On whose shoulders does capitalism place the burden of loss?

Economic choices inevitably have political and social consequences. This is because economics and politics are a whole. They are each other's essential components, complements, and integrators. They are two sides of the same coin. Therefore, talking about politics without talking about economics, or discussing political choices without addressing the relationships of production, property, and distribution, is meaningless, inconsistent, and misplaced.

This simple truth also applies to foreign policy, national defense and security policies, and political choices that can even veer toward fascism. The dominance of capital, the defense of capital's interests with weapons if necessary, and the search for cheap labor, raw materials, and markets abroad are the determining factors. Racism, anti-communism, authoritarian or totalitarian rule, and the glorification of a leader, party, or state always come later. What is decisive are economic interests and class-based choices.

Developed, central, industrialized, capitalist countries act protectionist when it comes to their own domestic markets, producers, merchants, laborers, and industrialists; they implement state support and subsidies and raise customs barriers, while recommending and imposing the exact opposite policies on backward, underdeveloped, and developing countries.

For example, developed countries from the USA to the Netherlands, and from France to Canada, support and look after agriculture and agriculture-based industries as a state. They protect their farmers and peasants. They are closely interested in agricultural production and agricultural productivity. They encourage and disseminate advanced techniques and scientific approaches in agriculture. Thanks to this, they stand out not only with their industrial products, high-tech companies, giant financial institutions, and automotive brands, but also with their meat and dairy products, cheeses, wines, and cuisine. When it comes to Turkey, however, these countries want us to follow the exact opposite policies. That is why the massive increase in Turkey's agricultural imports has pleased French farmers so much that France awarded a former Minister of Agriculture (Mehdi Eker) a knighthood.

When discussing the economy in the world and in our country, it is necessary to take into account both the ever-increasing weight of advanced technology, artificial intelligence, and robots in the economy, production, industry, and trade, as well as the proliferation of cryptocurrencies and funds that encourage making money from money. Because for a long time, it has been observed that capital is increasingly detaching from production. There are many different reasons for this. However, against industrial capital that takes risks, is entrepreneurial, invests, produces, creates employment, pays taxes, creates added value, and provides externalities, a capital structure that makes money from money and has a predominantly speculative nature is coming to the fore. In our country, too, rent, repo, interest, the stock market, and foreign exchange are discussed primarily when the economy is discussed.

Capital that has become monopolized at the international level has made the nation-state, which has been weakened by organizations like the World Bank and the IMF—also known as "modern usurers"—even weaker and more defenseless. This capital, which emerges with the claim of shrinking or even eliminating the state and liquidating social gains and social rights, is on one hand increasing unemployment and on the other threatening the very existence of the nation-state.

Underdeveloped and developing countries are experiencing the danger of division and fragmentation more acutely. They are struggling in the fight against this. Their national identities, civic bonds, and political structures are being divided by sub-identities, ethnic, religious, and sectarian affiliations, and by cult and community structures. These are being pitted against each other and provoked against one another, just as in Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria. US and European imperialism, without any shame or embarrassment, supports and uses these in the name of "democracy, civil society, freedom, and human rights."

Political parties, unions, and democratic mass organizations that are expected to oppose this trend and imperialist impositions, and that should be fighting against them, are becoming weaker. Farmers, peasants, low-income earners, laborers, the unemployed—in short, the overwhelming majority of society—cannot exert their weight on politics. The change in the concept of the workplace and the differentiation of the production process and method have also made organizing more difficult. People participating in the production process from their homes via computers without coming to work have rendered unions organized around a common workplace and location ineffective.

Free market is not the same as freedom, and privatization is not the same as democracy. They are very different. Without even entering into theoretical debates about the invisible hand in capitalism, whether the market is ever truly free anywhere, or whether perfect competition conditions remain only on paper, one must frequently remember this simple rule regarding capitalism:

In capitalism, profits are privatized, and losses are socialized.

This rule is valid on a global scale just as it is on a national scale. Just as the majority of wealth and riches are concentrated in the hands of a handful of the wealthy, a minority, and a narrow segment on a national scale, the gap between the rich and the poor, and between rich and poor countries, is deepening on a global scale.