LOOK AT THE HYPOCRISY, THE SYSTEM OF ROBBERY, NOT THE ACROBAT!
We publish this unofficial translation of an article of Yeni Demokrasi.
LOOK AT THE HYPOCRISY, THE SYSTEM OF ROBBERY, NOT THE ACROBAT!
While Erdoğan has stated that what is expected of them is “a higher standard of living”, inflation is 62 percent according to TurkStat and 129 percent according to ENAG (Inflation Research Group). The result of the economic crisis is a darkening of both the present and the future for the people. The working class and laborers, who have been sucked into a huge economic maelstrom, have long lost hope of reaching a minimum standard of living. The labor of those struggling to make ends meet has been ruthlessly absorbed into the wheels of exploitation in order to increase the profit balance sheets of the bosses. More work, additional work, undeclared income, and taking loans as long as these are not enough are popular forms of the effort to achieve minimum living conditions, but what happens as a result is that the bosses get higher rates of profit. The continuity and consolidation of the system is thanks to the reproduction of these conditions over and over again.
The main problem of the fascist dictatorship is the model of accumulation that constantly produces crises. This is a model that paves the way for further indebtedness and attachment to imperialist capital and conditions the endless leaching and theft of social production by this parasitic capital. The system of large-scale robbery and usurious exploitation must be maintained so that the imperialist monopolies and their lackeys, the boss-agha, can become obese with capital.
However, this situation also leads to a dilemma of the capitalist imperialist system. This is the inability of the production process to provide a cycle and its blockage, the intensified accumulation of capital turning into a huge bubble and failing to find a way out. The result is a crisis of overproduction of the capitalist imperialist system and a perpetual financial crisis. Another factor triggering this is the competition of the monopoly imperialist capital and their lackeys, the bureaucratic-comprador capitalists, their struggle to become the strongest monopoly, their struggle to drive each other and the petty and middle bourgeoisie into bankruptcy. The conditions of a crisis are a great opportunity for this to happen. The oppressed are subjected to more exploitation in order for this competition to take place and gain a strong character. This is why the usurpation of rights is increasing. Poverty is deepening for this reason. The period we are going through requires this mechanism to be operated as strongly as possible.
On the eve of the minimum wage meetings, the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank kept reiterating that they would apply austerity with the utmost discipline to reduce inflation. While they stated that wages would henceforth be realized at the targeted rate of inflation, the official figures have escalated in a way that has multiplied the targeted inflation. What defines the relationship between inflation and wages is clear: Wages and, naturally, living standards will fall further! This orientation has only one expectation from the people: PATIENCE. The Minister of Finance and the Governor of the Central Bank said in a statement that requires understanding for patience that “the results of fiscal discipline will not be visible immediately, but the situation is improving”: “We are tightening a lot and we have to tighten, everyone will feel the loosening when we come to the end!” Yesterday’s policy of “low interest rates, high inflation” has led to today’s higher interest rates and higher inflation. The orientation coded and presented as “fighting inflation” is to bill the people for all the consequences of the “bitter prescription”. While unbridled inflation has driven the people into misery and anger, the tightened fiscal policy and high interest rates have accelerated stronger allegiance and tighter attachment to the imperialist system. More borrowing and perpetual debt bondage becomes inevitable as a security insurance for capital transfer to the imperialists.
It is no secret that this is also the further expansion of the bourgeois-feudal ruling classes. The “gang of 5”, “20 gangs, not 5”, the gangs that are now emerging as “phenomena of gangs” describe the unstoppable form of grow up …
In 2023, Q3 corporate profits grew by more than 100 percent. While conglomerates such as Koç and Sabancı announced large profit rates, all other large conglomerates also increased their profits, while airlines, banks and automotive companies continued their high profit growth. In addition to Koç and Sabancı, big comprador capitalists such as THY, TAV Airports, Pegasus, Yapı Kredi Bank, Garanti Bank, İş Bank, Ford Otosan, Tofaş are leading the way in high profit rates. While the commitments made to the imperialist monopolies are being fulfilled, their servants are growing in a crisis environment.
Small and medium-sized producers, especially in certain sectors, are facing bankruptcy. This is becoming more and more likely with each passing day. Developments indicate that the Labour market will swell even more and unemployment will rise even more strongly.
Amidst of this environment, a middle game or a “look at the acrobat” politics is also being pursued by the ruling classes. A group of rotten sectors called “social media phenomenon”, who have prospered on a medium scale through gambling, black money, drugs and fronts and have degenerated with all their lifestyles, have been put on the agenda of the public with the operations and exposure. A new version of the “Ponzi scheme”, a tradition of the country, exploded after this.
On the Fatih Terim axis, the defrauding of well-known football players and “business people”, whose names are not often mentioned, occupied the agenda. The millions of dollars of these people, who are leftovers of the system and are a small part of the mechanism of making easy money, have been exposed with their lives and relationships corrupted by this ease. They are now the main subject of the bourgeois-feudal media with their character, which is a small part of the rotten system but never its essence. By showing the garbage of the rotten system to the masses of people who are condemned to poverty, groaning under the oppression of fascism, whose rights are systematically and dimensionally usurped, and whose future is uncertain, social anger and reaction are transformed into the sphere of tabloids. It is clear that this is a “look at the acrobat” politics. It is obvious that the motive to ask for accountability is exploited. The rotten character of the Turkish rulers as a whole is wanted to be darkened by showing this garbage, by enlarging and bringing it to the eye, by making it the main agenda item, by “hitting them over the head” with the sledgehammer of the state.
A similar “look at the acrobat” policy is pursued by the fascist Erdoğan, the loyal lackey of the imperialists, in foreign policy. A chauvinistic discourse emphasizing “national and domestic” is constantly being developed in regional policies, especially on the Palestinian issue, in loyalty to the orientation that is economically and politically doomed and dependent on imperialism. While Zionist Israel’s ruthless policy of destroying Gaza continues to be realized, trade relations that will provide Israel’s military hardware, energy needs and food requirements are maintained. Despite this, the role of the strongest defender of the Palestinian cause can be played with a common hypocrisy. The compatibility of the discourse centered on the defense of Hamas with the USA imperialism’s policy of detaching Hamas from the Iran-Russia axis should not be overlooked. It can be predicted that the success to be achieved will turn into a more functional role in the eyes of the USA.
In the Mediterranean, Erdoğan continues the same hypocrisy by saying before his visit to Greece that “the USA has broken” the Turkish-Greek relations, while he is turning around with the adjustment given by the imperialists, while escalating Greek hostility in order to strengthen Turkish chauvinism. Because the character of his struggle with the Greek rulers does not go beyond the struggle over who will serve imperialism better and who will play a role in this service. Today’s attempts to make amends are only a result of the interests imposed by USA imperialism.
The fascist dictatorship is in a great crisis. In the political dimension of this crisis, there is the debate on the Constitution, which despite the stability it seems to have achieved with the AKP-MHP, points to intense contradictions internally, and the system issue with the data that “it is not clear whose hand is in whose pocket”. On the CHP axis, there is the unreliable and dissolving reality of the fascist bloc as a whole. This situation represents a great danger in the multifaceted and comprehensive contradictions of the masses. The conditions are favorable to the masses’ desire for change. However, the communists and revolutionary forces are seriously incapable of meeting this demand. It is not possible to meet this demand with a constitutionalist, in-order orientation that engages with the system. The consciousness of the masses to change by fighting and their own independent action is needed. The task of the Marxist-Leninist-Maoists to turn to the masses and organize their struggle and put it on a warlike course is vital. To organize the consciousness of the liberation of the people, to lead its independent action, to turn it into power with the orientation of political power is the most fundamental task from simple to complex. To trace the struggle of the masses, to be in it, to focus on eliminating the main problem of disorganization and dispersal… This is our orientation!