Emerging Powers, Emerging Markets, Emerging Societies

Barely a week passes without some new official report, media article, or conference eulogizing Africa and its growth figures, this then being automatically and uncritically extended to announcements about the unlimited potential for capital accumulation and profit to be made in this new frontier. This is natural, given the ongoing dominant social system and its normative values where the underlying logic and driving force of capitalism and capital is the accumulation of profits; in the words of Marx, the “boundless drive for enrichment” and the “passionate chase after value” (Marx, 1867/1976, p. 254). It is this “dynamic of endless accumulation” and quest for “accumulation for its own sake” (Brenner, 2006, p. 80) that makes capitalism such a pioneering and productive economic system, albeit intrinsically and pitilessly exploitative. Played out in Africa, “Business conferences are filled with frothy talk of African lions overtaking Asian tigers” (Economist, March 2, 2013).

In July 2014, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted saying that the BRICS mechanism is now so developed that it “can transform into a political alliance”. The creation of the BRICS bank was an important step, as termed by Vladimir Putin, since it poses a clear challenge to the International Monetary Fund and the “foreign policy decisions made by the United States and their allies” (quoted in Durden, 2014). With these words, Lavrov was making specific reference to the work within the Group of 20 (G-20), where the BRICS has many allies, such as Argentina, Mexico and Indonesia. According to him, these countries “speak in the common voice with BRICS in the G-20 on the reform of the international financial system” (quoted in Xinhua, 2014). Only one month earlier and in a different context (the Group of 77 plus China summit), the President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, turned out to be in favor of the disappearance of the Security Council of the United Nations (UN). His argumentation was based on the function he attributes to the Security Council of reproducing asymmetrical power relations between countries. Particularly, he claimed that “instead of assuring peace among nations, it [the Security Council] has fostered war and the invasions of imperial powers in order to expropriate the natural resources of the invaded countries” (quoted in Vicepresidencia, 2014).

The tourism sector has become one of the most important economic sectors in the world. The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) estimates that tourism-related activities account for about 9 percent of the world’s total GDP. Despite the global financial crisis, international tourism has experienced continued growth, expanding by 5 percent worldwide in 2013 (UNWTO, 2014, p. 3). The fastest growth happened in the Asia-Pacific region fueled by the growing disposable incomes of the newly emerging middle classes, but even traditional destinations such as Europe experienced a growth in arrivals of more than 5 percent in 2013. UNWTO expects this growth to continue at an average rate of about 3.3 percent per year for the next 15–20 years. For destinations interested in benefitting from this prospective growth, China has become an object of special interest. While China has long been one of the most popular destinations for international travelers, the country has only recently emerged as the largest source of international travelers. In an overturning of the traditional division of labor within the tourism sector, where developing nations have long been important destinations for international travelers, the wanderlust of China’s emerging middle class now extends from regional destinations such as Hong Kong and Japan to classic European destinations, with France and Italy as the preferred holiday spots in Europe (Timemetric, 2014).