Resisting privatization and a call to action

First, let me recall a piece of news that hit the media agenda on November 20, 2024. The report stated that approximately 500 mine workers in the Nallıhan district of Ankara had launched a protest against the decision to privatize the mining fields of the Çayırhan Thermal Power Plant by locking themselves underground in the mine. In short, the mine workers were resisting privatization.

If you wish, let us first take a look at how privatization policies were brought about. Later, I will provide three negative, and as negative as they are grave, examples that have emerged regarding privatization in agriculture, industry, and the service sector.

PRIVATIZATIONS AND SOEs

Privatizations were brought to the agenda following the externally dependent 1980 Military Coup with the implementation of the January 24 decisions. While it was being pumped into the public consciousness that "private is beautiful and efficient," it also began to be said that "State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) are a burden on the state's back." Privatizations, which started with the rhetoric that we would sell off loss-making SOEs, became one of the factors that created moral decay in parallel with the economic difficulties we are currently experiencing.

However, the SOEs that were the target of privatization were the products of the Republican era, which was established through the struggle waged against imperialism in Turkey. They were established as a necessity of the approach that independence won in the political sphere could be protected through development in the economic and social spheres.

In Turkey, SOEs;

-Spread industry across the country,

-Closed the gap and delay in the production of intermediate goods and capital goods,

-Created employment,

-Transformed national resources into production through planning,

-Strove to ensure balance in income distribution and social justice through regional development, and

-Created new resources for the public.

-The existence of SOEs was also important in terms of enabling citizens to participate in the political and economic decision-making process. In this way, the influence of powerful capital circles over the public was attempted to be balanced to certain degrees.

THE NEGATIVES CREATED BY PRIVATIZATIONS

What happened when industrial SOEs were privatized? Even Zeybekçi, who served as Minister of Economy in the past, said, "Goods such as furniture, leather garments, pliers, and pincers are coming to Turkey from abroad. If even the sickle we use in the village comes from China, things have gone off the rails. Traditional Turkish carpets are also produced in China." (See: Hürriyet, Economy, January 30, 2015). The privatization of SOEs and their purchase by foreigners also negatively affected Turkey's research and development (R&D) efforts. Most firms have withdrawn from R&D activities.

In this context, is it possible to say that most of our people have access to quality food, health, and education services, which are our most pressing problems?

WHY IS IT NOT POSSIBLE TO ACCESS FOOD?

There are two main reasons.

First, agricultural production per capita in Turkey has declined significantly. This is because our small and medium-sized farmers, who rely on family labor, have moved away from agricultural production. One of the reasons for this was the privatization of Agricultural SOEs that provided them with agricultural inputs and services.

For example, with the privatization of SEK and fertilizer factories, producers were left to the mercy of industries in an oligopolistic state. As a result, Turkey lost its food sovereignty.

Second, the marketing channel between the producer and the consumer was too long. Here, too, the public left the field to intermediaries to a very high degree.

WHAT HAPPENED WHEN HEALTH SERVICES WERE PRIVATIZED?

Privatizations were carried out in the health system to increase efficiency, productivity, and quality in health services and to ensure patient satisfaction. Private hospitals sprang up like mushrooms. But what happened? The personal rights of employees were restricted, workplace peace was disrupted, unnecessary demand was created, preventive services were sidelined, and inequality in health was increased.

Is there any need to go far?

Isn't the "Newborn Gang" incident, described as the biggest health scandal seen in the world, not just in Turkey, in recent times, the latest indicator of this? Has it not been revealed that the newborn gang committed murders by sending babies to their shady private hospitals to rob the Social Security Institution (SSK)?

WHAT IS THE LEVEL OF QUALITY IN EDUCATION?

Public education faced the onslaught of neoliberal policies presented as a solution to capitalism.

The justification was that education services could be more effective, competitive, egalitarian, and efficient. Thus, the state's support in the provision, financing, and supervision of education was minimized as much as possible. Taxes collected from laborers under various names were presented to the ruling classes under the guise of loans and incentives instead of being used for the equal, free, and compulsory education rights of the children of laborers.

However, the results obtained in this process showed that, contrary to the rhetoric put forward by the advocates of privatization in education, it deepened existing inequalities instead of eliminating them.

Let us ask, what is the state of satisfaction with education among the 95 percent of the population, excluding the top 5 percent?

A CALL AGAINST PRIVATIZATION

It needs to be stated loudly that one of the sources of the difficulties we are experiencing today in industry, agriculture, and the service sector is privatization.

In this respect, it was very appropriate for the Çayırhan Thermal Power Plant mine workers to resist privatization and remind the Turkish public of the negatives brought by privatization.

In this context, let us not forget the work of the "Center for the Development of Public Management (KİGEM)," which was established in the recent past in 1993 by Prof. Dr. Mümtaz Soysal and Prof. Dr. Korkut Boratav to voice the problems experienced in the operation of Public Enterprises, which are the cornerstones of the national economy, and to produce solutions for them to be more effective and better manageable.

As I conclude my article, I would like to make a call.

Against privatizations, first and foremost, a consciousness needs to be created across Turkey. To this end, I invite organizations, primarily unions, the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (TMMOB), Medical Chambers, and Chambers of Agriculture, to a signature campaign against privatizations.

A thousand greetings to those who resist privatization.