerning the importance of this BRICS summit.
PATRICK BOND: I should briefly say thanks for having me. But in addition, in 10 or 11 days, chances are you’ll know whether or not the good groups at Democracy at Paintings and Democracy Now! wish to be in exile as a result of democracy received’t be allowed. And also you’ll come to Johannesburg, and we’ll have an excessively tremendous web site in your manufacturing methods. It’s a really perfect deal with right here in this day and age.
And I feel the truth that we had the BRICS summit simply 14 months in the past — I used to be chatting and debating with Vijay Prashad, in conjunction with my colleague Trevor Ngwane. And it implies that within the present length, the place the de-dollarization rhetoric coming as much as this BRICS, as a result of Russia internet hosting it and being close out of the SWIFT device, having $600-and-some billion seized illegally by way of the Western banks, and now not getting loans, even from the BRICS New Building Financial institution, struggling sanctions, that intended a large number of consideration has been on whether or not Vladimir Putin and his crew can generate a de-dollarization technique. Sadly — and luckily, that didn’t transpire.
After which, since we’ve simply pop out of the Israeli genocide tale, now not the use of genocide within the Kazan Declaration on Wednesday evening, now not calling for sanctions, even supposing the United International locations Normal Meeting successfully did closing month, and now not acknowledging that 9 out of the ten BRICS nations have very winning relationships, like South Africa, primary coal exporter to Israel, and China and India having corporations that run the Haifa Port, it’s essential to flip the ones off and in point of fact put drive on Israel in the event that they in point of fact had the center. However we see them speaking left, strolling proper.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Richard Wolff, your takeaway from this BRICS summit? How ancient used to be it?
RICHARD WOLFF: In my judgment, and even supposing Patrick is correct about quite a few his criticisms, this can be a ancient turning level. I will not overstress it. Right here we’ve got, for the primary time in a century, a significant financial competitor to the US and its position on the earth. We’ve by no means noticed this sooner than within the lifetimes you, me and the folk staring at this program and paying attention to it. Listed below are a gaggle of nations that in combination have a bigger GDP, a better manufacturing, than the G7, the US and its allies. We haven’t had that sooner than. And the distance between them is rising. The industrial expansion of the US this yr, by way of the IMF, is scheduled to be 2.8%; in China, 4.8%; in India, 7%. So, they’re rising sooner than we’re. They’ve been doing it for many years. This can be a new financial international. And as an economist and an American, I’m aghast that our presidential election isn’t placing that entrance and ahead.
This can be a new international. Everyone else on the earth is adjusting to this truth. The American Empire and our device is in a decline relative to what the BRICS are about. Are there issues amongst them? Needless to say. Do they have got their faults? Completely. This isn’t just right and dangerous, however this is a radical alteration. And if we proceed as a country to faux it isn’t going down or it isn’t essential, we can proceed to make giant strategic errors, now not the least of which is to deliver us right into a warfare more or less scenario that individuals are already sensing may well be within the air.
AMY GOODMAN: I need to pass to Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, for his feedback on the BRICS summit.
PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN: [translated] We’re in contact with the management of Iran, in an excessively shut touch. We see our position in growing stipulations to settling the location by way of discovering mutual compromises. I feel it’s imaginable.
AMY GOODMAN: Patrick Bond, your reaction, the Russia-Iranian alliance, and likewise the newest information that North Korea is sending squaddies to Russia, possibly to combat in Ukraine?
PATRICK BOND: Smartly, the ones conflicts, Russia-Ukraine, are in order that tragic, since some a number of hundred thousand Ukrainian working-class other folks, and possibly 100,000 Russians, had been killed in what’s an influence snatch, that I feel is going out of doors my line of argument that it’s a subimperial — it’s a rogue subimperial, the best way Janet Yellen’s rogue imperial snatch of all the ones property might be described.
However, you already know, if I come again to the place Richard used to be pronouncing that that is another, it’s one thing new, it’s an actual problem, I should combat you on that, my outdated pal, as a result of I feel there’s now not an anti-imperial, however a subimperial, now not in opposition to, however inside. Simply bring to mind the worldwide price chain, my telephone that has the cobalt from kid exertions in China, in Chinese language mines within the jap DRC, then coming again right into a Western telephone. And those are the types of relationships we in point of fact should be restructuring, now not only a form of transferring of the deck chairs on an international capitalist Titanic, undoubtedly because the multilateral device expands. Subsequent month, there shall be, you already know, a G20. Closing yr in Delhi, the African Union used to be added. Because it expands to have extra legitimacy, with out converting the IMF and the Global Financial institution and the WTO in any substantive method, the BRICS are taking part in a better position, I feel, in amplifying the worst sides.
Simply as one ultimate instance, 51% of worldwide emissions come from those 10 nations, however they simply produce 29% of GDP. What it approach is, BRICS subsequent month pass to Azerbaijan for COP29. I’m certain Democracy Now!, as same old, will pass there and do state-of-the-art research. You’ll to find that the BRICS and the West are tightly allied in opposition to the remainder of us.
AMY GOODMAN: Closing phrase is going to Richard Wolff.
RICHARD WOLFF: Yeah, historical past does now not occur in a morality play. You’re now not going to have the dangerous disappear and changed by way of the nice. It’s by no means labored that method. What it’s a must to have is an research of what’s if truth be told occurring. And the unanimity, the dominance of the US is over. And the entire international is attempting to determine, each and every corporate on the earth, each and every nation: How do you navigate a brand new world order? The USA is pretending that, as a country, it doesn’t have to fret about this. And I’m afraid Patrick’s remarks will lead other folks to assume, “Smartly, there’s issues on their aspect, too” — which there are, however that misses the bigger historic phenomena. That is the primary critical financial pageant this nation has confronted, and the results of that shall be overwhelming to us.
AMY GOODMAN: We need to thanks each for being with us, Richard Wolff, economics professor, visiting professor at The New Faculty, and Patrick Bond, professor on the College of Johannesburg.
That does it for our display. Sure, Democracy Now! shall be in Baku, Azerbaijan, overlaying the U.N. local weather summit in mid-November. And song in on election evening, Tuesday, November fifth, for a four-hour Democracy Now! election particular, “Struggle, Peace and the Presidency.” Sign up for us from 8 p.m. to nighttime Jap, and any tv or radio station can take the published, as smartly. We’ll even be airing an expanded two-hour election display on Wednesday, November sixth. That does it for our display. Take a look at our activity listings at democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman. Thank you such a lot for becoming a member of us.
