Long Live May 1st

We are meeting on May 1st for a Republic that stands for justice and labor.

With the exception of some exceptional cases, there is an inverse relationship between the frequency of a celebration or commemoration and the value felt in social perception. That is to say, in each subsequent commemoration, the meaning and enthusiasm of the first ceremony gradually fade, and the event turns into a mere, perhaps even somewhat meaningless and irrelevant, routine ceremony. I can decide for my own feelings where May 1st falls on such a spectrum of definition, but I believe I do not have the right to make such a decision for the entire society.

In this case, I would like to discuss the meaning and value of May 1st today with you, dear readers, not for society, but from the perspective of my own thoughts. In this discussion, I want us to talk solely about the evaluation of today, without going into the imagery of the history of May 1st commemorations, starting from the march in Australia in 1856, and the events that have taken place and persisted to the present day through labor actions carried out at different times and in different regions of the world. 

In the first step of our conversation, I will mention an image that immediately catches my eye and that I do not like at all. For some reason, 'May 1st Labor Day' is held, but 'Capital Day' is not; similarly, 'International Women's Day' is held, but for some reason, 'Men's Day' is not. Such contradictions may apply to other subjects as well, but these two striking examples are sufficient to show the interesting contradiction.

Now let's get to the essence of the matter. May 1st is celebrated as Labor Day. So, what are workers celebrating in the May 1st celebrations every year? As workers, are they celebrating their production, their alienation from their production, or the exploitation that bosses impose upon them? The same situation applies to the issue of wages; while workers object to the minimum wage and the determination of the minimum wage by the boss-state, why do they not realize that bargaining over the minimum wage is giving up on the rights of the worker, and on wages as the core issue? Whereas, since the worker is producing goods or services, they should receive the equivalent of this. Since it is the workers who do the producing, those who deserve the value of the production should also be the workers. 

The capitalist system, the concepts of production and the value of production lead us to the opening sentence of Marx's work, Capital: “The wealth of societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, appears as an ‘immense collection of commodities’; its unit being a single commodity. Our investigation must therefore begin with the analysis of a commodity.” While defining the wealth of capitalism as an “immense collection of commodities,” Marx is making a parody of classical economists like Smith and Ricardo, who had put forward capitalism about a century before him. What Marx means by referring to the classical economists is that it is the classics who define the system that is a commodity production, but the classics have forgotten or neglected the workers who build the system. Likewise, Ricardo, at the pinnacle of the classical school of economics, could not lift the veil on the phenomenon of exploitation of labor. This is where the issue of labor exploitation in the face of wages arises. 

If wages constitute the equivalent of the labor the worker puts into production, how is it that the worker cannot buy their own production from the market? If we approach the subject from another angle, with Marx's way of questioning, if the value of goods and services available in the market reflects the worker's production, why do workers make up the lower and at most middle-income groups, while bosses make up the wealthiest segment? In the context of labor-production or the value created, are the social positions of the worker and the boss correct, or is there a mistake in this? I wish May 1st were taken out of being a day of celebration and such problems were discussed in all their aspects, but it doesn't happen, or rather, it is not allowed to happen. I wonder by whom it is not allowed? Thus, May 1st is celebrated, even celebrated with enthusiasm, but without discussing these issues, dances are performed, simits are eaten, one becomes exhausted, and one sleeps to be ready for the next day's exploitation. The capital media also announces this formation in its headline the next day: “May 1st Celebrated with Enthusiasm!” Life continues on the same course. 

There was once a trade union organization that was founded under the name of the Faculty Members' Union and later joined KESK. In this organization, we signed a decision. Without excluding the May 1st celebration day, let the entire month of May be declared and accepted as 'Labor Month,' and throughout this month, let us hold meetings with workers in halls and discuss political topics such as 'labor-capital opposition,' 'wage-exploitation opposition,' 'labor-state-government opposition,' and 'labor-capital opposition' with the workers. We also held some meetings with unions; as can be predicted, the unions did not look favorably on this project, and the project remained unfulfilled. 

If the flag of struggle for a fair order is to be raised on May 1st, the struggle must be raised to address the shares of wages and exploitation within the produced added value in terms of the rates of participation in production, as a fundamental issue of justice in the field of production. It is clear that this struggle can be carried out in political parties that are not pro-capital as a political force, without excluding trade union organization. It is at this point that we enter the issue of the economic system. That is to say, there is no political organization in the capitalist system that is not pro-capital, because an organization opposed to the system is not allowed to survive. In capitalist systems, there are no educational institutions that are not openly or covertly pro-capital; they are not allowed to survive. In economics faculties, departments called Labor Economics are established with relations to unions, but their relationship with politics is conducted covertly, or rather, it does not exist. In short, when the structural infrastructure of the social system is formed with capital, the superstructures, even if to varying degrees, have to be formed under the command, protection, and influence of the infrastructure.

As workers, let us experience our May 1st enthusiasm, but while experiencing this enthusiasm, let us also think about what this enthusiasm adds to capital, please!