A first: State-Capital conflict

The general trend we are witnessing today is the rise of nationalism and nationalist movements, and the spread of right-wing political understanding. The gradual withdrawal of states into their own internal worlds is not an operation carried out by capital against the state, as we have seen in past periods; on the contrary, it is developing as a policy initiated by the state against capital for the first time in history. Indeed, it is not observed that the polymorphic state structure, which has been observed to be shaped in parallel with and guided by capital movements at every stage of history, has begun to impose its authority against capital this time.

When we look back at the historical process of capitalism from the current landscape, we see that capitalism, as a system, is an operating model of the state phenomenon shaped according to the requirements of capital. Neither privatizations nor the circulation of capital across the entire globe are contrary to the spirit of capitalism. On the contrary, the state's own intervention in the system through social policies was correct for the functioning of the system but contrary to its essence; social democracy or applications that have been shaped into different forms in different ways were also 'modified capitalism' in a form that was stripped of its purity and had its functioning changed to eliminate bottlenecks without making changes to its essence.

When we look at the original version of the system built by Scottish economists, do not issues such as the small state, free market economy, balanced budget, and neutral or impartial tax system overlap with the issues imposed by neoliberalism? Similarly, was neoliberalism not shaped around a design to revive the system with a structure suitable for its essence, based on the justification that the crises experienced were distanced from its essence through interventions in capitalism, with the thesis voiced both at the Walter Lippmann Colloquium, where its foundations were laid, and at the Mont Pelerin meetings?

Such being the case, we must see the reality that neoliberalism is a stopover suitable for the capital requirements of capitalism. This situation tells us the following: firstly, neoliberalism is not a new system or model, but a historical stopover much closer to the essence of capitalism, which is shaped by capital according to the requirements of capital; secondly, the transition from this stopover to another by ending it will also be experienced as a requirement of the dialectical process within the framework of capital's movements. Therefore, just as it is not something started from scratch, there is no essence that is changed or abandoned. That is why sociologists perceive and characterize striking changes seen in superstructure tissues, such as privatization or liberalization, as "transformation," while economists who evaluate based on the essence of the system perceive and characterize the process merely as "change." According to this situation, meaningless expressions such as neoliberalism has started or ended may be meaningful from a sociological perspective in terms of the area of application, but in terms of system logic, it is perceived only as a temporary process within capitalism or a historical stopover developed in accordance with the benefit of capital.

Capital has reached the peak of its dominance over society and the state through the globalization process. Moreover, capital achieved this stage with the help of states themselves. Capital, which took the state by its side against external competition and internal attacks during the transition from feudalism to capitalism, reached the limits of its expansion while strengthening and carrying its markets to the international arena through globalization, taking the central economy state it was attached to, as well as the states of the exploited nations, under its command, and making its own rules dominant on the globe. Capital, which expanded its market boundaries, was able to produce suitable solutions to the problem of declining profit rates and tax evasion issues until it reached the limits of expansion. At this stage, capital has begun to show its teeth to the whole world from two perspectives. First, the capital that grew and became internationalized during the globalization process did not hide its exploitative face in every field inherent to its essence, abandoning its homeland and freeing itself from serving the state in terms of both providing employment and paying taxes. Because while it was putting the exploitation accumulations it created during its activities in the main state into service in the international arena for the purpose of higher profit, rather than within the nation, both as financial capital and productive capital, it was getting rid of the responsibility of both providing employment and paying taxes to the state it was attached to. Here, at the point we have reached today as an unexpected result of this process, we are witnessing a state-capital conflict, perhaps for the first time in history. In fact, such a result was quite expected, but the mainstream economic doctrine under the dominance of capital either could not perceive such possible results and/or hid them from the public under the fear of capital. The new crises we perceive with the appearance that neoliberalism is closing and the inward turning of nations exhibit the traces of such a conflict. In short, this crisis experienced by central nation-states is a state management crisis with socio-economic content. While the departure of real capital from the country creates an employment problem, the fact that the profit earned abroad is sent to tax havens rather than the country can also lead to social problems by negatively affecting the public budget.

The second reason for the crisis that globalization drags central states into also emerges in the volume and composition of trade. Firms that spread their production to peripheral economies introduce their products to central countries through exports. This situation, that is, the introduction of products of central country producers spread to the periphery into central countries through exports, leads to a current account deficit problem in the central country. Financing the current account deficit through public borrowing causes interest rates to rise, directing dividends from the real investment field to the financial field, once again negatively affecting employment.

While states left alone with budget constraints on one hand, and current account deficit and employment problems on the other, are dragged into oligarchic policies, it also causes the rise of nationalist movements in the field of politics in the countries in question. The effect of globalization of capital, which can be summarized in rough lines like this, has brought the state phenomenon and the capital fabric face to face. We can define this process as a shift from an instrumental state understanding to a purposeful state understanding. We will wait and see which one will play the last trump card, who will emerge victorious; we might even witness the ownership of productive capital passing from the private sector to the public sector-state, perhaps, we will wait and see!