Part Four: 2035, 2045, 2055 — Three Futures

In the previous three parts, we dismantled the myths and examined the commodities and the institutions. Now we look ahead. But a warning to the reader: anyone who claims to know what happens in 2055 is either lying or selling something. The future is not a prophecy; it is several possible paths, each shaped by today's decisions, demographic realities and market forces. We sketch out three scenarios, assigning a probability and key conditions to each.

The preceding parts made one thing clear: BRICS is neither marginal, nor a unified front against the dollar, nor a disbanding company of market hawkers. It is a network whose strength resides in commodities, demographics and loose, sovereign cooperation. But by 2055, this network could become the new backbone of the global economy, a patchwork of fragmented regional alliances, or a memorial to the ambitions of the 2020s. What tips the balance is not how much oil its members possess today, but whether they can coordinate in a decentralised, market-based manner — or whether central planning and geopolitical rivalry unravel the network instead.

Scenario One: A Networked Success

By 2035, the New Development Bank's annual lending exceeds $10 billion, and the share of loans denominated in local currencies reaches 50% (at present roughly 25%; the bank has set a 30% target for 2026 — doubling that within a decade is ambitious but achievable). According to IMF projections, India overtook Japan in nominal GDP in 2025 and is projected to overtake Germany around 2028; by 2035, it cements its position as the world's third-largest economy, behind only the United States and China. Some 40% of intra-BRICS trade no longer runs in dollars but in yuan, rupees, rand and roubles, through bilateral swap networks. De-dollarisation is not a revolution but a gradual transition — and it endures precisely because it is a slow trickle, not a single big bang.

By 2045, the demographic realignment enters its decisive phase. India's working-age population approaches 1.1 billion, while China's equivalent cohort shrinks towards 820 million — and by 2050, the gap widens further, with India reaching 1.13 billion and China 745 million (UN Population Division, World Population Prospects 2024, medium variant). China does not collapse, however: robotics and AI-driven automation offset the shrinking workforce, and the economy shifts from quantitative to qualitative growth. BRICS is not a unified bloc but the commercial backbone of a multipolar world — for the countries of the Global South, this network becomes the primary market and principal source of financing.

By 2055, world trade splits into three poles: the United States and its allies, the EU, and the BRICS network and its partners. BRICS has not defeated the West, but it has reached the point where the West can no longer set the rules for global financial and trade flows on its own. For the citizens of member states, this scenario brings tangible benefits — infrastructure, falling poverty, wider market opportunities — but only where local governments have let market actors coordinate freely, and where bureaucracy has not stifled growth.

Scenario Two: The Geopolitical Pinball

This is the most likely scenario. BRICS does not collapse, but nor does it become a unified power. Instead, it fragments into two, possibly three sub-blocs: China, Russia and Iran on one side; India, Brazil and the United Arab Emirates on the other; South Africa and the remaining African partners manoeuvring between the two for maximum advantage. The BRICS summits carry on, but they end up much like the G20 — a talking shop where nobody takes binding decisions.

By 2035, Sino-Russian trade is at its peak, but India actively blocks any BRICS initiative that would hand China greater monetary or strategic weight. The idea of a common currency is buried for good. The CRA — the bloc's emergency reserve pool — is never activated: when Ethiopia or Egypt runs into trouble, the members are unwilling to dip into a common purse, and with a 70% dependence on the IMF they have to turn to Washington anyway.

By 2055, BRICS still exists on paper as an organisation, but the real decisions are taken bilaterally. The world is multipolar, yet BRICS is not one of the poles — it is the empty space between them. For the citizens of member states, this scenario delivers a mixed picture: those in a favourable geopolitical position (India, Saudi Arabia) prosper; those stuck in the gap (an isolated Russia, a stagnant South Africa) fall behind. The logic of the network still holds, but the network itself is fractured.

Scenario Three: An Internal Collapse

This scenario is unlikely, but it cannot be ruled out. By 2035, India's young population cannot find enough jobs or education: of 990 million people of working age, 200 million are inactive or low-skilled. This is not a demographic dividend but a ticking time bomb. Unemployment and ethnic and sectarian tensions feed an internal instability that drives away foreign capital — exactly when that capital is needed most.

China, meanwhile, fails to offset its ageing population with technology. The property and banking crisis already brewing in the 2020s comes to a head. The capital misallocation bred by artificial credit expansion — the state flooded the market with cheap credit, financing superfluous buildings and infrastructure for which there was never any real demand — now comes due. Household savings lose their value, consumption slumps, and the economy enters a "lost decade" of the kind Japan endured after 1990. The BRICS institutions fail: the NDB is paralysed by repayment problems among crisis-hit members and tightening capital constraints, while the CRA sits unused — neither can absorb the shock.

By 2055, BRICS as a concept has vanished from the geopolitical vocabulary. The "old" great powers remain: a weary China that still leads, an India that never fulfilled its promise, an isolated Russia, and a West that regains global financial dominance — not because it grew stronger, but because its rivals weakened themselves. For ordinary citizens, this is the darkest scenario: in place of the grand promises, what remains is poverty, instability and the failures of central planning.

What Determines Which Scenario Unfolds?

Four key variables will decide which scenario materialises. They are not born at BRICS summits, but in the domestic politics of member states and the everyday decisions of market actors.

First: the trajectory of the India–China relationship. If the two can pursue commercial and technological cooperation despite their border disputes, the network can succeed. If the rivalry turns military, BRICS fractures.

Second: the effectiveness of Western sanctions. If the American and European sanctions regime can still cut BRICS members off from global financial channels — above all through secondary sanctions that punish banks and firms dealing with sanctioned states — the pressure to de-dollarise accelerates. But over-using sanctions can also force the bloc to close ranks; if, on the other hand, the West "softens", BRICS members have less reason to cooperate.

Third: domestic market liberalisation. India can only realise its demographic dividend if its labour market grows more flexible, land ownership is reformed and red tape is cut. China can only manage its ageing population if it channels household savings into genuine market investment rather than state megaprojects. Here, the freedom to coordinate through the market is not an ideological question but a condition of survival.

Fourth: technological sovereignty. Whoever controls chip manufacturing, fundamental AI research and green-energy technology by 2040 will call the shots in the network. Whoever merely sells commodities stays a low-value-added supplier — no matter how much oil it sits on.

Closing Word: Grand Designs and Market Reality

This series was not written to predict the future, but to bring order to the present. BRICS is not a conspiracy, not a world-saving alliance, and not an irrelevant club. It is a network whose members take part in a global coordination experiment to varying degrees and with varying aims.

The mainstream media's mistake is to overstate the threat it poses or understate its weight. The reality is more nuanced: measured by GDP at purchasing power parity (PPP), the BRICS bloc already comes out ahead; in commodities it is dominant; and its institutions are partly functional, partly paper tigers. Its future does not depend on how much gold anyone buys, but on whether the citizens of member states can trade freely, take entrepreneurial risks and decide on the basis of local knowledge. The market does not prophesy; it calculates: every day, it works out whether a country is worth producing, investing or working in. If BRICS members disrupt that calculation with excessive central planning, the network collapses. If they let market processes run, the network endures — and strengthens.

So by 2055, BRICS neither wins nor loses. The winners are the countries inside it that grasp a simple truth: economic power is not born at summits, but in the market, where millions of local decisions add up to something larger than any government plan.