The issue of the capitalist state's neutrality

As is known, when examining state theory, the political structure that has taken power through the majority vote and is thought to maintain public administration for the benefit of the people as a general tendency is no longer perceived as a Leviathan, that is, a monster, as Hobbes once suggested, but rather as a sacred structure.

According to the understanding in some dominant countries of the old view, opposition to the political administration representing the state could be perceived almost as opposition to God and could be severely punished. However, such understandings have weakened or even disappeared entirely from the scene in the bourgeois state structures that emerged in post-Second World War European societies, where nation-state building and especially social state policies found widespread ground. While bourgeois social structures and bourgeois state structures, which find widespread application in today's conditions, partially maintain their sanctity, the target of this sacred duty is, unfortunately, no longer the people, but the powerful capital segment.

In fact, both society and state organization derive the adjective "bourgeois" from such an organization. The system that forms the subject of this article appears as a sui generis application that is different from the European-type bourgeois state organization.

For a person who wears both the hats of President and party leader to be able to maintain the principle of neutrality in the social and economic sphere towards citizens, the minimum rule should be either to remain loyal to absolute market rules or, in cases where they deviate from market rules, to behave equally towards everyone and every segment. Specifically, according to market rules, labor and capital contribute to production as factors of production according to market conditions, and according to the capitalist system, depending on the class they belong to, they are either subject to exploitation or they exploit. In this system, there is both unemployment and working for a pittance; conversely, there is both excessive profit and loss.

The capitalist system is based on exploitation, and as long as one remains in this system, everyone in the market environment has to accept these conditions. As it will be remembered, in the defenses put forward in favor of privatization policy during the privatization period, it was argued that the state was behind public enterprises, therefore they did not face risks like private enterprises, and that state support to cover the losses of the organizations in question was provided by citizens' taxes.

Keeping this argument in mind, let us put aside the tax advantages the state provides to the private sector, the mechanism of providing free or cheap inputs, and the support for initial capital accumulation through land or other opportunities. Let us look at how the state approaches laborers in contrast to this. The issue of minimum wage immediately comes to our attention. On the day the minimum wage is announced, the relevant minister usually takes the worker representative to their right for show, and the employer representative to their left—the exact opposite of the truth—and announces the disappointing wage level. While the tax advantages the state provides to the private sector, especially to the crony capital segment that thrives on tenders, realize a serious transfer of wealth, it is not very understandable that it acts quite stingily towards the laborer regarding the minimum wage.

Again, keeping our first argument in mind, can it be defended that the state, which provides various advantages to capital, has a tendency to continuously lower the tax base for corporate tax while not thinking much about bracket widths and rate differences in the income tax tariff in favor of wage earners and low-income earners, under the claim of approaching all working segments, and even all citizens, with neutrality?

The same situation applies to severance pay and the unemployment fund. Severance pay, by its logic, is money deducted from the laborer's earned entitlement and, for some reason, made available for the boss's use. This money also has interest as a time cost. Let us put these aside; can the state taking the side of capital rather than the laborer regarding severance pay be seen as evidence that the head of state approaches all citizens with the principle of neutrality? The situation in the unemployment fund is no different. Looking at the statements made from time to time by the relevant authorities, although it can be perceived that capital is protected in the first instance with such practices, can the thesis that the main purpose is to provide more job opportunities to labor by prioritizing capital be believed? However, as is clearly seen in all application results, capital puts forward the argument that the advantage to be provided to it in every tax regulation and every regulation in favor of labor will grow business and increase employment, but in almost every case, it behaves the opposite. Because the goal of capital is neither to increase employment nor to pay more taxes to the state; its only goal is to increase its share of exploitation.

The more painful part of the matter is to display labor as a cheap commodity with flowery expressions in order to attract foreign capital to the country. This policy can in no way be seen as compatible with the state's principle of neutrality. If only the state that does this today had not transferred national assets to domestic and foreign capital for next to nothing and placed labor in front of the exploitative capital in today's desperation. It is seen that there is not much to defend in the policies developed and implemented by the bourgeois state against various segments of the citizens. The reason for this is that in the capitalist system, bourgeois state structures are not neutral, as politicians and some circles say, but act as the agent of capital in politics.

Let us conclude our discussion with views on coefficients and raises that concern civil servants, retirees, and all our people, which are not implemented despite promises made to various segments. TÜİK (Turkish Statistical Institute) calculations may be technically correct. Specifically, by deliberately determining the products in the basket, after irrelevant determination, by taking the prices of products in the most remote corners of the country as a basis, without making any calculation errors, that is, leaving aside common sense and ethical issues, without committing any error that could be the subject of a lawsuit, it may have determined price indices. Is it neutrality to calculate raises by taking TÜİK's mind-boggling data instead of the market prices of basic food items that cover a very large part of the income of the laborer and the general public, or is it to return the vast majority of the economic surplus to capital? Even if relative, the bourgeois state should first give the necessary instructions to the relevant departments regarding the creation of a method for calculating price indices in a meaningful and usable way, and then implement the policy of raises in a way that can at least make those who give the raises feel at peace with their conscience.

The economic policy implemented in a country is, in a way, a reflection of the identity card of that country and the political cadre that governs it. This identity is not created in a vacuum, but is a reflection of the identity of the unions it belongs to in the international arena. It is clear that Turkey is within a state structure and economic organization in the capitalist bloc. Such being the case, in order to provide healthy information to the public, it is inevitable to take into account the economic bloc to which the country belongs and the economic rules of this bloc. However, the level of consciousness and organization of the people, especially the laborers, can be effective in forcing the political cadre's field of policy production and implementation. For this reason, the functioning of economic systems should be read well, and it should be well determined whether the desired social change is aimed at as a moderate change within the system or as a transformation between systems, and the message to be given to politicians through political struggle should be determined accordingly.