A meeting between the heads of two employers’ associations is not an event that immediately grabs the attention of foreign observers. Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association (TÜSİAD) Chairwoman Ümit Boyner’s first meeting with Independent Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association (MÜSİAD) Chairman Ömer Cihat Vardan was truly very important both for the Turkish economy and for the relationship between politics and the economy. TÜSİAD is known as a rich people’s club in Turkey, and with its limited number of members, it represents big capital. As for MÜSİAD, it represents broad-based medium-sized capital. Growing capital groups, particularly those known as Anatolian tigers, are represented by MÜSİAD, which is also a conservative entrepreneurs’ organization. TÜSİAD claims to be more Western and modern. There has been a deep-running conflict between the two capital groups. The Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government, which is heading into its eighth year, relies more on the capital represented by MÜSİAD. TÜSİAD is a very confident organization because it relies on big capital and has always had a tendency to look down on governments.
The end of crony capitalism
TÜSİAD supported the postmodern coup that took place in Turkey 13 years ago. Claims that the Feb. 28, 1997 coup was planned by big capital and that they provoked the military are still being debated. The Feb. 28 process was also the period in which coup supporters waged a war against Anatolian capital, which was labeled “green capital” at the time, in other words against MÜSİAD members. “Green” is the color of Islam, so by “green capital,” they mean conservative Anatolian capital. The primary aim of the war TÜSİAD launched against Anatolian capital was establishing a state authority that opposed new capital groups that threatened them and their economic rent. The coup had created the conditions for crony capitalism and provided a competitive advantage for big capital.
Anatolian capital suffered tremendously from attacks during the Feb. 28 period. Many companies with multiple partners could not endure the pressure and went bankrupt. But this unjust war placed big capital groups in a difficult position as well because Anatolian capital was also a market for them. But that market contracted. Due to the unfair war in the economy, the financial sector collapsed in 2000 and 2001, and the economy contracted by a third.
The meeting between TÜSİAD and MÜSİAD suggests a compromise between big capital and medium-sized capital and the end of crony capitalism. This historic compromise should be perceived as a critical indicator of the end of the military tutelage order.
The essential problems
The university entrance system tops the list of the most important political debates in Turkey. Those who staged the Feb. 28 coup created an obstacle for all vocational high school graduates just to make it difficult for graduates of imam-hatip high schools, which provide both general education and religious education, to be accepted into universities. They had to do this because imam-hatip high schools were in the same category as other vocational schools that trained machinists and electricians. The obstacle that was designed was the coefficient system, which uses a lower coefficient to calculate the university admission exam scores of graduates of vocational high schools.
As a result of this system, vocational high schools were no longer appealing to students, and the number of skilled workers, which the economy needs, decreased. Koç Holding, the biggest company in Turkey, supported vocational high schools and backed the decision to lift the coefficient barrier. This example reveals the gap between the real economy’s needs and consumer regime debates.
It is for this reason that it will be appropriate to regard the TÜSİAD-MÜSİAD meeting as a compromise that will spread from the pinnacle of the economy to politics. The reason every political problem immediately turned into a biting regime debate was because of the military’s close connection to the state and thereby to the economic power within the state. When military tutelage is removed, the economy easily finds its own free market balances.
The search on the left
British Labour Party leader Gordon Brown’s resignation as prime minister and party leader and Deniz Baykal’s resignation as party leader in the aftermath of a video scandal essentially coincided to the day. This coincidence gives us the opportunity to compare the left in Turkey with the left in Europe and enables the CHP to search for a new compromise with the public.
When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1989, it looked like the leftist ideology had declined globally and liberal capitalism had triumphed. But a strikingly different result emerged. Groups startled by the victory of capitalism sought refuge under the umbrella of leftist parties, allowing the left to be in power in Europe for many years. The left took the initiative and adapted itself to the new age and provided sufficient responses to people’s concerns. The new left, known as the Third Way in the UK and the New Center in Germany, was a manifestation of the left-social democrat parties’ adaptation to new conditions and transformation to assume the role of protecting lower classes. Change meant accepting free market rules such as privatization. The welfare state had collapsed, but there were still posts that needed to be defended in the market-dominated world. French socialists rejected a market society while accepting a free market to express the established new balance.
In the years when left parties in Europe won one victory after the other, social democracy in Turkey was represented by the CHP led by Baykal. While the Labour Party in Britain was experiencing its glory days, the CHP was unable to win any seats in Parliament. The label “New Left” as used by the CHP leader was just a phrase. No one even turned back and looked at Anthony Giddens’ theories. Baykal did not even bother to try out the new syntheses developed by the left in Europe even though during that time a substantial “Third Way” debate was in effect. The term “Anatolian left,” which Baykal introduced, did not lead to a party policy or program.
The CHP was a party of the state, and the state was the army. The Turkish left preferred to defend ideological means that ensured military tutelage. In other words, it preferred to become Ergenekon’s advocate, the representative of the oppressed class.
Last week I had the opportunity to have a debate with young Marxists students at the Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine. I was very surprised to see their ignorance about the domination of financial capital over the world as explained by Karl Marx while defending Tekel workers and the abolishment of tuition. Honestly, I was at a loss for words when they pointed to Cuba as a model. The replacement of blue-collar workers with white-collar workers and the domination of Western capital, which has almost no labor-based production, over the world is still outside of the Turkish left’s range.
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to talk about Eduard Bernstein, who is one of the key founders of social democracy, with Baykal, who is an associate professor of political sociology. I was very impressed by this party leader’s intellectual capacity regarding the values and theories of the left. It’s surprising that the CHP lacks any traces of this knowledge. The same goes for the marginal left as well. The faculty of political science, which functions as an institute of Marxism and Leninism, is still in service. However, this intellectual capacity does not translate into an organization or action. What might be the reason for this?
The rapidly changing intense agenda creates artificial commotion in politics. But politics is actually settling down. We can say that as the summer begins, politics has started to cool down. If the Supreme Election Board (YSK) decides that there must be 120 days instead of 60 days before the referendum, it will help this cooling down process.
