Capital and State

In Ancient Greece, it was argued that public administrators should consist of virtuous individuals. Today, statesmen are presumably moral within their families, but I am incapable of commenting on their stance toward society. The situation of Trump and his associates, who took office at the beginning of this week, is not exactly brilliant either. What is happening that such adverse developments are appearing on the stage of history? Are societies regressing in ethical values while advancing in the economy? We are mistaken in evaluating social formations through the lens of calendar years. We must realize that the criteria we use in our assessment, based on calendar year calculations, are wrong. Because as the years progress by the calendar clock, incredible changes are occurring in the economic processes and production relations that form the fundamental structure of society. Now, let us take a look at these changes.

While transitioning from feudalism to capitalism, the capital that formed the state apparatus transferred the powers used by the feudal lord to the state; however, in order to guarantee that these rights could be used in favor of capital, it kept wealth—that is, economic values—in its own possession and left the state with only the financing opportunity provided by taxes. In the establishment phases, capital tasked the state with the duty of protecting it against internal threats and external competition. But when capital accumulated and grew through its natural process, it took the state into its own service. When thinkers like Ralph Miliband and Nicos Poulantzas explained that large corporations were influential in public decisions by placing their personnel into public institutions in the state-capital relationship, I think they did not imagine, or even foresee, that the matter could reach today's conditions. Names like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk could not have shown up at the pompous ceremony of Trump's inauguration for the happiness of the US. Reckless individuals like Elon Musk even took part in the government or the groups they are associated with through their own biological presence. In short, under today's conditions, capital and the state have ceased to be organs with mutual functions for the sake of social interest; capital, having seized the state apparatus for its own benefit, is trying to shape all public activities in the direction of its own interests.

In today's conditions of globalization, national states serve the interests of international capital beyond even national interests. This situation can be clearly understood from an examination of Turkey's 2025 economic conditions. We remember that at one time, the famous 'nas' (religious decree) policy imposition was fashionable. As a result of this policy, on one hand, an election was secured in favor of the government through the deception of a stimulated market, and on the other hand, billionaires contributed to their billions at the expense of the public through the monstrosity of the currency-protected deposit scheme. Another pro-capital policy is infrastructure investments undertaken with build-operate-transfer or public-private partnership models with guaranteed payments. Our government, which could not calculate well how central capital would attack peripherally positioned economies under conditions where the third deep crisis of capitalism has not yet been overcome, has been dragged into a debt crisis. In my opinion, this situation can be defined as the Third War of Sharing conducted in the financial field. Because today's financial transactions are the battlefields of the third war of sharing. In this war, the sharing is not done over lands but over economic resources, and financial fields are seen as resource transfer processes. The fact that the guaranteed payments for initiatives carried out in the form of build-operate-transfer and public-private partnerships continue until the year 1935 means that we will be paying war reparations that will continue for our children and/or grandchildren during this period. When we look at the budgets and debt tables, we see that debt repayment and interest payments are steadily increasing.

So, if this situation is a burden on society, who do you think will bear this burden; capital, or the laborers and the general public? We must seek the answer to this in the capital-dominant capitalist political system. The answer we find in this search is this: Whoever bears the burden in the social production process also bears this burden! That is, laborers and retirees bear the burden of debt and compensation. Let us pause and think for a moment at this point. Since laborers are bearing the burden in the production process and transferring the ownership of a portion of what they produce to the boss, why is it that at least these additional burdens are borne by the laborers again rather than the bosses? The answer to this question is hidden in the functioning and ideology of the capital system established under capital dominance. The simplest way to express this is that the distribution of social burdens is inversely proportional to political power balances. In the social sphere, economically powerful segments are also the political power centers that can best deflect social costs. As such, it is not a coincidence that low minimum wages are set for laborers and that retirees are condemned to death. Because these segments are the weakest in society.

So, what is the way to escape this oppression? The answer is very simple; the answer is not to take refuge in the state, but to organize and struggle! Yes, this is the first answer given, but it is not sufficient. Because the state is a political organization that works in favor of the interests of capital. If this is the case, laborers can only wage a wage struggle against the capital that uses state power, but they cannot succeed even in that, because the union of capital is the government. This situation and image drag us into a struggle in the political arena; because the struggle that will bring the real painful results to the laborers and the entire public is the struggle of the laborers in the political arena. That is why the effective entry of unions into the political arena is restricted and prohibited.

The struggle must indeed be organized, but the field and means of the struggle should not be seen as limited solely to the union field; one must move into the political arena. The condition for success in the struggle is to frighten capital and its political partner, the government, and the way to do that is through political struggle.