Sachs on BRICS

Jeffrey Sachs’s Historical Narrative: From 1750 to the Rise of BRICS

A summary of Sachs’s historical account in his interview with Glenn Diesen

In his interview with Glenn Diesen, economist Jeffrey Sachs offers a broad historical narrative extending from approximately 1750 to the present. His central argument is of dominance by Western Europe and, subsequently, the United States over the last two and a half centuries. Sachs says that dominance is now coming to an end, as economic and political power shifts towards a world centred on China, India, Russia, and the other BRICS countries.

The world around 1750

Sachs begins his historical account from the period around 1750, when the overwhelming majority of the world’s population and economic activity was outside Western Europe. Western Europe was a relatively small part of the world in demographic and economic terms.

The subsequent rise of the West, in his account, was associated with the Industrial Revolution and increase in productive capacity that began in Britain and subsequently spread through Western Europe and North America.

The Industrial Revolution and Western ascendancy

Britain’s industrialisation transformed the balance of economic power. Mechanised production, technological innovation, expanding trade and access to energy allowed Britain to achieve an economic and military power that was increasingly disproportionate to its population.

Other European powers followed, while the United States eventually became the world’s largest industrial economy.

For Sachs, this period marks the beginning of several centuries in which the West acquired an extraordinary degree of economic, technological, financial and military power over the rest of the world.

Industrialisation, empire and colonialism

Sachs connects the rise of Western economic power with the expansion of European empires. European powers acquired colonies and established political and economic systems that extended their influence across Asia, Africa and the Americas.

The resulting international system was not simply an economic system. It was backed by military power and increasingly by global financial institutions and trade networks controlled or heavily influenced by the Western powers.

In Sachs’s historical interpretation, this produced a prolonged period of Western predominance that lasted roughly two and a half centuries.

The rise of the United States

The United States emerged from this period as the leading industrial and financial power. By the twentieth century, American economic and military strength had become central to the international system.

The two world wars further transformed the balance of power. Europe was devastated by the Second World War, while the United States emerged with an exceptionally powerful industrial economy, the world’s dominant financial position and enormous military capabilities.

The post-1945 American-centred order

After 1945, the United States became the principal power within a Western-centred international system. Institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank were established, while the dollar became the central currency of the international financial system.

The Cold War divided the world into competing blocs, with the United States and its allies on one side and the Soviet Union and its allies on the other.

Sachs’s narrative, however, places the Cold War within the much longer history of Western ascendancy. The United States was not simply one of two superpowers: it represented the continuation of a broader Western-centred system that had emerged from the Industrial Revolution and the expansion of European power.

The collapse of the Soviet Union

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 produced what Sachs regards as a crucial turning point.

Rather than creating a genuinely cooperative international system, Sachs argues that the United States interpreted the end of the Cold War as an opportunity to consolidate American global primacy.

In his interpretation, NATO expansion, American military interventions and the attempt to preserve US geopolitical dominance became features of the post-Cold War period.

The extraordinary rise of China

The most important change in the global balance of economic power, in Sachs’s account, has been the rise of China.

China’s economic transformation following the reforms initiated under Deng Xiaoping from 1978 onwards allowed hundreds of millions of people to move out of poverty and created an enormous industrial and technological economy.

China’s rise is therefore not presented by Sachs simply as the emergence of another great power. It represents the return of a major civilisation and economic centre that had been outside the Western-centred system of power.

China’s economic growth, together with the development of India and other emerging economies, has progressively reduced the West’s share of global economic activity.

The return of a multipolar world

This brings Sachs to his principal argument about the present.

The world is no longer economically or demographically dominated by the United States and Europe. China, India, Russia, Brazil, South Africa and other emerging economies now possess enormous economic and political weight.

The BRICS grouping is, in Sachs’s interpretation, an institutional expression of this transformation. Rather than representing simply an anti-Western alliance, BRICS reflects the emergence of countries that want greater autonomy in international affairs and greater representation in global institutions.

Sachs argues that these countries are primarily interested in economic development, technological progress, infrastructure and improved living standards rather than in reproducing the geopolitical behaviour of the great powers of the past.

Why Sachs believes Western dominance is ending

Sachs’s central historical thesis is therefore that the Western-dominated international system was a relatively recent phase of world history.

It emerged from the Industrial Revolution and the extraordinary economic and military expansion of Western Europe, followed by the rise of the United States. It lasted for roughly 250 to 300 years.

But the underlying demographic and economic conditions that sustained that dominance have changed.

The great majority of the world’s population now lives outside the traditional Western centres of power. China and India alone contain a very large proportion of humanity, while Asia as a whole has become the principal centre of global economic growth.

For Sachs, the rise of BRICS is consequently not an aberration or a temporary challenge to the existing system. It is evidence of a deeper historical transformation: the world is returning to a genuinely multipolar distribution of economic and political power.

What is distinctive about Sachs’s historical explanation

One striking feature of Sachs’s account is the emphasis he places on economic development, technology, geography, demography, institutions and geopolitical power.

He explains the rise of the West largely through the Industrial Revolution and the resulting accumulation of economic and technological power, followed by imperial expansion and the construction of a Western-centred international system.

He then explains the contemporary transformation through the rapid economic development of China, India and other emerging economies and the consequent decline in the West’s relative share of global economic activity.

What is much less prominent in this narrative is the language of Marxism, class struggle, the social relations of production or historical materialism. Capitalism appears primarily as an economic system associated with industrialisation, markets, technological development and accumulation rather than as a system of class relations.

Likewise, imperialism appears principally as an instrument and consequence of Western geopolitical and economic power rather than being analysed in the specifically Marxist sense of a stage or structural characteristic of capitalist development.

From Western hegemony to BRICS

Sachs’s historical journey from 1750 to the present therefore has a clear trajectory:

Industrial Revolution → Western economic expansion → European imperialism → rise of the United States → post-1945 American predominance → post-Cold War unipolarity → rise of China and other emerging economies → emergence of BRICS → multipolar world.

His conclusion is that the Western-centred period of world history is drawing to a close. The rise of BRICS represents, in his interpretation, not simply a challenge to the existing order but the institutional expression of a much deeper shift in the distribution of global economic and political power.

This is the historical framework through which Sachs interprets the present confrontation between the United States and the emerging multipolar world.

Ian Curr, 17 September 2026