Brains corrupted by capitalism

Capitalism, on one hand, engages in capital accumulation and the parallel accumulation of power, while on the other, it advances within the immense ideological environment it has created by directing its material power toward capturing and corrupting our brains. In this process, we argue that capitalism commodifies and exploits nature. This argument is correct, but it reveals the result, not the cause. However, it does not require much rationality to reveal the negative effects of the openly committed massacre of nature. Because rationality is essential not for explaining that the crime of environmental destruction is being committed, but for fully understanding and interpreting the entire process. In other words, rationality is necessary to push the term "capitalism" into the background and to understand the fallacy of reflecting the applied system as the natural functioning of economic life. The truth of the matter, it seems, is that while capitalism turns toward the destruction of nature, it perhaps numbs our minds and dulls our thought system as if to prevent us from seeing it.

TÜİK announced that the growth rate for the second quarter of 2025 increased by 4.6% compared to the same period last year. This rate alone does not look bad at all. Indeed, following the latest assessment, our politicians immediately stood up and declared that we had made all our jealous enemies burst with envy. This growth rate is fine, but are the figures and ratios also that high in terms of quality? In other words, was this growth achieved through serious investment and capacity expansion, or through one-off, soap-bubble-like values as seen in construction or service sectors? If the skyscrapers built by famous construction companies in major cities, especially in Istanbul, provide rent above their costs, and if these rents are formed at the expense of the erosion of Anatolia or other regions, it means that losses, alongside gains, have not been accounted for. For example, if a bankrupt firm pays back a loan it received from a bank with interest using money it collected by force, and the bank's profit is recorded as income under "financial transaction gains," is this item really income in terms of the national economy? Does the method of calculating national income in foreign currency by keeping the exchange rate suppressed despite inflation give us accurate information about the growth rate of the material resources we actually consume?

If economic activities are carried out to meet our needs and raise our welfare level, how can we be satisfied with values or ratios presented through such inadequate calculations! It is not possible to raise the level of social welfare overnight, but the first condition is that welfare should be distributed as fairly as possible, and the second condition is that the economy should be placed on a planned and programmed track to ensure welfare growth in the medium and long term. To this end, it is necessary to enter a serious, long- or medium-term planning track. However, when we look at the 2000 IMF-Derviş program that has been applied for over twenty years, we see that Turkey, which is integrated with the world and opened to the outside world without oversight, no longer even has the luxury of creating a national program.

As for our main topic, the issue of capitalism melting our minds, I think it is necessary to distinguish between absolute and relative variables. A melted or frozen mind perceives absolute changes but does not compare the absolute situation with the relative-hypothetical situation, whereas the latter is what truly matters. For example, the claim that politicians attach importance to education and that the resources allocated to education have increased may be true; to understand the purpose and the degree of implementation of the policies applied, it is important to compare the latest figure given not with the figures of the previous period, but with the hypothetical figure that should be. Only in this case can the view of how much politicians value education gain clarity. As for allowing the corruption of the mind, if the education system prefers to provide only practical information on the problems experienced in society while keeping mathematics and philosophy outside or far from the system, this cannot go beyond creating a "fill-and-empty" empty-headed voter base, rather than education. While generations devoid of philosophy and mathematics remain ignorant, subsequent generations become unable to even perceive their level of ignorance. So, who wins from this situation? In the first stage, of course, the politicians who are trying to solidify their positions win. However, this view is quite shallow in today's globalization conditions. That is, today's globalization policy and practice have left behind the imperialist methods of the past. In other words, as a result of economic transactions between center and peripheral economies, while absolute improvement is experienced in peripheral economies, the center will derive a higher level of benefit from this process, so that along with absolute improvement in peripheral economies, a relative decline is experienced. This situation cannot be perceived by peripheral countries, and negative reaction against the local political power that follows policies suitable for global politics is prevented. Here, both sides seem to be winning; however, since the center wins at a higher rate, while the absolute improvement of the periphery blinds the eyes, the distance between the center and the periphery widens. This situation occurs not only between peripheral and central countries but in all countries as well as in all global economies. We see and experience every day in the written and spoken media, which grates on our ears, that a section smaller than one percent of the world's population receives more than half of the world's wealth or income, yet no reaction is formed. This is how the results of capitalism taking over by melting our minds and holding our consciousness captive manifest. We are witnessing that the peoples under the exploitation of imperialism and the domestic bourgeoisie in countries made open to the exploitation of world imperialism remain unresponsive. Could the unresponsiveness of these peoples be the natural result of their brains having been melted and taken over!

Capitalism, based on the exploitation of human and natural resources, is the result of melting the human brain—the most valuable biological-natural asset—with its ideological structure, such that in the human brain, which is programmed to perceive physical attacks, only the image of nature exploitation is formed.