L. L. FITUNI

Doctor of Economics Institute of Africa, Russian Academy of Sciences

world economy Keywords:, development models, developing countries, BRICS, multipolarity, catch-up development

LEADERS OF CATCH-UP DEVELOPMENT IN THE NEW MODEL OF THE WORLD ECONOMY

QUESTIONS OF THEORY, ARTICLE 1

Over the past year, many articles have appeared in the world literature, including in our magazine, mostly of a political-journalistic and reference-informational nature, devoted to BRICS ( BRICS) - the unification of large and populous countries of the world with fast-growing economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). Although it has not yet found its final outlines and continues to search for optimal forms and directions of activity, it is steadily gaining strength and quickly establishing itself in the global economy and politics. At the same time, other groups of countries (MIKT, NEXT-11) are increasingly mentioned in the press, claiming to be promising leaders of catch-up development.

The article published below is perhaps one of the first attempts to go further and deeper than the current analysis, and to understand the BRICS phenomenon from the point of view of the theory of the world economy and fundamental economic science, as well as to cover in more detail the constantly discussed issue of "alternative" leaders of the world economy of the XXI century.

The object of studying the world economy as a specific branch of economic science is both the development of world productive forces and the relations that arise at the international level in the process of reproduction between its participants. At the same time, knowledge of development problems implies and invariably includes the study of issues of economic competition and competition at the global, regional, country and industry levels - the rise of some actors and the overthrow of others.

At present, the world economy is going through another stage of deep restructuring of the established paradigms of relations that have developed in it over many decades. As history shows, such transformations occur periodically and, as a rule, are accompanied by long-term crisis phenomena in the world economy and significant changes in the balance of power of the main economic centers of power in the world. Today, the BRICS countries are becoming one of these "towering" poles of the new model of world economic development (IEDD), and what is especially new and interesting, both individually and as an emerging whole - so far somewhat amorphous, but already, without a doubt, having an obvious weight of political and economic development. associations of global significance.

Russian researchers with different political positions tend to associate the emergence of the BRICS phenomenon with the manifestation of the so-called law of uneven development, the essence of which is that countries that enter the path of capitalist development later develop faster. The rapid rise and strengthening of new centers of economic power, as history shows, leads at least to a relative narrowing of the opportunities and positions of the old ones.

New and old world actors are drawn into resource, trade, political, diplomatic and other "zero-sum games", in which the improvement (sometimes imaginary) of the situation of one side will inevitably be perceived as a deterioration of the situation of the other-

goy. Throughout history, one can observe many examples of competition between "old" and "new players", and then the replacement of the former by the latter as first the locomotives of world economic growth, and then the dominant centers of global economic development. At all stages of history, the "new players" were essentially the leaders of catch-up development.

The peculiarity of our time is that the number of the latter has noticeably increased. They are increasingly trying to coordinate their actions to transform the IMER to their advantage. The evolution of BRICS is just an example of this. These countries are being modernized faster and, as some researchers believe, more effectively than others in relation to China, reducing their lag behind highly developed countries.

Due to increased attention to the problems of modernization in the world as a whole and in our country, in particular, interest in economic theories of catch-up development has begun to revive. The works published in the world in the last decade summarize the experience of modernization in general, both in developed and developing countries. Today's works, of course, are quite far removed from the classic works of the 1950s-1960s, written by the founders and ideologists of various variations of this concept-P. A. Shishkin. Bauer, K. Clark, A. Hirschman, A. Lewis, G. Myrdal, R. Prebisch, J. Tinbergen, R. Furtado, applied almost exclusively to the "third world".

The peculiarity of modern domestic developments is that researchers most often seek to generalize the experience of catching up with the socio-economic development of a number of dynamically developing countries in East Asia and Latin America, identify general patterns of such development and identify its limits, and assess the possibilities of using this experience in Russia.¹

The time has come to take a new approach to understanding the phenomenon of catch-up development, highlighting in its composition as a specific object of scientific research a group of leading countries that play a special role in shaping the face of the modern world economy. The BRICS countries, in our opinion, are one of the most important examples of such leadership, and therefore the subject of in-depth study.

UPDATING THE CATEGORICAL STRUCTURE

Perhaps for the first time in history, it opens (albeit to a large extent as an opportunity) the prospect of close cooperation and rapprochement within the framework of a coordinated political and economic project of countries that are very distant from each other, that are heterogeneous in economic, political weight, and even in civilizational and cultural memory.

It is also clear that without meaningful and purposeful steps, in other words, without political will, such a project would not have been possible. And these steps seem to have already been taken. Now it would be too early and irresponsible to predict how successful such a project can become in the long term. However, it is potentially supported by the main trends of global political development and the emerging vectors of transformation of the global model of economic development.

When we talk about the IERD, we mean, first of all, stable and repetitive paradigms of building international social relations (related to production, distribution, exchange and consumption in the world economy), which were formed at a certain historical stage of human development and generally reflected the established balance of forces in the world economy at a given level and nature technological and economic development ².

The emergence of BRICS as a political and economic phenomenon is connected both with the change in the international economic relations and with the phenomenon that in modern political and economic discourse is usually called the category of "polarity" in global international relations (both political and economic, military-strategic and even cultural).

THE PRIMAKOV DOCTRINE

The concept of multipolarity was known long before the emergence of the situation at the beginning of this millennium. Back in the 1940s, Hans Morgenthau, an American political scientist, is widely recognized as the founder and head of the school of pragmatism in the theory of international relations, also known as the" realist "school. Realpolitik), pointed out that the multipolar system has certain advantages (although without going into a detailed analysis of the system itself)³. In the 1970s, Kenneth Waltz, a representative of the already "Neorealist" school, defended the view that a bipolar system of international relations is more stable in its functioning than a multipolar one. ⁴

Speaking not only about the theoretical, but also the applied aspect of the concept of multipolarity in connection with the modern problems of BRICS, we should focus on the special role of Academician E. M. Primakov. Back in the first half of the 1990s, when the foreign policy line of the "Kozyrev" Foreign Ministry was clearly embedded in the wake of the flagship of the monopolar world-the United States, this authoritative orientalist and respected politician put forward the idea of trilateral cooperation between Russia, India and China. Its main starting points became the subject of public political discourse after a bold publication in Nezavisimaya Gazeta at that time.⁵

* A.V. Kozyrev - Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia (1990-1996). Since January 1998-Member of the Board of Directors of the American corporation "1CN Pharmaceuticals". Since 2007-banker, Chairman of the Board of Directors of JSCB Investtorgbank (author's note).

The conceptual approaches of the scientist turned out to be a real alternative to the quasi-totalitarian, in its essence, doctrine of a unipolar world. Having become the Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1996, E. M. Primakov tried to promote the practical implementation of his views, which gradually, and at first rather slowly, began to form an independent foreign policy doctrine in Russia, within the framework of what was possible in those difficult years. Later, when its creator headed the Russian government, it received further development and new opportunities for practical implementation.

The West, misled by the humiliated state of Russia in the early 1990s, realized relatively late the real power of the new conceptual approach. Many analysts attributed its first manifestations to confusion in the ranks of the Russian political elite, which is not looking for new ideas to preserve itself as such. ⁶ Others, contrary to the logic of the concept itself and common sense, tried to classify it as "continuing imperial ambitions." ⁷

However, some Russian authors still tend to see the Primakov doctrine only as a tool for international maneuvering in difficult political and economic conditions. Moreover, they believe that "under Yeltsin, Russian ideas of balancing the West with large developing countries were perceived in the United States and Europe as a naive game that could not deceive anyone." ⁸

Thus, at first, the ideas of E. M. Primakov were interpreted by many in a rather narrow sense as certain foreign policy guidelines of routine diplomatic work, which also have dubious prospects, and not as a conceptual vision of an independent and very productive model for building international relations in the globalizing world of the XXI century. Echoes of such views are still found today and are reduced mainly to the formula: "How do you think this BRICS venture can turn out anything worthwhile?"

Meanwhile, a decade later, under the influence of objective processes taking place in the world, and thanks to the efforts of diplomats and politicians who correctly understand these processes and rely on them in their work, the theoretical concept took on practical outlines and began to turn into a "self-fulfilling prophecy".

Of course, its dissemination was promoted not only by the correct vision of the developers of promising vectors of development of the world community. It is incorrect and even naive to believe that the phenomenon of multipolarity we are considering is only an artificially created product of armchair scientific thought or strategic constructions of politicians. It is objective in its essence, and the success of the practical implementation of the political concept is explained by the fact that it not only does not contradict, but rather proceeds from objective processes: the rise of new global economic centers in the world and the relative weakening of the old ones.

Today, the very term "multipolarity "for the vast majority of those who use it has lost its" anti-Western " connotation. It is adopted by European and American analysts, as well as leading international institutions. For example, the World Bank (WB) titled one of its recent major forecast reports "Multipolarity. New Global Economy " ⁹.

FROM MULTIPOLARITY TO POLYCENTRICITY

For most of the second half of the twentieth century, the world was virtually bipolar. The two poles of political, economic, and military power confronted each other: the capitalist and socialist camps, led by the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, respectively. Immediately after the collapse of the world system of socialism, the world found itself in a situation where the surviving superpower claimed to be the only power pole in the monopolar world it led. The illusion of stability of such a world order lasted approximately until the US Iraq adventure*, after which it became obvious that the forces of the "lone superpower" were overstretched, and the world system was moving towards multipolarity and polycentricity.

Multipolarity implies the existence of several "different - order" poles of power in the world-military, civilizational, political and economic. In specific historical and socio-economic conditions, the category "pole of power" can refer to either an individual Power or a group of States, but, in principle, also to non-State actors.

Let us clarify, however, that, from an economic point of view, the monopolarity stage, in our opinion, did not come at all. And here's why.

In the first 20 years after the end of World War II, the world Economic Development model (IEDM) and the world economic system were bipolar. In the post-war World Economic Forum, there was one global pole of power within the world capitalist system and the world system of socialism, represented, respectively, by the United States and the USSR. They also acted as two opposing global centers of economic power.

However, later, with the restoration of farms, in a number of countries around the world, this "two-center" system began to rapidly collapse. Global geopolitical bipolarity in the form of a confrontation between world systems persisted, but within the country it was competing.-

* In 2002-2003, the US administration made great efforts to prove that Saddam Hussein's regime was a danger to the international community. On March 20, 2003, the United States, with the participation of a number of allies, began the war in Iraq.

polycentricity was becoming more and more pronounced in most systems. Along with the main leader, Polyus, there were additional centers of power, mainly economic. Experience shows that within the same model of global economic development, the number of "poles" and "centers" may not coincide. For example, as shown above, the two-pole world of the 1970s and 1980s was polycentric. Under the leadership of two superpowers, three "world centers of capitalism" (the United States, the EEC, and Japan) and two of socialism (the USSR and the PRC) coexisted in it.

The concept of "polycentricity "in its practical manifestations is very close in content to the category of"multipolarity". However, these are not identical concepts. Today, both terms are often used interchangeably, and the phrase "polycentric world" is becoming more and more fixed as the main one.

At the same time, there was a three-term division of the world, which distinguished another category of countries - the "third world", which included developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. This division had several variations, but generally corresponds to the classical "world-system" approaches of the American Immanuel Wallerstein, or the theory of dependent development of the Egyptian Samir Amin and their followers, in which the world Center, Semi-Periphery and Periphery, and/or the First, Second and Third Worlds are differentiated.¹⁰

The paradigms of development of the world economy that have existed for decades and the relationships between the actors operating in it are undergoing profound changes. Accordingly, the categorical apparatus used also changes. At the same time, unfortunately, the clarity of individual definitions is also lost. The use of terms began to allow for an increased degree of"blurring".

For example, the term "developing countries "(which in Soviet science was in practice synonymous with the phrases" third world"," liberated countries "and" countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America") is now used very loosely in domestic publications and abroad. Today, as a scientific category, it is far removed from the specific semantic content of the 1970s-1980s and is used very freely, if not arbitrarily.

DIFFICULTIES IN CLASSIFICATION

In many scientific papers and some (but not all) publications of international organizations (the World Bank, UNCTAD), the category "developing countries"is still widespread and often appears in its original meaning. At the same time, for statistical and specific analytical purposes, a technically more advanced system of dividing all countries by geographical principle (7 regions), by income level (6 groups), and by debt criteria (4 groups) is also used.

Due to the obvious vagueness of the term "developing countries" and the frequent conflict situations that arise in connection with the inclusion or non-inclusion of specific states among them, many modern Western studies and official publications either refuse to use it at all, introducing their own criteria for differentiating countries, or include or exclude individual states in developing countries at their discretion. ¹¹.

In the latter case, well-established scientific criteria for classifying States as developing countries are not always met.: 1) the level of economic development (the volume of GDP per capita, the structure of production, the level of industrialization); 2) the social structure of the economy (the nature of ownership, the sectoral structure of the population); 3) the type of economic growth and 4) the level and nature of their foreign economic relations (the degree of openness of the economy, the place of the external sector in the national economy).

Particular difficulties arise with the classification of BRICS countries. The root of the problem lies in the ambivalent position of these countries, which are very close in their "quantitative" economic characteristics to the First World/Center, but in most of their qualitative characteristics-still gravitating to the Periphery/developing countries.

As a result, in different classifications, Russia is now in the ranks of developed, then developing countries, then countries with economies in transition. South Africa was most recently classified as a "middle-class capitalist state," which included Greece, Ireland, and Portugal. However, even today South Africa has a clearly more developed multi-industry and high-tech economy than, for example, Bulgaria or Romania. No less difficult is the situation with the classification of the second world economy - China, which in many absolute indicators (GDP, national income, industrial production, etc.) is ahead of almost all developed countries, except the United States, but in per capita indicators it lags far behind them.

Thus, it can be stated that the methodologically important question of the classification affiliation of the States under consideration remains open. In recent years, more and more often in the scientific literature, there is a desire of authors to avoid using the term "developing countries" altogether. In relation to the BRICS countries, they prefer to use the term "emerging markets" or "emerging economies". These terms were introduced in 1981 by Antoine van Agtmael (see Table 1). However, even here there is no unity and harmony in the use of terminology, since the same terms are often used not only for

Table 1

Groupings of catch-up developing countries that are not integration associations and organizations

Source: compiled by the author.

for this group of large fast-growing, "catching-up" states, but, for example, for all countries that are not members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)¹².

FINDING PATTERNS

The reason for the terminological uncertainty is that in recent decades, the clear separation of the two poles of the Center-Periphery, which represented the dialectical binary pairs "wealth and poverty", "dominance and subordination"," economic power and economic dependence", has undergone significant corrosion. The process of redistributing power and influence on a global scale and strengthening the new poles of the emerging polycentric international system is clearly outlined. There have been tectonic shifts in the balance of power of the leading economic centers of power.

As noted above, the traditional Center of a globalized economy has slowly begun to lose at least some of the levers of world economic governance that have so far been unquestionably at its disposal. At the same time, not only such countries as China, India, Brazil, etc., which were previously considered to be on the World's periphery, began to acquire uncharacteristic economic power and geopolitical significance. Some other developing countries are approaching the BRICS countries in many ways, and in particular in terms of their regional significance and strength.

Thus, 11 countries (Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Nigeria, South Korea, Pakistan, Mexico, the Philippines, Turkey, and Vietnam) are identified as a kind of "second-tier BRICS", whose economic importance in the new model of world economic development is sharply increasing, and the markets are becoming more competitive. -

They are particularly attractive for investment. These states are usually grouped under the self-explanatory name" Next 11 "("NEXT-11", or"N-11").

In addition, we should not forget that a number of developing countries (Saudi Arabia, Chile, Argentina, etc.) with significantly lower populations and quantitatively smaller economies are already developing as fast as some BRICS countries and claim a comparable role in decision-making on issues of global importance. Some of them raise the question of including them in the BRICS (with the corresponding letter added to the abbreviation), others alone demand the same rights and opportunities in the international arena (inclusion in multilateral negotiations, the right to speak on behalf of developing countries, participation in various summits and meetings behind closed doors).

Moreover, even the countries of Africa, which are not without reason considered by many researchers today as the undisputed outsiders in the transformation of the current MMED and "poor relatives" at the feast of the redistribution of global wealth, will certainly strengthen their positions in the world economy during the first half of this century, and in some parameters (labor and raw materials) they may play a consolidated role ⁱⁿ it13.

At the same time, it should also be clearly understood that BRICS is singled out from the entire mass of countries that do not belong to the Center/The first World (and this is, in fact, all the countries that are members of the OECD) only on the basis of purely scientific and methodologically consistent and reasonable criteria, is only partially possible. If you want, you can find a lot of typological similarities between the BRICS five countries. However, an equally large number of fundamental typological differences can be found.

The combination of countries into one group was based mainly on common economic characteristics that created stable long-term returns. As a rule, analysts of large investment banking groups singled out the leaders of catching-up development from other countries because such isolation made financial products related to these countries more attractive to clients of financial corporations (see Table 1).

Thus, the selection of new groups of countries, whether it is "NEXT-11", MIKT or CIVETS¹⁴ (see Table). 1), in the primary basis of the analysis, it has one main criterion, which is also a single common denominator: it is not so much the growth rate, the scale of the economy or the population, but, in general, the degree of investment attractiveness.

It should not be forgotten that J. O'Neill's initial goal of separating Brazil, Russia, India and China into a separate group was to outline, as a result of analysis and forecasts of country risks, on the one hand, and competitive advantages, on the other, a special promising asset class for investment that is attractive to clients of the Goldman Sachs financial Corporation. Thus, the future economic potential of the four major countries was discussed insofar as it was supposed to act as the main attractive factor for investing in related securities.

However, in the case of the above-mentioned four countries, the development of events went according to a special scenario due to the fact that a successful marketing move was intertwined with Primakov's ideas about close cooperation between Russia, China and India and multipolarity that were already in the air. The idea that "got hold of the masses "(in this case, world politicians and investors) could not but turn into reality. In this sense, a Russian academic could probably claim at least some of the laurels of the BRICS "founding father".

During one of our meetings in March 2011. Jim O'Neill, the inventor of the acronym BRIC and by then chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management (Global), told the author of these lines that when he singled out Brazil, Russia, India, and China from other countries in the world, he was guided by six criteria that, in his opinion, determine the size of the economy, the rate of economic growth, and the level of economic growth. population income growth prospects, demographic factors, demand forecasts and foreign exchange earnings. Then he added: "Perhaps the fact that the initial letters of the names of these countries formed an abbreviation suitable for the marketing idea of the future report also played a role."¹⁵

O'Neill also admitted that he deliberately did not include South Korea and Mexico in the group, although they could have been included in the growth rate. He considered that this pair was already more developed than the foursome that later turned into a BRICK. Moreover, the West has already recognized these two countries as "its own", having accepted them into the OECD, which is a kind of"club of rich democratic states".

At the time of our conversation, J. O'Neill was already running through the idea of identifying a new group of catching-up countries MIKT (Mexico, Indonesia, and the South).Korea and Turkey), which will grow, perhaps even faster than the BRICS, but due to their smaller economies and geopolitical weight, will most likely appear to be second-tier countries. It is noteworthy that if China, Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa were referred to by the familiar term "emerging markets" (emerging economies), then the new four received the name "growth economies". According to the father of the term BRIC, it is already "ridiculous to talk about these countries as 'emerging markets'. " ¹⁶

Note that, as in the first case, the new "four" includes-

There are very diverse countries: South Korea, which is close to the post-industrial threshold; Mexico, which is already an OECD member and, together with the United States and Canada, is a member of the NAFTA integration association; Turkey, which was one of the influential European powers until the middle of the XIX century, and is now a possible candidate for the EU; and, finally, Indonesia, which remains, Despite its rapid growth, it remains a developing country.

J. O'Neill and his associates insist on the need to rethink the very concept of "emerging markets". Setting aside geopolitical considerations and using the criteria of investment attractiveness as a basis (those that formed the basis of his first report in 2003), he considers it logical and necessary, from a business point of view, to combine BRICS and MIKT into the growth markets group of "growth markets"¹⁷.

This is probably the first time that a simple and specific criterion for including countries in this category has been proposed out of the large number of classifications that have emerged. According to J. O'Neill himself, we are talking about " countries that are not highly developed, but each of which contributes more than 1% to the formation of global GDP."

Currently, Goldman Sachs estimates that" growth economies " produce about a quarter of the total global gross domestic product. All developed economies (OECD) - about 63%, and the rest of the world-12%. By 2050, the total GDP of "growth economies" will increase by 2100%, and their share in the global gross product will grow to 46%, while the share of the developed world will shrink to 31% (see Figure 1).

Without questioning the calculations of the financial corporation's specialists, we recalculated the available data based on our own methodology and tried to answer two questions: how reasonable are its forecasts and whether J. O'Neill's new approach to reclassifying leaders of catching-up development is really relevant. The calculation results are shown in Table. 2. In general, they do not radically contradict the mathematical calculations of the corporation's specialists, but they provide the basis for some additional reasoning, assumptions and forecasts.

Using World Bank statistics, we estimated the dynamic contribution of "growth economies" to the formation of world gross product based on: a) the current dollar exchange rate, b) the exchange rate and prices of 2000, and c) purchasing power parity (PPP). The data that we received when calculating nominal GDP at the current dollar exchange rate was generally close to Goldman Sachs data. And therefore, at least indirectly, they confirmed the validity of the intention of its leaders to single out a group of leaders based on the principle of exceeding the contribution of the countries under consideration to global GDP by a threshold of 1%.

However, when recalculating GDP indicators in 2010 (i.e., speaking about the current state of affairs) in prices and at the average dollar exchange rate in 2000, an interesting picture is drawn, which almost no one talks about today. Meanwhile, it significantly affects the perception of both J. O'Neill's methodological innovations and the idea of the real potential of the BRIC (in calculations without South Africa) or BRICS (with it).

Our calculations have shown that with such an assessment of their potential, two countries (Indonesia and Turkey) drop out of the new elite club, since the GDP of each of them does not reach (and very significantly) 1% of the world's gross product, and Russia is frozen at this critical threshold. If there is no fundamental shift in the structure of the economy in our country, and in the real sector of the economy (and, to be honest, why would it happen in an inertial development scenario?), then a downward slide seems inevitable.

In addition, the total global weight of the top five countries (excluding Indonesia, Turkey, and Russia) remaining among the "growth economies" is now decreasing

Figure 1. Contribution of catch-up leaders to global GDP compared to developed and developing countries in 2000, 2011, and 2050

Source: adapted by the author for the purposes of the article based on the graph from "Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research", March 2012. P. 3.

Table 2

Share of "growth economies" in the world gross product ( % ), calculated at face value in constant dollar prices in 2000

Source: calculated and grouped by the author based on World Bank Database statistics. World Development Indicators. Прогноз на 2050 г. по Goldman Sachs - http://www.goldmansachs.com/our-thinking/focus-on/growth-markets/dataviz/index.html

more than double the PPP figures (up to 16% in total for the remaining countries). This is a significant, but not such a large share to qualify for the first roles in managing the global economy, to determine the directions of reforming the MHER.

Our calculations allow us to draw some more interesting conclusions. If we compare Russia's share of world GDP at current prices and constant prices in 2000, we will see that the almost twofold increase in our share of world GDP was almost entirely due to the price factor.

This conclusion can be confirmed using the cross-validation method by comparing the indicator under consideration for 2010 at constant prices in 2000 with the figure of ten years ago (directly for 2000). The increase was only 0.19%, i.e. less than two hundredths of a percent per year! Of course, such reasoning could be challenged by saying that we are not talking about absolute values, but about shares, and that the world economy grew along with ours. However, in this case, such criticism is unnecessary. The growth of the Russian Federation's weight in global GDP was indeed mainly due to the rapid rise in the price of oil and gas on world markets, and only to a small extent - due to the increase in "non-fuel" production.

From the table. 2 it is also clear why the inventor of the term BRIC reacted so negatively to the inclusion of South Africa in this association of world development leaders. The economy of South Africa, which is quite developed and advanced in terms of introducing innovations and diversifying technological branches, ¹⁸ is small even in comparison with the weakest link of MIKT - Indonesia. At the same time, the growth dynamics of the South African economy's influence on the globalized world economy (if we take the country's share in world GDP as an indicator) also looks less impressive. The growth over ten years in constant prices was only three hundredths of a percent!

However, all this is true, especially if we look at the issue of uniting the leaders of catching-up development and their growing importance exclusively technocratically and, mainly, through the prism of their investment attractiveness.

Meanwhile, the essence of the issue is increasingly moving to the geopolitical plane and goes to the problems of multipolarity and polycentricity discussed above. That's why the BRICS issue is constantly being discussed

The proposed alternatives to the "five" are increasingly politicized and seem to go beyond a purely economic discourse.

ZERO-SUM GAMES

Today, BRICS acts as a harbinger and promoter of the reform of the existing MHER. His line fits into a vector that was once called " anti-imperialist." That is why it is so difficult to get rid of involuntary parallels and associations with similar non-rigidly structured associations of the past, such as the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM)*.

Apparently, the West also feels this, which is why it is gradually pursuing a policy of "containment" of the BRICS. This policy is implemented in two main areas:: a) preventing the consolidation of the association into a practically active force of global significance, and b) creating alternative, more "correct" and "perfect" associations/groupings.

In practice, this manifests itself:

- in the regular opposition within the BRICS of the two "largest democracies" in the world (India and Brazil) to the two "largest dictatorships" (China and Russia);

- sermons that Russia unfairly occupies a place among the leaders, which it got by chance due to the favorable oil situation;

- and, finally, that the unification itself is nothing serious-it is de facto a political fiction necessary for China and Russia to satisfy their geopolitical ambitions, etc.

The desire to separate the PRC and the Russian Federation from the points of global influence and growth is at the heart of the project of constructing a more "advanced" association, an alternative to BRICS. Without Russia and China, it will not be so cumbersome, but it can demonstrate, due to its compactness and the favorable attitude of the West towards it, the success of the development model that preserves the dominant positions of the "old players" in the global economy.

If, in general, it is not difficult to imagine such a scenario in relation to Russia, given our current difficulties, then truly "creative" solutions are needed to "knock China out of the saddle". The worst dream of the masters of the existing world order is the prospect that the Chinese economy will overtake the US economy. This means not only China's absolute excess of the United States ' GDP in terms of value, but also qualitative growth, including innovation and productivity growth. The task of preventing such a development scenario is, therefore, not only economic, but also ideological and political.

Judging by the American publications of the last two years (approximately since the 2011 BRICS summit in China), one of the ways to solve the problem may look like this. It is based on the algorithm of the famous formula (aporia) of the ancient Greek philosopher Zeno "Achilles and the Turtle", according to which the fleet-footed Achilles will never catch up with a leisurely turtle, if at the beginning of the movement the turtle is ahead of Achilles. Zeno's reasoning was as follows. Let's say Achilles is running ten times faster than the tortoise and is a thousand paces behind it. In the time that Achilles will run this distance, the turtle will crawl a hundred steps in the same direction. When Achilles has run a hundred paces, the turtle will crawl another ten paces, and so on. The process will continue indefinitely, and Achilles will never catch up with the turtle.

The logic of the Americans is as follows. According to the IMF estimates, in 2010 China's GDP was about 40% of that of the United States. If China's growth rate slows to an average of 5% per year between 2010 and 2030, which seems very likely given the demographic and other obstacles it faces, and if the US economy continues to grow at 2.5% per year, then in real terms, China's economy will grow from its current level - just a little less than a third of the US economy - up to two-thirds of US GDP by 2030. Given the shrinking working-age population (and its aging population), there is no reason to expect China's growth to continue. Even if this rate of growth continues, China will still not catch up with the US economy until ^{at least 2050.19}

However, when competing with China for the future of the world order, one cannot rely only on philosophical calculations, and a slowdown in growth rates would be good to contribute. And the "well-wishers "in one voice talk about the inevitable" overheating " of the Chinese economy, which should be cooled down. The only obstacle in the global crisis: China is one of the few hopes for recovery, the locomotive that should pull the world economy out of the swamp of recession. The Chinese economy is already too closely linked to the American one. You can overdo it with cooling and harm yourself.

In these circumstances, the selection of a new, more politically "correct" and manageable cohort of candidate countries for the leaders of catching-up development looks more rational.

In the United States, one of the most energetic leaders of those who consider it imperative to oppose the BRICS alternative project is J. R. R. Tolkien. Goldstone, American sociologist, neo-Weberian and neo-Malthusian, proponent of demographic approaches in geopolitics, author of the demographic-structural theory of revolution.

Readers of "Asia and Africa Today" know J. Goldstone

* Unites about 120 countries of the world on the principles of non-participation in military blocs. Officially established in 1961, it does not have a rigid organizational structure. Meetings of NAM Heads of State and Government (summits) are held every few years without the established frequency. The last one (the 16th one) was held in August 2012 in Tehran (Iran).

as one of the founders of the "youth hill" theory, which we wrote about in connection with the Arab revolutions of ²⁰. In the recent past, he worked for the US government agency USAID, heading the division that evaluates the effectiveness of democracy promotion programs. He put forward the idea of "purging" the group of leaders of catch-up development from China and Russia.

In early 2011, shortly after the BRIC summit in China and the admission of South Africa to the community, J. Goldstone announced the TIMBI project-the creation of a clone group of BRICS, but without two "tyrannies". The projected group should include Turkey, India, Mexico, Brazil and Indonesia. From a scientific and methodological point of view, J. Goldstone justified the absence of the PRC and the Russian Federation as part of the new group of leaders of catching-up development by structural and demographic reasons: the unfavorable situation with population growth in Russia, the aging and rising cost of labor in China.

The TIMBI project, as we can see, is generally quite similar to the idea of J. R. R. Tolkien's MIKT.O'Neill. Their simultaneous appearance is yet another evidence that the current trends in the BRICS evolution do not suit the West in everything, and it is trying to redirect the objectively developing processes of reforming world economic development in the direction of oversaturation of the polycentric world with alternative development centers, most of which would focus on the western poles of the world order.

This, however, will not be easy to do. It is quite obvious that in the current configuration, BRICS clearly claims a unique position and global weight, since it not only has a huge total economic, human and resource potential, but unlike even very solid, but still regional associations like the EU, ASEAN or NAFTA, it covers four continents. In this sense, the inclusion of South Africa in the group looks more than logical.

In addition to a significant total share of world GDP (in 2010, about 18% of nominal GDP at the current dollar exchange rate and about 25% at PPP), a huge territory and population, the " five "is almost a monopoly on the production of a number of scarce raw materials and the owner of most of the world's fresh water reserves (excluding Antarctica). An analysis of the World Bank's annual data shows that since 2000, the BRICS have accounted for more than one-third of the world's economic growth.

* * *

Thus, the issues related to the place of the leaders of catch-up development in the world economy and their role in the transformation of the existing IEDM have moved from the purely investment plane to the sphere of big world politics and the balance of power in a multipolar and polycentric world.

¹ See, for example: Krasilshchikov V. A. Experience of catching up development (on the example of Latin American and East Asian countries). Dis. ... Doctor of Economics, Moscow, 2002; Inozemtsev V. L. Limits of "catching up" development. Neoliberal globalization and catch-up Development, Moscow, IMEMO, 2003.

^{Fituni L., Abramova I.} 2 Regularities of formation and change of models of world economic development // ME and MO, 2012, N 7.

^{Morgenthau H.J.} 3 Politics among Nations. New York: Alfred A.Knopf, 1948. P. 242.

^{Waltz Kenneth N.} 4 Theory of International Politics. Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1979.

⁵ See: Primakov E. On the horizon of a multipolar world // Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 22.10.1996, and an expanded version of this article-International Life. 1996, N 10.

^{Kratochril Petr.} 6 Multipolarity: American Theory and Russian Practice. Institute of International Relations. Praha. 2002. P. 2 -kms2.isn.ethz.ch/serviceengine/Files/EINIRAS/31431/ipublicationdoc ument_singledocument/59af449b-el46 - 4050-a020-c6clcceab215/en/ 2002 - 00-Multipolarity.pdf

^{Waller Michael.} 7 Primakov's Imperial Line // Perspective. 1997. Vol. 7, N 3, January-February.

^{Vasily Kashin.} 8 Russia in search of equilibrium / / Vedomosti, 11.05.2012. p. 4.

⁹ The World Bank. Global Development Horizons 2011. Multipolarity: The New Global Economy. Washington, DC. 2011.

^{Wallerstein Immanuel.} 10 World systems analysis. An Introduction. L., 2006. P. 27 - 28; Amin Samir. Obsolescent Capitalism: Contemporary Politics and Global Disorder. 2003.

¹¹ For example, analysts at BNP Paribas, the largest French bank by assets, have adopted the term emerging economies. They are considered "all countries that are not classified by the IMF as leading highly developed economies", excluding Hong Kong, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. (See methodological notes to: BNP Paribas. "Conjoncture". Paris. 2012, N 2, February. P. 33.)

¹² See, for example: BNP Paribas. "Conjoncture"... P. 25.

¹³ See for more details: Fituni L. L. Ekonomika Afrika: vyzovy postkrizisnogo razvitiya [African Economy: Challenges of Post-crisis Development]. 2010. N 8, 9; Fituni L. L. Mesto Afrika v postkrizisnoy mirovoy ekonomike [Africa's place in the post-crisis world economy]. 2011. N 1,2.

¹⁴ The term was proposed in 2009 by Robert Ward, Director of the Economist Intelligence Unit, and includes Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey, and South Africa.

¹⁵ The term was born out of the forecast report " The World Needs a Better Economy. BRICs". By the way, Jim O'Neill himself pronounces his last name as O'Neill, and not O'Neill, as is often written in our press. In our opinion, it is also significant that J. R. R. TolkienO'Neill serves on the board of the exclusive Bruegel Club, the world's third-largest think tank and an important link in the emerging global governance system. The author's conversation with J. R. R. TolkienIt was held on 21.03.2011 during the conference "Dialogues with Russia: A new prosperity: Aspiration, innovation, participation", Sunday 20-Wednesday 23, March 2011. Wilton Park (UK).

¹⁶ http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2011/01/17/460756/brics-mikts-and-oneills-lucrative-lexicon/

¹⁷ Ibidem.

¹⁸ See: Grishchenko B. S., Sineshchekova D. A., Fituni L. L. et al. Innovation Policy: BRICS, South Africa and Russia / / Asia and Africa Today. 2011, N 10. pp. 26-32; N 11. pp. 8-13.

^{Goldstone Jack A.} 19 Rise of the TIMBIs // Foreign Policy, December 2,2011.

^{Vasiliev A.M.} 20 Tsunami revolyutsii ne spadaet [The tsunami of revolutions does not subside]. 2011, N 2. pp. 2 - 9; Fituni L. L. The Middle East: technologies of protest potential management / / Asia and Africa today. 2011, N 2. pp. 8-11; Abramova I. O. Razvitie strany v mirovoi ekonomike XXI veka: novye demograficheskie determinanty [Developing countries in the world economy of the XXI century: new demographic determinants]. 2011, No. 2. pp. 23-29; Fituni L. L. "Arab Spring": transformation of political paradigms in the context of international relations // ME and MO. 2012, N 1. pp. 3-14.

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