UNBRIDLED US power has brought endless misery to the world. The post-cold war “unipolar moment” has been marked by bloody wars of aggression and the imposition of neoliberal economics across the globe, with the 2008 crash as its memorial.

The good news is that the power of Washington is passing, albeit too slowly. The military defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan and the banking crisis will be inscribed on its tombstone. The US is a declining power.

Opposition to US imperialism and, by extension, its British helpmate, remains central to progressive politics across the world. Diverse political options can only mature outside its shadow.

Still, the US remains extremely powerful. That rests on both its immense military resources, and the critical part played by the dollar in the world economy.

In terms of economic hegemony, US abuse of multilateral institutions like the IMF and the World Bank is one instrument. But it is the capacity to wield the dollar as a political weapon that is arguably more important. Exclusion from the dollar economy has been used to punish states failing to follow Washington’s edicts.

So it is not surprising that there is growing interest worldwide in developing a multipolar economy and taking the dollar down a peg or three.

That is why there has been some excitement at the recent Brics summit, bringing together China, Russia, India, South Africa and Brazil. The summit agreed to extend this important forum to six further states — Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Ethiopia and Argentina.

Some see Brics developing as a rival centre of international governance to the G7 — the big imperialist powers headed by the US and including Britain — which have met regularly over the last 50 years to concert policy.

For a time it was the G8, including Russia, before the US decided to exclude Vladimir Putin from imperialism’s top table — a point the latter’s admirers sometimes forget. Today, Brics members may account for as much of the world economy as the G7 by some measures.

That rests disproportionately on the epic advance of the Chinese economy over the last 40 years. Raw statistics do not necessarily capture political dynamics in any case.

In that respect, there is no equivalence. The G7 is closely aligned with Nato — six of the seven states are members and the seventh, Japan, is also a US military ally.

Brics has no such political cohesion and is not likely to attain it in the foreseeable future. Of its member states, China is a military power and a socialist country, albeit one long integrated into the capitalist world economy.

The other states are unambiguously capitalist. India has a deeply reactionary government close to Washington and London, Russia is a malfunctioning oligarchy and Brazil has a progressive government presently — but Bolsonaro very recently.

Moreover, India and China have strained relations over their mutual border. The new members will not add cohesion immediately. Chinese diplomacy has helped improve Saudi-Iranian ties, but they remain fraught. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt remain aggressively reactionary powers, closely tied to the US.

It is significant that the Brics states have declined to align with Nato over the Ukraine war, but they are scarcely all adversarial towards Washington.

So hopes that Brics will lead to a systemic alternative should be muted, not least because it is not clear that the states involved even want to do such a thing.

Certainly they wish to renegotiate the terms on which the international economy is conducted so that a wider spread of interests is taken into account — to democratise it, in short. That must be a good thing.

It springs from fatigue with the endless misuse of US economic power to advance its own narrow interests, and its hypocritical invocation of “human rights” whenever it suits, abandoned in a trice when it doesn’t.

The dollar’s international role is used not just to fund otherwise unsustainable US debt through seignorage but as a means of extending US legal and political power extra-territorially.

States across the world have been shaken by Washington’s impounding of dollar reserves held by Russia’s central bank. There is a warning to everyone.

Brics has one overarching limitation and one tactical problem. Strategically, its member states want a better deal from the world capitalist economy; they do not seek to replace it.

In this, it differs from the socialist community of the past. That was largely separated from world capitalism and tried to develop an alternative international economy.

One of the factors which brought socialism down was the indebtedness to the West which it allowed to run up in the 1970s and 1980s.

China, on the other hand, has sought prosperity at least in part through engagement with world capitalism. No-one can say that this hasn’t worked.

Nevertheless, this engagement has inevitably imported capitalist social relations into China itself. How that pans out will probably be more decisive for humanity’s future than anything the Brics decide today.

Class struggle will remain critical in the other Brics countries too. Right now, the prevailing class relations mandate seeks an improved deal from world capitalism but not a rupture.

The tactical problem is that the alternative currencies that might displace the dollar lack the required stability, liquidity or convertibility. Even in happier times for Russia, there are only so many roubles other countries (or corporations) feel they need.

The Chinese renminbi is only convertible in some circumstances, so states would be reluctant to hold more than they need for trade and investment purposes.

Thus, even those opposed to the abuses of the US feel themselves stuck with the dollar to some extent. For example, China is believed to still hold $860 billion in US government debt.

Another sign of this is the almost absurd situation that the development bank established by Brics, led by former Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, has had to suspend its operations in Russia itself — a charter Brics member — because it would otherwise fall foul of US sanctions.

This suggests that while the plan of Brics countries to eschew the use of the dollar in trade is important, it is very much a long-term project.

Given cohesion, Brics can develop into an important political counterweight to the US and its allies and that is a global gain. But it is not an alternative to world capitalism.

Salvation for humanity must lie through the transformation of social relations — socialism — not a rebalancing of the system of exploitation.

Reeves leapfrogs the Tories rightwards

THE Wall Street Journal is the only media property owned by Rupert Murdoch that he did not move to the right upon acquisition — because it was already so deeply conservative that there was nowhere further right to go.

Thus it is particularly noteworthy that its editorial page last week gave a ringing endorsement to Rachel Reeves for ruling out a wealth tax. It praised her for being “to the right” of the Tory government.

In related news, the Financial Times reports that a senior politician has expressed concern about wealth inequality and indicated he is open to the idea of taxing it. Michael Gove, since you ask.