The formation of the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) network is one of the main fe... more The formation of the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) network is one of the main features of twenty-first century geopolitics, far exceeding in scope the investment strategy in BRIC economies that was identified by a senior Goldman Sachs banker, Jim O’Neill, in 2001. O’Neill may have kick-started this process as part of the standard Goldman Sachs approach to investment ‘churning’ (by 2013 the bank shut down its BRIC fund after poor returns), but it took on a life of its own. In 2006, a meeting between BRIC countries took place on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly. However, it was with the global financial crisis that the economic role of the BRICS gained prominence, especially insofar as financial bailouts and currency printing initially failed to restore growth, leaving the Chinese and Indian economies as drivers of global capitalism. Amidst two decades of unprecedened economic growth and significant political developments across the BRICS regimes, grand claims have been offered about the way BRICS will rebalance the world and ensure good global governance. This essay considers the opposite, namely that a resurgent imperialism is being facilitated by BRICS politics. This functions in three ways. First, global capitalist crisis tendencies are amplified by centrifugal forces emanating from BRICS economies. Second, the neoliberal character of multilateral institutions, especially in the spheres of finance, trade, and climate politics, is also amplified as the BRICS gain a seat at the table. Third, BRICS-based corporations, along with their states acting in a subimperial manner, are vital forces in super-exploitative accumulation within their respective regions and beyond. In our view, the centripetal forces supposedly pulling the world more tightly together through globalization had by 2018 reached their limits, and centrifugal pressures had begun to emerge. The BRICS were now very much part of a world turned upside down, and in many respects driving the process
South Africa’s welfare state expansion is said to be one of the leading ‘social democratic’ achie... more South Africa’s welfare state expansion is said to be one of the leading ‘social democratic’ achievements of the post-apartheid era. However, overwhelmingly tokenistic features – including a neoliberal (fiscally-austere) context, the extension (not transformation) of apartheid’s inheritance, and commercialisation of state services – mean the deeper crises of society and economy are not being addressed effectively by the state. This is evident in the foundational approach to social policy, and in the funding associated with the Child Support Grant, the Older Person’s Grant and various other specific programmes. In contrast, alternative strategies of decommodification are being pursued by civil society activists, although transformative macro-economic policy and a new political coalition – perhaps the ‘United Front’ called by the metalworkers union – are prerequisites for the ‘nonreformist reforms’ needed.
South Africa’s welfare state expansion is said to be one of the leading “social democratic” achie... more South Africa’s welfare state expansion is said to be one of the leading “social democratic” achievements of the post-apartheid era. However, tokenistic features – including a neoliberal (fiscally-austere) context, the extension (not transformation) of apartheid’s inheritance, and commercialization of state services – mean the deeper crises of society and economy are not being effectively mitigated, in spite of alternative strategies of decommodification pursued by civil society activists. South Africa is the world’s most unequal large country, judging by the Gini Coefficient, with more than 10 000 protests recorded by police annually. Yet its political leaders include many who were formidable revolutionaries, trained in Moscow exile at the Lenin Institute, or in the fires of internal struggles where conflicts over social reproduction were as important as any component of the freedom struggle. These men and women did service to the cause of justice in the most liberatory sites of str...
In their own battles and strategy meetings since the early 1980s, EJOs (environmental justice org... more In their own battles and strategy meetings since the early 1980s, EJOs (environmental justice organizations) and their networks have introduced several concepts to political ecology that have also been taken up by academics and policy makers. In this paper, we explain the contexts in which such notions have arisen, providing definitions of a wide array of concepts and slogans related to environmental inequities and sustainability, and explore the connections and relations between them. These concepts include: environmental justice, ecological debt, popular epidemiology, environmental racism, climate justice, environmentalism of the poor, water justice, biopiracy, food sovereignty, "green deserts",…
International journal of health services : planning, administration, evaluation, 2015
In South Africa, at a time when National Health Insurance should be generously funded (7 years af... more In South Africa, at a time when National Health Insurance should be generously funded (7 years after its approval as public policy by the ruling party), state fiscal austerity appears certain to nip the initiative in the bud. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund issued separate reports about South Africa in late 2014, following a new finance minister's mid-term budget speech. In justifying austerity, they revealed 2 important conceptual blockages regarding inequality and international financial relations. The resulting political bias in the macroeconomic debate has, in turn, given neoliberal policy advocates intellectual weaponry to impose deeper austerity. In contrast, the rise of a "united front" of labor, community-based, and social movement activists, along with a vigorous left opposition party in Parliament, ensure that one of the world's most visible class struggles ratchets up in intensity in the years ahead.
Introduction: The coming climate catastrophe The international debate over climate change is heat... more Introduction: The coming climate catastrophe The international debate over climate change is heating up, the more irrefutable evidence of global warming we see emerging. The overarching problem is well known to South Africans who follow the news; less understood - if at all - is this country's responsibility for the world's overdose of greenhouse gases. Like filthy laundry, it sometimes
The formation of the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) network is one of the main fe... more The formation of the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) network is one of the main features of twenty-first century geopolitics, far exceeding in scope the investment strategy in BRIC economies that was identified by a senior Goldman Sachs banker, Jim O’Neill, in 2001. O’Neill may have kick-started this process as part of the standard Goldman Sachs approach to investment ‘churning’ (by 2013 the bank shut down its BRIC fund after poor returns), but it took on a life of its own. In 2006, a meeting between BRIC countries took place on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly. However, it was with the global financial crisis that the economic role of the BRICS gained prominence, especially insofar as financial bailouts and currency printing initially failed to restore growth, leaving the Chinese and Indian economies as drivers of global capitalism. Amidst two decades of unprecedened economic growth and significant political developments across the BRICS regimes, grand claims have been offered about the way BRICS will rebalance the world and ensure good global governance. This essay considers the opposite, namely that a resurgent imperialism is being facilitated by BRICS politics. This functions in three ways. First, global capitalist crisis tendencies are amplified by centrifugal forces emanating from BRICS economies. Second, the neoliberal character of multilateral institutions, especially in the spheres of finance, trade, and climate politics, is also amplified as the BRICS gain a seat at the table. Third, BRICS-based corporations, along with their states acting in a subimperial manner, are vital forces in super-exploitative accumulation within their respective regions and beyond. In our view, the centripetal forces supposedly pulling the world more tightly together through globalization had by 2018 reached their limits, and centrifugal pressures had begun to emerge. The BRICS were now very much part of a world turned upside down, and in many respects driving the process
South Africa’s welfare state expansion is said to be one of the leading ‘social democratic’ achie... more South Africa’s welfare state expansion is said to be one of the leading ‘social democratic’ achievements of the post-apartheid era. However, overwhelmingly tokenistic features – including a neoliberal (fiscally-austere) context, the extension (not transformation) of apartheid’s inheritance, and commercialisation of state services – mean the deeper crises of society and economy are not being addressed effectively by the state. This is evident in the foundational approach to social policy, and in the funding associated with the Child Support Grant, the Older Person’s Grant and various other specific programmes. In contrast, alternative strategies of decommodification are being pursued by civil society activists, although transformative macro-economic policy and a new political coalition – perhaps the ‘United Front’ called by the metalworkers union – are prerequisites for the ‘nonreformist reforms’ needed.
South Africa’s welfare state expansion is said to be one of the leading “social democratic” achie... more South Africa’s welfare state expansion is said to be one of the leading “social democratic” achievements of the post-apartheid era. However, tokenistic features – including a neoliberal (fiscally-austere) context, the extension (not transformation) of apartheid’s inheritance, and commercialization of state services – mean the deeper crises of society and economy are not being effectively mitigated, in spite of alternative strategies of decommodification pursued by civil society activists. South Africa is the world’s most unequal large country, judging by the Gini Coefficient, with more than 10 000 protests recorded by police annually. Yet its political leaders include many who were formidable revolutionaries, trained in Moscow exile at the Lenin Institute, or in the fires of internal struggles where conflicts over social reproduction were as important as any component of the freedom struggle. These men and women did service to the cause of justice in the most liberatory sites of str...
In their own battles and strategy meetings since the early 1980s, EJOs (environmental justice org... more In their own battles and strategy meetings since the early 1980s, EJOs (environmental justice organizations) and their networks have introduced several concepts to political ecology that have also been taken up by academics and policy makers. In this paper, we explain the contexts in which such notions have arisen, providing definitions of a wide array of concepts and slogans related to environmental inequities and sustainability, and explore the connections and relations between them. These concepts include: environmental justice, ecological debt, popular epidemiology, environmental racism, climate justice, environmentalism of the poor, water justice, biopiracy, food sovereignty, "green deserts",…
International journal of health services : planning, administration, evaluation, 2015
In South Africa, at a time when National Health Insurance should be generously funded (7 years af... more In South Africa, at a time when National Health Insurance should be generously funded (7 years after its approval as public policy by the ruling party), state fiscal austerity appears certain to nip the initiative in the bud. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund issued separate reports about South Africa in late 2014, following a new finance minister's mid-term budget speech. In justifying austerity, they revealed 2 important conceptual blockages regarding inequality and international financial relations. The resulting political bias in the macroeconomic debate has, in turn, given neoliberal policy advocates intellectual weaponry to impose deeper austerity. In contrast, the rise of a "united front" of labor, community-based, and social movement activists, along with a vigorous left opposition party in Parliament, ensure that one of the world's most visible class struggles ratchets up in intensity in the years ahead.
Introduction: The coming climate catastrophe The international debate over climate change is heat... more Introduction: The coming climate catastrophe The international debate over climate change is heating up, the more irrefutable evidence of global warming we see emerging. The overarching problem is well known to South Africans who follow the news; less understood - if at all - is this country's responsibility for the world's overdose of greenhouse gases. Like filthy laundry, it sometimes
This collection, edited by Rozena Maart from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, is ... more This collection, edited by Rozena Maart from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, is composed of an introduction, seventeen articles by eighteen authors, two opinion pieces, two roundtables by eight authors, two of whom have articles in the collection, three interviews and three book reviews, and as such contain the work of twenty-eight contributors. Critiques of racism, definitions of decolonisation and decoloniality, histories of enslavement, coloniser – colonised relations, the coloniality of language, the colonial teaching practices of empire colonies, Black and racialised bodies as sites of racism and colonisation in the afterlife of apartheid, the recolonised economy, and the European colonial curricula that continue to support such practices, especially in law schools in South Africa, run between and among the work in this collection.
Upsetting the Offset engages critically with the political economy of carbon markets. It presents... more Upsetting the Offset engages critically with the political economy of carbon markets. It presents a range of case studies and critiques from around the world, showing how the scam of carbon markets affects the lives of communities. But the book doesn’t stop there. It also presents a number of alternatives to carbon markets which enable communities to live in real low-carbon futures.
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Papers by Patrick Bond
eighteen authors, two opinion pieces, two roundtables by eight authors, two of whom have articles in the collection, three interviews and three book reviews, and as such contain the work of twenty-eight contributors. Critiques of racism, definitions of decolonisation and decoloniality, histories of enslavement, coloniser – colonised relations, the coloniality of language, the colonial teaching practices of empire colonies, Black and racialised bodies as sites of racism and colonisation in the afterlife of apartheid, the recolonised economy, and the European colonial curricula that continue to support such practices, especially in law schools in South Africa, run between and among the work in this collection.