No, a BRICS currency will not overtake the US dollar

For months, if not years now, the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) nations have been floating the idea of creating a new global reserve currency that some claim will overtake the U.S. dollar.

Given the current global economic turmoil, coupled with an America that is fading from the status of a lone hyper power into an increasingly multipolar geopolitical environment, the idea of a BRICS common currency has led to renewed interest in the corporate media and through government communication channels.

South Africa will host the XV BRICS Summit in Johannesburg in late August, during which the issue of a BRICS common currency will surely be discussed. There remains only vague details about the structure of such a currency, but lots of rumors have surfaced about this “dollar killer” being backed by commodities such as gold and oil.

So is America doomed? Are we going to be enslaved to a BRICS currency mafia that will break the purchasing power of the dollar and leave us all owning nothing and being “happy” about it?

Not a chance.

Here’s a couple reasons, without getting too deep into the economic weeds, why this BRICS currency won’t topple the dollar anytime soon, and probably not ever.

1. The dollar is free flowing and the trusted first mover

The U.S. dollar is the current global reserve currency not only because it is attached to the economic and military engine of the United States, but because the dollar is a freely floating currency and allows for the vast majority of countries to move trillions of dollars around on a daily basis without much intervention from Washington, D.C.

Additionally, the dollar currently provides enormous volume to organizations and governments that want to move lots of digits around. Acquiring trust in a new hypothetical BRICS system cannot happen overnight.

Now, those policies could very well change, as Clown World accelerates further into the abyss. Still, there remains plenty of obstacles that BRICS nations would need to overcome to even set the stage to overtake the dollar.

1. BRICS nations are all central planners on steroids

Every party to the BRICS coalition operates strict monetary controls over their national currencies. And there is no evidence that the leaders of this network believe in anything other than top down economic central planning. They're not all going to suddenly drop the ideological commitment to authoritarianism to make a commodity-backed monetary network open to the world.

This is proven through BRICS nations’ commitment to Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) systems. All five members of BRICS have already rolled out at least a pilot program for CBDCs.

Russia’s digital ruble is arriving imminently.

Brazil is expected to launch its CBDC in early 2024.

India is tinkering with a digital rupee program.

China is taking aggressive action in implementing a digital yuan into its broader Social Credit Score system.

And South Africa is currently testing out its own CBDC.

If the idea of a BRICS common currency seems like a distant pipe dream, that’s because there is no evidence that these nations have even developed the first components of such a system.

The idea of a BRICS common currency might not have much to do with a currency at all, but something of a publicity stunt to invite new perceptions about the reshaping multipolar geopolitical reality we reside within.

For all of the problems the United States faces, the leaders of BRICS nations have plenty of issues of their own. The reality billions face today in 2023 is that nobody gets the government they deserve. No centrally planned fiat currency, despite claims of being “backed” by something other than trust, will allow for the expansion of human flourishing.

Ultimately, both the dollar and the BRICS currency should be usurped by a money that is not controlled by the state. Governments need to be removed from the money business entirely, which was the whole reason for innovations like bitcoin, a truly free currency system that relies on math, and not rulers.