How real are the BRICS? Goldman-Sachs says 40% of world GDP real (by 2050)

On loan from his regular gig at the Asia Times Online, economic columnist Pepe Escobar has an interesting piece about the future of the BRICS in India's Outlook magazine.

The BRICS are the real deal, he writes, noting that Goldman-Sachs now projects that Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa will together account for 40 percent of the world's GDP by 2050. But what does that really mean for the future?

"The multitrillion-dollar global question remains: Is the emergence of BRICS a signal that we have truly entered a new multipolar world?" Escobar wonders.

Read the full essay here to form your conclusions.

There are a lot of interesting observations about all the BRICS countries. Meanwhile, here's Escobar's assessment of India:

In India, the choice seems to be between manageable and unmanageable chaos. The corruption of the country’s political elite is reaching bizarre levels. Abuse of state power, nepotistic control of contracts related to infrastructure, the looting of mineral resources, real estate property scandals—they’ve got it all, even if India is not a Hindu Pakistan. Not yet anyway.

Since 1991, “reform” in India has meant only one thing: unbridled commerce and getting the state out of the economy. Not surprisingly then, nothing is being done to reform public institutions, which are a scandal in themselves. Efficient public administration? Don’t even think about it. In a nutshell, India is a chaotic economic dynamo and yet, in some sense, not even an emerging power, not to speak of a superpower.

Yep.