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Turkey´s growth rate for 2010 was posted as 8.9 percent. Erdogan praises the Turkish economy to have reached 9.2 percent in the last quarter, with which it "caught the third biggest growth rate in the world". However, the reality of these economic statistics looks quite different. Erinc Yeldan gives an insight on the AKP government´s neoliberal policies and its devastating consequences.
Turkey´s economy closed 2010 with a real growth rate of 8.9%. This growth performance was in the official milieu praised as the AKP government´s great success. Although, it was known that the nature of this growth leaned on high external debts and 2009´s low "base effect". Therefore it would be misleading to evaluate Turkey´s neoliberal politics under the AKP regime only by looking at 2010´s growth performance. Instead we believe that looking at the entire AKP period would be a more accurate approach.
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The average annual growth rate of Turkey´s economy under the AKP regime (2003-201 was 4.6%. This rate is below the average of Turkey´s economy (of 4.9%), which it displayed in its entire Republican history (1923-201. On top of that, it is below the annual average growth target of 5%, which was set for Turkey after 2001 by the IMF. If we look at the growth averages of Turkey´s economy after 1998, when the IMF program was really implemented, the previous three-party coalition, followed by Kemal Dervis´s Transition to the Strong Economy Program, ultimately the neoliberal model that was implemented by the AKP, the growth rate decreases to 3.6%.
Therefore under the neoliberal program Turkey´s economy displayed a growth rate below the traditional average compared to the entire period as well as specifically under the AKP regime. Facing these facts the official approach will be that the 2008/2009 crisis did not arise in Turkey, they will say that this was a shock wave that originated outside. Yet, the 2008/2009 crisis´ structural cause was a direct result of the applied financialization and the speculative rentier accumulation model after 2001, which was in place in Turkey as well as in all other central economies of capitalism. Just as the economic expansion after 2001 in Turkey (and all global economies), the economic crisis of 2008/2009 was an inevitable product of the same policies.
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However, the consequences of the neoliberal program in question did not only slow down the growth ratio. It is necessary that we keep in mind the distorted characteristics of the existent growth and the accumulation of capital model it is based on, which gives rise to devastating social consequences.
The Turkish economy has, beginning with the crisis in 2008 to the end of 2010, recorded a cumulative growth of 3.7%. In this period the industrial sector´s total growth was put at 5.1%; the agriculture sector´s 5.2%, and the service sector´s 3.4%. At the end of these developments total employment in 2010 has increased by 1 million 400 thousand people when compared to 2008. Yet, when we look at the employment distribution by sectors, the deficiancy of the production performance at the labor market and the distortion of the pursued capital accumulation model, that is dependent on outside financial sources, becomes blatantly obvious.
Between 2008 to 2010 the industrial sector´s employment increase stood only at 55 thousand people. During this period we see the agricultural employment rise to total 667 thousand; the service sector to 401 thousand. In both sectors working conditions are destructed to the utmost and unsecured; we know that non-organization and informalization is far spread. As a matter of fact TUIK data shows that (85%) work informally, for example 4 milyon 857 thousand of the total of 5 milyon 683 thousand workers that have been employed in the agricultural sector in 2010 have no social security. During this period, the rise of employment includes 190 thousand people in the construction sector, in which ruthless exploitation conditions are a sad reality.
Therefore, the Turkish economy´s 2010 performance is neither a miraculous growth, nor displays an acceptable employment period from a social perspective. As a parallel to the neoliberal project´s international new work part, which is since the 1980s step by step advancing in the Turkish economy, its industry dependent on outside sources, its labor market crumbling, employment is pushed towards informalized and illicit kinds of labor forcing the global economy to become a center of cheap labor and financial gambling.
The truth behind the colored masks of 2010´s miraculous growth are plain and explicit. Behind the record growth statements labor conditions incompatible with human dignity are displayed, which are open to ruthless exploitation of the market, an army of flexibilized laborers; an industrial make-up broken into pieces, subcontracted as dependents of the outside, a crooked economy model lies behind this.
Source: here
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