ABSTRACT
This study discusses changes in Turkey’s economic and social structure in the context of the Ottoman Empire, focusing on capitalist relations, modernization efforts, and political power blocks and rulership struggles. The development of capitalist economic relations from the nineteenth century is identified in the Ottoman economic policy of the Committee of Union and Progress (İttihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti) and subsequent efforts of the Republican People’s Party to create a national bourgeoisie. The state power’s control over the economy and society is considered as state capitalism or state-led capitalization for the development of a capitalist system.
For a hundred years, it is argued, the structural dependence of production on imports has held down wages and oppressed workers, while costs on capital have been nationalized to exempt it from social and financial obligations. Meanwhile, borrowing to close the public budget deficit has resulted in serial economic crises. More recently, after the 2001 financial crisis and deepening of neoliberal policies, significant economic and social changes have been witnessed. During the 18 years of Justice and Development Party (AKP) rule, ‘political Islam’ has been closely allied to capitalism, with the development of a new bourgeoisie linked to state power and initial steps towards an apparent democratization replaced by an authoritarian tendency to centralize control. Today’s economic and political crisis of Turkey is a phase of a structural crisis that goes beyond the public budget and trade deficits, exchange rate volatility, and external shocks. Rather, it represents just the latest stage of a historical and structural process shaped by the political preferences and unsuccessful policies of the (secularist and AKP) power blocs.
