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[Emmanuel Todd begs to differ:

https://unherd.com/thepost/emmanuel-todd-world-war-iii-has-already-begun/

The neoclowns in DC have blundered into an existential La Brea tar pit in the Ukraine.]

Ultimately, the West makes the machine tools and designs the products that are then assembled by menial workers elsewhere. When the BRICS finally arrive, the relationship will reverse. How many BRICS multi-nationals employ Americans and/or Europeans in menial jobs? Just about none. How did Japan and Korea know they had arrived? They started opening up plants in the US. The pay levels had gotten close enough, it made sense to have US operations to save on shipping and provide made-to-order products on a timely basis.

Even in the financial markets, the BRICS countries have been major league underperformers. Markets don’t lie. The companies based there are hamstrung by capricious governments that don’t really give a damn about corporate governance as long as they themselves can stay in power. That is the principal weakness of these countries - they jerk businesses around and have the power to do whatever they want to the private sector. It truly is an indictment of the BRICS economies that China’s is the best-run economy of the bunch, and it’s run no differently from the days when men in funny hats and man dresses ruled the roost - imperial charters for big businesses and routine shakedowns for the rest.