Elections, economic collapse, social decay, and the media

Our country, while evolving from one election process to another in 2023, has now evolved into a local elections process at the beginning of 2024. When examining the elections in 2023 and the elections to be held in March 2024, we have witnessed together that not only are our country's economic problems and solutions to these problems not being discussed, but that social decay is being presented to society in an unethical manner in every field, clearly manifesting itself in political discourse and actions.

The output of the long-standing economic collapse has brought with it a chronic social and moral decay. While it is possible to emerge from an economic collapse in a short time by paying an economic price, it is by no means easy to get rid of social and moral decay. This can take many years and may even span a generation. The problem in representation and distribution in the economy, law, politics, and justice has manifested itself as social and moral collapse.

Society has been torn away from its own national culture and values, and a new mafia-like, invasive culture has been imposed upon it. If social collapse is the final stage of social structures that have completed their lifespan from a sociological perspective and have become a matter of history, this has also brought degeneration with it. Plato suggests that if all social change is considered to consist of deterioration, decay, or degeneration, we perceive deterioration and collapse as change, which in turn brings degeneration. The neoliberal and conservative policies implemented in our country in recent years have brought about a dissolution and collapse of national values in society on the one hand, and decay on the other.

It is of vital importance for the interests of both society and the country that the following four important issues, which stand out during the election process and well before the elections, be discussed and analyzed very well. First is political corruption, second is rent-seeking, third is the economy without a tie (informal economy), and fourth is the search for clean politics and a clean society.

It is an indisputable fact that some individuals and groups obtain rent by influencing the political process, that is, the decision-making process, outside the function of the market process, thereby creating opportunities from politics. This situation has almost become the ordinary lifestyle of the aforementioned circles; therefore, rent-seeking activities are directly related to the state's share in the economy. Rent-seeking activity manifests itself in the economic process mainly in the following ways: quotas, permits, authorizations, approvals, concession documents, incentives, and shortages.

Political corruption, in its dictionary meaning, carries the meaning of subsequently losing the good values in one's nature. When we consider corruption in the dimension that envelops society, we can observe it in many areas. Political corruption, economic corruption, and moral (ethical) corruption. Undoubtedly, it is difficult to separate these interrelated areas of corruption with thick lines. Because while one is the cause of the other, the other can be its result. We know that politics is defined as an activity that determines who gets what, when, and how.

Politics is a process, and in this process, a set of values is formed and these values are distributed. Ultimately, a multi-dimensional complex interaction is in question in this political process. The essential thing in this interaction is to maximize self-interest. These interests manifest in different ways.

- Nepotism (appointing friends and relatives)

- Interest and pressure groups

- Rational ignorance and the habit of short-term utilitarian thinking

- Bureaucracy and private interest motivation

- Transfer society

- Off-budget funds and the 'underground government'

Now let us try to elaborate on the elements we have gathered under subheadings. The perspective of citizens towards political parties is naturally related to their own demands. If the party they support comes to power after the election, they try to receive the expectations that constitute the reason for their voting. Sometimes, an individual forms their political preferences before an election randomly due to political apathy. In this behavioral pattern, also described as 'rational ignorance,' the individual determines their preferences by utilizing tools such as radio, television, and newspapers, while often thinking that the one vote they possess will not be very effective. And sometimes, for this reason, they make their preference decision at the last moment or may direct their preference towards those who work with great meticulousness, spending a lot of money and time in the elections.

One of the reasons for, and even the results of, the corruption of today's democracies is the creation of a transfer society, and the transfer of funds to various interest groups in the state treasury at an increasing rate, ignoring broad segments of society. The use of these funds by the government, often in a way that involves transfers made without the knowledge of an unsupervised parliament, has brought definitions of an 'Underground Government' to the agenda. In this entire process leading to political corruption, bribery, embezzlement, political favoritism, nepotism, logrolling, lobbying, rent-seeking, and resorting to fraudulent methods are all part of this web that leads society and the country to corruption, and it is fed by various sources. It is at this point that an extremely important and decisive responsibility falls upon the media structure our country possesses.

The missing dimension of our democracy, which corresponds to the economic infrastructure, imposes serious duties on the media. Because they have undertaken important and responsible tasks such as informing and guiding public opinion. In processes where obtaining information, researching, and conveying this to society are often costly, television, newspapers, and magazines perform serious work at very sensitive points in the task of informing and notifying society. In a period when corruption envelops society, it is much more important today for the media to draw thick lines between its own values and the values that lead to corruption, and to deliver news to society objectively at a positive level despite all difficulties.

In the opposite case, that is, if the media enters into close contact with the centers that drag society into corruption, and thus the media itself participates in the general corruption, it would be, in a word, 'terrible' for our country and our society. The phenomenon of corruption negatively affects the political, economic, and sociocultural structures and moral values that exist in a society and need to be developed and improved, as well as the existing legal and religious structures. The duty that falls upon all of us should be to say yes to clean politics and a clean society within a structure of social consensus where political corruption and rent-seeking do not exist.