What did the Ottoman Empire leave as a legacy?

As the great empire, forced toward fragmentation and ultimately collapse by borrowing undertaken as a result of rebellions and wars in its final years, came to an end, it left the post-War of Independence generation no legacy other than a few military-owned factories and a widely dispersed peasant population.

Mustafa Kemal’s refusal after the War of Independence to attach importance to the Soviet Union’s overtures, and his rapid turn toward industrialization through statism, are clear indicators of the worthlessness of the Ottoman legacy, of 600 years having been squandered.

Mustafa Kemal, who read history very well, tried to climb out of this pit by basing the economy on a national development model, and by grounding that national development model in investment, labor and the training of an army of education. On the one hand statism, and on the other, with the opportunity opened by history, the admission of German academics into the country as refugees formed important pillars of the foundations for collective development.

By sustaining development through friendly but sensitive policies toward both the West and the Soviet Union, it was ensured that the added value created through the method of state capitalism was, at least in part, brought into public hands, while Turkey also did not remain cut off from benefiting from the driving force of capitalism through Western influence. Despite all interventions and efforts to create radical change, of course the resurgence of Ottoman laziness and opportunism was inevitable; indeed, in addition to the “profiteer” groups that benefited from the newly established İş Bankası after the War, it could be seen that the chronic disease of “appropriation” had flared up and that state-dependent entrepreneurship was emerging, even if gradually. Quite right; the complacency that had seeped into the social cells of a great 600-year empire, and the impulse to grow rich, could not easily be erased! In that case, not a “businessperson” in line with Schumpeter’s definition, but a nurtured business world could be created — and that is exactly what happened! Thus, by fits and starts, for a while under the umbrella of fear the Soviets cast over the West, and later by selling off the Republic’s accumulated assets for next to nothing, we have come down to the present day. 

So why are we in this situation today? The government has been at the head of the state for years, almost as if evoking Mehmed the Conqueror. And it is so firmly at its head that, although all public powers are at the leader’s command, neither the leader nor the cadre under his command is subject to almost any serious scrutiny. Such stories are told of the Ottoman Empire that even the great sultan Mehmed the Conqueror — whom, though it is not our place, we try to resemble — was reported to the judge, and the world sovereign was even fined.

We may wonder what connection the question of what situation we are in today could have with the story of Mehmed the Conqueror. Let us examine this question in connection with the question of what important relationship there may be between the legacy the Ottoman Empire left us and our current condition.

Our first issue is whether consumption is based on production, or on spoils or debt. Today our budget runs a chronic deficit, and household budgets generally run deficits. Our second issue, accordingly, is the failure to raise real businesspeople and, as a result, the inability to form a strong working class. When this is the case, when the bourgeois class cannot be formed as it should be, the businessperson and the person of the state have come to merge with one another. In all capitalist-bourgeois state structures, capital and the state are intertwined; this is true, but with one difference: in advanced countries, capital is intertwined with the institutional state, while in backward countries, capital is intertwined with state people who have not become “statesmen.” Thus, while institutions in developed economies can remain standing to a certain extent, in developing countries institutions are corrupted and placed under the command of politics, the concept of “statesmanship” is worn down, and it is gradually turned into “ownership of the state,” reminiscent of Louis XIV’s logic in France in the mid-17th century: “I am the state.” 

While these processes unfold within the model of a single country, it should not be thought that the environment and life that drag countries into such special conditions are formed solely by domestic conditions. Naturally, domestic conditions are natural factors, but international conditions that also trigger domestic conditions are in play as well. A gradually collapsing capitalism, impoverished peripheral economies, political structures turning into dictatorships and social structures in which rules are corrupted are the natural consequences of internal and external factors. In this confusion, capital has to find its way. This must be the Ottoman legacy that has stretched into our day, but this time it seems to be our fate to live it within an inverse relationship!

Especially in the Marmara region and its surroundings, and also in many parts of Anatolia, infrastructure works such as roads and tunnels are being carried out continuously. There is a budget deficit, there is no money for retirees, so how is it that these infrastructure investments never slow down? In the face of increasingly strained budgets, while spending cuts are being pursued, and even the government itself has issued a “savings circular” for its own expenditures, why is this circular not being followed and why are infrastructure investments continuing — or perhaps being made to continue?

The reason is very clear: These expenditures are a serious channel for transferring resources to domestic and especially foreign capital. In other words, domestic and foreign capital that reaches an understanding with the political cadre carries out investments with payment guarantees, thereby both creating a market for itself and generating capital expansion, while also contributing to the financing of politics. So who pays the cost? Of course, the people who remain outside the elected and the privileged pay it. Are these people not, at the same time, being crushed on the one hand under inflation and unfair taxes, and on the other under wages and pensions that are not raised as much as necessary? Yes, they are being crushed. So what kind of ignorance is this, that people both bear the cost and, with their own votes, carry to power the politicians who breathe down their necks?

The answer to this question is layered: (1) This game is very complex; it is not possible for the people to understand the process; (2) The peoples on whom the Ottoman Empire once descended are now descending on the descendants of the Ottoman Empire; (3) The institution of trusteeship applies not only within the state, but also among states at the international level. The perception of this complex process and the people’s awakening and showing their reaction do not appear to be in the near future at all. 

To understand the culture-system of collapse in the economy, one needs knowledge of history on the one hand, and on the other, the dialectical thinking and analytical method necessary to understand complex social events!