The commodification of politics

The commodification of politics can be driven by internal dynamics as much as external ones, and even through a chain reaction where both dynamics feed into each other, distancing politics from true public service and service to the people. It is painful that while our country is being dragged into such a vortex, there is no exit in sight that could save the course of events, despite some partial flickers of hope.

By bringing neoliberal policies to the agenda with capital's insatiable urge and making the globe subservient to its command, especially developing economies have been steered away from serving national interests and forced into the service of international capital, while high-level political actors, in particular, have been commodified and flooded with wealth. After all, one of the most important elements of commodification is attaching a price tag to an element and then guiding—or herding—that element toward a desired goal by manipulating the price based on the situation and purpose. In the bourgeois state structure, political entities that are already fed by capital and strongly supported during election periods are, by their very nature, structures designed more to fill pockets than to serve the public. It is tragic that this situation, which constitutes the most fragile soft underbelly of the capitalist system, is not seen by contemporary sociologists and political analysts, or they themselves are commodified, pushed aside, and forced to ignore it. For the recognition and exposure of this sensitive point of capitalism forms the fundamental basis for overturning the entire system.

In the part of the article up to this point, I have tried to put forward an idea that could be examined under another heading, such as “systems and political structures,” without it being noticed too much. In fact, the expressions “bourgeois state structures” or “bourgeois politics” were already implicitly revealing the purpose of the state and/or political organization. However, due to the exploitative power of capitalism, it had created such a social life with the resources sucked from the laborer that the general masses of the people could not reach the background of the formation because of the glitz that blinded them, and they could not even be curious about it, let alone being the 'lazy people scratching their bellies.' Moreover, the concept of the social state, which rose especially in the European skies after the Second World War with the exploitative Marshall funds and is now on the verge of fading, has opened up a significant space for the bourgeoisie by keeping all eyes blind and ears deaf until today.

Some calamities, as if to remind us of the proverb “a calamity is better than a thousand pieces of advice,” are slowly (I wish we could remove one of the 'slowly's!) waking up today's societies and leading them to develop thoughts about what is happening. Just as sleep comes with wealth, awakening comes with the decrease of wealth. Since wealth drainage in peripheral economies is faster than in developed ones, the awakening in peripheral economies is faster than in central economies. Thus, the colonies that woke up at the beginning of the century and social events like the migration movements experienced today are the superstructure fluctuations of the awakening and the transition from the perception of 'meta-human' to 'free-human.'

The commodification of politics can be carried out by dominant wealthy institutions within a nation, just as bourgeois state structures are complete systems of covert meta-politics. In this structure, the politician serves 'Capital,' which gives the system its name. To mask this service, the political cadre markets—or rather, forces down the throats of—non-capital segments by coating it with various themes, sometimes national defense, sometimes national interest, and sometimes various jingoistic sentiments. Bourgeois political structures can also offer some shares of capital to the service of the poor, with the permission of the capital segment, to mask the functioning of the system and prevent its understanding. Thus, the bourgeois state structure is transformed into a “father-state structure” with its fake image, and this time, the poor segment is commodified by the capital segment for a very small price. However, the price/value of the commodification of the poor segment is negligibly small for the wealthy segment. Yet, while the benefit of the commodification value to the poor segment is high, the cost of sacrifice for the wealthy segment is very low. Thus, the wealthy segment has reined in the poor segment at a low cost and kept the system in its own service.

Now let us come to the process of commodification in the international arena and the possible effects of this process on domestic politics. An example: It has been written extensively in the media that the Chief of General Staff who overthrew President Allende in Chile was appointed by Allende himself but was fed by covert financial support from the US. It is probable that a similar scenario was applied in the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in a detention operation. The project of subjugation that the imperialist will apply to each country may differ. The first leg of this project is to reduce the high-level political decision-making mechanism to as few decision-making elements as possible, and to tame and bring the entire system into a position suitable for command by ensuring that the surrounding protective organs such as parliament, justice, universities, media, etc., are preserved but hollowed out and rendered dysfunctional. The painful part of the matter is that in order for the public support not to be withdrawn from the assigned executor during the smooth implementation of the given commands, it may also be necessary to resolve some of the bottlenecks experienced in the country. The way to do this is through financial support that can ease the economy. Moreover, this support is not given for ‘charity’ but is provided with interest.

The commodification of politicians, sadly, means the commodification of the country's own people. That is the purpose and meaning of external support anyway! We remember that during the 2001-2002 period, when the AKP was marching to power, there was a “voter with a jerrycan head scratching his belly” discourse circulating and being rejected. No, our people are not a mass of voters with jerrycan heads scratching their bellies, and they will not be!