Brics and the New American Imperialism: Global Rivalry and Resistance

Product Description
Challenges the mainstream understanding of BRICS and US dominance to situate the new global rivalries engulfing capitalismBRICS is a grouping of the five major emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Volume five in the Democratic Marxism series, BRICS and the New American Imperialism challenges the mainstream understanding of BRICS and US dominance to situate the new global rivalries engulfing capitalism. It offers novel analyses of BRICS in the context of increasing US induced imperial chaos, deepening environmental crisis tendencies (such as climate change and water scarcity), contradictory dynamics inside BRICS countries and growing subaltern resistance. The authors revisit contemporary thinking on imperialism and anti-imperialism, drawing on the work of Rosa Luxemburg, one of the leading theorists after Marx, who attempted to understand the expansionary nature of capitalism from the heartlands to the peripheries. The richness of Luxemburg’s pioneering work inspires most of the volume’s contributors in their analyses of the dangerous contradictions of the contemporary world as well as forms of democratic agency advancing resistance.While various forms of resistance are highlighted, among them water protests, mass worker strikes, anti-corporate campaigning and forms of cultural critique, this volume grapples with the challenge of renewing anti-imperialism beyond the NGO-driven World Social Forum and considers the prospects of a new horizontal political vessel to build global convergence. It also explores the prospects of a Fifth International of Peoples and Workers.
Review
"This book brings together scholars from across the North-South axis to map the shifting fault lines of the world-system in a perilous conjuncture. What emerges is a rich cartography of rivalry and resistance that will speak to the knowledge interests of both scholars and activists―essential reading." -- Alf Gunvald Nilsen, professor, Department of Sociology, University of Pretoria

"This important volume foregrounds the burning questions facing a crisis-ridden capitalist system. It is an essential read for all those wanting to understand changing global power dynamics, so as to pose a social transformation agenda that transcends capitalism." -- Gunnett Kaaf, Marxist activist, South Africa

"Our barbaric present, marked by savage inequalities and ecological devastation, is rooted in the historical logic of imperialism. Building on Rosa Luxemburg’s brilliant theorising, this book shows why socialism is our only chance of survival." -- Jacklyn Cock, professor emeritus, Department of Sociology and research associate, Society, Work and Politics Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
About the Author
Vishwas Satgar, a democratic eco-socialist, is Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

Ferrial Adam is an environmental justice activist and is presently working towards her PhD on citizen science and environmental justice in South Africa’s water sector.

Samir Amin was one of Africa’s leading Marxists and world-systems analysts. He is well known for his work on non-Eurocentric Marxism, imperial rent, the global monopoly phase of capitalism, delinking; his call for a Fifth International of workers and peoples and his anti-imperialism.

Patrick Bond is Professor of Political Economy in the School of Governance at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

William K Carroll is Professor of Sociology at the University of Victoria and is co-director of the Corporate Mapping Project.