Beyond imperial/sub-imperial multipolarism

Abstract

The ‘multipolar’ project appears to some as an alternative to western-dominated imperialist power, especially to the corporate-oriented multilateral institutions. However, even if inroads are made by middle-income countries into formal share ownership and management of these institutions, it is evident that their successful assimilation of neoliberals from the Global South represents an untenable imperial/sub-imperial partnership. After all, the context for such deal-making includes periodic financial crises (catalysing the G20 in late 2008), a slow-down in GDP growth and global economic integration, banker-biased Western monetary policy (whose higher interest rates are causing worsening debt crises), the Covid-19 pandemic’s lessons about global public good provision (i.e., corporations’ Intellectual Property restrictions on vaccines and treatment), worsening ecological crises, extreme inequality, rising proto-fascist reactions, geopolitical turmoil, devastating warfare and even a genocide unmitigated by a disapproving (albeit tokenistic) international judicial order. The renewed emphasis on an expanding Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa BRICS+ may continue to spark a false hope especially in ‘de-dollarisation’ and the roles of a few small ‘alternative’ institutions. Instead, a genuine solidaristic, bottom-up, non-polar internationalism is required now, to transcend both the futile imperial/sub-imperial partnerships and the false dawn of BRICS+ multipolarism.