Which dogmas did the coronavirus pandemic shatter?

The coronavirus pandemic shook not only the health systems of countries but also the dominant political and economic discourse in the world. Those who defended the capitalist economy, the free market, and liberal thought were left bewildered when the expected economic crisis arrived earlier than anticipated due to the pandemic. They turned to protectionist measures. They announced economic packages. While providing financial aid to their citizens on one hand, they accused each other of withholding masks and ventilators on the other. They saw that warships, nuclear weapons, missiles, air defense systems, and submarines were of no use. They witnessed the European Union's inability to protect its member states.

Yet, the promises of the liberals were not like this. According to them, the “invisible hand” in the economy, the state's zero intervention in the market, the supply-demand balance, freedom of enterprise, and private property possessed a realistic, rational, and pragmatic functioning. According to them, as long as the harmony between population, productivity, and investment growth—one of the golden balances of economics—was maintained, things were on track. According to them, just as capitalism remained unrivaled with the end of the Cold War, there was no problem for the liberal order since Russia and China, the biggest rivals of the US, had also adapted to the market economy.

MARKET ECONOMY GAVE BIRTH TO MARKET SOCIETY

Let us elaborate on the subject a bit more. According to the theory, capital reinvests the profit obtained from the goods or services it produces, growing its capital. Paid labor is also the consumer of the produced goods or services. Every new investment increases the amount of goods and services produced. It also creates more job opportunities. It generates more tax, value-added, and exports. However, for the additional production to be consumed, additional demand is also required. This makes increasing employment mandatory. The production increase resulting from the transformation of accumulated profit into investment must be compatible with the demand arising from the additional employment created by the new investment. In other words, a balance between supply and demand is essential. The incompatibility between production growth and consumption growth is the problem. Another issue is this: To grow, profit must be maximized. This requires a cut in labor income. In that case, consumption falls. The balance is disrupted.

Liberalism places the individual at the foundation of society, politics, and the economy. It argues that it protects the individual against the state, and does so by limiting the power of the state. However, while doing this, it paves the way for the unlimited domination of capital. It leaves the individual insecure against capital and the market. While limiting or even shrinking the state, it makes the power, influence, and pressure of monopoly capital and multinational corporations limitless. It places the state at the service of market forces. It makes it their defender, protector, and almost their gendarme.

ETHNIC AND SECTARIAN REPLACED NATIONAL AND CLASS-BASED

In the last 30 years, during which globalization proponents have been influential worldwide, the gap between the rich and the poor has deepened both between countries and within countries themselves. Inequality has become more entrenched and institutionalized. While the wealth of the richest 1 percent minority in the world has multiplied, the imbalance between classes and the injustice in income distribution have increased. Unfortunately, Turkey is among the top countries on this list, along with the US and Mexico.

In the process of globalization, which is the new name for imperialism, while companies merged, states were fragmented. What happened in Yugoslavia and Iraq, and what is happening in Syria, are proof of this. While profits were privatized, losses were nationalized. While the nation-state and national identity were liquidated, remnants of feudalism, relics of the Middle Ages, ethnic affiliations, and sectarian identities were brought to the fore. To prevent workers from having class consciousness and engaging in class struggle, organizing through sub-identities and civil society activism were encouraged.

Yet, a strong nation-state is in the interest of all citizens, including the working class. Defending the rights and interests of workers, farmers, peasants, national producers, small and medium-sized enterprises, industrialists with a national character—in short, the majority of the nation—and ensuring social justice and equality of opportunity is only possible under the roof of a strong nation-state. Therefore, developed, central, capitalist, and imperialist countries that know this fact well have taken all kinds of measures to protect their own domestic markets, industrialists, producers, and farmers while imposing unlimited freedom in the economy on underdeveloped and developing countries. While they protected their own strategic, technology-producing, employment-creating, and high-brand-value public institutions, they pressured underdeveloped countries to privatize. They established this pressure both directly and through organizations such as the World Bank, the IMF, and the World Trade Organization.

It should not be forgotten: There is no developed country that has recovered and stood on its feet with IMF prescriptions. There is no state that has overcome unemployment, increased the purchasing power of the people, ensured justice in income distribution, spread prosperity to the base, or developed agriculture and industry with an IMF program. The IMF has no such goal. IMF prescriptions are aimed at rolling over debt and ensuring the balance of payments. The IMF means cutting public spending, privatization, unemployment, poverty, and the suppression of wages. Because the IMF is under the control of imperialist powers, primarily the US. It defends their interests.

THE SOLUTION: THE REPUBLIC'S PUBLIC-MINDED, POPULIST, AND SOCIETAL PHILOSOPHY

Both the pandemic and what we have experienced for years have shown this: Looking askance at Atatürk, belittling the Republic, and attacking Kemalism have not made anyone more nationalist, more religious, or more leftist. But it has made many people pawns, extensions, collaborators, and satellites of imperialism. First and foremost, what needs to be done is to uphold the Republic's contemporary, revolutionary, enlightenment-oriented, libertarian, and fully independent aspects, as well as its public-minded, populist, societal, egalitarian, planning-oriented, and statist aspects, with the same determination, consistency, and courage. Nationalism without leftism and leftism without nationalism have both failed.

In short; to solve the problems we are experiencing, it is essential to embrace the founder of the Republic, its founding intellect, and its founding philosophy.