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Hi Shahid,

Thank you for your response.

So yes, the dilemma seems to remain: that of countering the interests that determine the policies of state action to the detriment of the greater populations of the world.

I think that it is not just a matter of economic power or the power of states.

The situation that we now have seems somehow not clearly one or the other, but lies somewhere in the relationship between myriad interests, economic, corporate, and state.

I am thinking here of the work of Sheldon Wolin, and the studies of Gilen and Page (and thank you for citing that link to the original paper, I had only read it in a reference by Peter Turchin).

I think that what we are seeing in variant forms globally, is a new type of power, an affiliative combination that operates neither as a state in a historical model, not quite as formal hereditary/oligarchic elite, nor as a formal corporation.

Broadly, it is the power of world markets, and the determinations of state that are in those interests.

It is a less clearly identifiable power that exists in their intersections and influences, that has a structure that is broadly corporate and privately held.

This situation allows power to have no accountability, it exists somewhere in markets, and those who have the greatest power and the greatest benefits, and is largely blind functionally to other ideological considerations.

It is not so much a clear central power along earlier models, bounded by nations, but does have different, sometimes rivalrous, centers of relative concentration with interests sometimes in common and sometimes conflicting.

But by it's very opaqueness, and it's corporate form, it is like trying to fight a hurricane by punching at it. There is nothing solid to engage with, and yet it has overwhelming force. (Have you had the experience of dealing with a health insurance that arbitrarily declines a payment? It's pretty much what it feels like.)

The machinations of state now increasingly have this quality as well.

They seem to have met in the middle.

And how can this be countered, when even the lines of power are largely opaque, metaphorically lying in shell structures, anonymous.

Reading this, it seems somewhat vague; it is difficult to describe.

It is like seeing parts of the elephant and imagining what it is.

To the question at hand: what you say about BRICS, yes this would offer some possibility of changing some of the current (im) balances.

And hopefully, within speific countries, the awareness of an informed, domestic pressure, within those countries in which it might make a degree of difference.

Even amelioration would be welcome.

Thank you for that. And my apologies, if you have been sent a notification in your email each time I have made the many revisions and typo corrections to this reply .

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