Social Classes and the Neo-Liberal Poverty Regime in Turkey, 2002–2011

ABSTRACT

The Justice and Development Party (or AKP) era in Turkey has witnessed the emergence of a new welfare regime resting on voluntary public and private transfers. This system has been replacing the former welfare system in which the right to social welfare benefits was constitutionally guaranteed. The new welfare system has tended to distribute transfers on a selective and unequal basis. This article analyses the size and effects of this system using a social class-based analytical framework. In explaining class structure in Turkey, we use the official Household Budget Survey database. The results indicate a massive process of proletarianisation has taken place. Our results indicate that the working classes have constituted the majority of the poor. In this environment, the shares of voluntary public and private transfers in the incomes of households have been rising. For some classes, like rural unemployed, urban unemployed and agricultural labourers, these transfers have captured a very high share of the incomes. These transfers have also been distributed very unequally. Their share in the central budget has also been rising. All these point to the emergence of a new neo-liberal welfare (poverty) regime as part of a new labour control regime.

KEYWORDS:

• Turkey
• neo-liberalism
• poverty
• social class
• welfare regime

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. We concentrate on data up to 2011 because, from 2012, the Turkish Statistical Institute excluded some vital questions we use to determine the class position of individuals from the questionnaire of the Households Budget Surveys.

2. “The Tulip Period” refers to the peaceful period between 1718 and 1730 in Ottoman History. It ended with a bloody rebellion.

3. There are many other studies indicating the relative increase of transfer expenditures (see Yentürk 2013). According to International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates, the ratio of public social protection expenditure (PSPE) to GDP rose from 5.68% in 1990 to 13.11 % in 2011 (ILO 2014, 302). The same tendency could also be observed from ESSPROS (European System of Integrated Social Protection Statistics) figures. The same ratio, according to data provided by ESSPROS, was 9.6% in 2002 and it reached 13.8% in 2013. However, even though it has been rising, the share of social transfers (or PSPE) in GDP in Turkey has been lower than that of all European Union member countries. It is important to note that PSPE covers retirement pensions.

4. Many Marxists view society as a dialectical totality in the sense that the social classes co-exist in relation with each other, nevertheless this co-existence is antagonistic (see, for example, Lukács 1972, 175).

5. Note that unemployed households are included in the broad category of working classes. Marx (1991) considered the unemployed to be a surplus population and a part of the industrial reserve army.

6. Household Budget Surveys of the years 2002, 2003 and 2004 do not cover direct income support payments to landed peasants. The Direct Income Support scheme was initiated in 2001 and supposed to replace the support purchase scheme in which the state authorities buy certain agricultural products at a pre-determined price. The IMF urged that this scheme be abandoned as market distorting. In the Direct Income Support scheme, government pays a certain amount for each acre owned, cultivated or not. However, this scheme has adverse effects upon agriculture. First, it favours land-rich peasants. Therefore, it aggravated the inequality in income distribution among peasants. Second, it has deterred peasants from cultivation. This contributes to the disintegration of agriculture. Third, since this scheme pays the same amount for each acre, it does not take the productivity differentials into account.

7. The division of the whole period under scrutiny into sub-periods depends upon the macro-economic performance of Turkey after 2002. The 2002–2003 period was the post-crisis recovery period while the 2004–2007 period was generally accepted as a belle époque for the AKP government in which net capital inflows culminated. In the 2008–2009 period, the adverse effects of global crisis were felt to an utmost degree. Again, 2010–2011 was a slow recovery period.

8. In order to avoid an inconvenient definition, we checked whether any of the individuals classified as “Agricultural Labourers” reports his/her occupation status as “Professional” or “Manager.” The databases did not cover such individuals.

9.

This measure is defined to capture productivity differentials of land plots in different geographical areas. However, there are no data about the share of cultivated acreage in total acres owned. Therefore, we assume that all the acres owned are cultivated.