This regime is permanent!

This permanence depends on the interrelatedness of the components of the prevailing situation and the relative intensity scale within these relations. For as long as there is no change in the current status of the situational components (apart from the possibility of economic collapse, a “Black Swan” event), this regime is permanent.

There are many basic situational components and they are complex. From among situational components, I will make do with mentioning two components whose relative intensity scale I consider to be significant. The first has to do with the ruling body’s structure and the other with the state’s form.

 The bankruptcy of liberalism

The basic analytical unit of liberal thought is the individual. The individual’s wishes, competition between individuals and the individual’s errors and successes determine social events (of course, it is not certain that there exists a level of abstraction called society, either). Moreover, these individuals make rational choices, for example, their political choices are shaped in accordance with economic interests. Liberalism can easily reduce historical movements and political ruling bodies to the will of a single person.

The value of a thought (theory) resides in its ability to foresee developments.

Liberal thought has proved itself incapable of foreseeing political developments in Turkey since the 2000’s at any stage of the developments. Liberalism has in practice gone bankrupt.

In the aftermath of the election, unaware of this bankruptcy, it is now casting all social and structural characteristics to one side and endeavouring to describe the “new regime” on the basis of a single person’s will (for example, as “Erdoğanism”), or is capable of thinking that this regime may “normalise.” However, without first comprehending the characteristics of the dynamics (economic, cultural and historical) that have placed that person in a position where he apparently “determines everything,” and of the social forces that keep him there and enable his will to create material results, the reality of that rule defined by that person’s name cannot be comprehended. Something that is not comprehended cannot be changed.

 The left’s confused thinking

The minds of certain people on the left may confuse liberalism’s thought that “individuals make rational choices, for example their economic interests determine their political choices,” with Marx’s thought, “The mode of production of material life determines the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.” Individuals may be reduced to their class statuses and the social to the economic.

In the first case, beyond being neglected, the individual’s internal world (transcendental beliefs – religion – hold an important place here), the system of values there, the notion of justice and “freedom” inherent in these values and the loyalties that arise from these are excluded from the process of political analysis.

In the second case, it can be forgotten that “social existence” is a cultural existence and corresponds to a symbolic universe, and that the “life process” is at the same time a cultural process.

 The ruling body’s structure and the state’s form

Liberalism’s theoretical bankruptcy and the left’s confused thinking (and continued insistence on strutting the stage of history in old clothes) makes it very hard to understand the ruling body’s structure and the state’s form. In Turkey today, alongside political Islam, its leadership, the individuals making up its social base and their class (their standing vis a vis the means of production - without forgetting that information is also a means of production) positions, it is impossible to understand the ruling body’s structure (the “network” between economic and cultural power nodes) without understanding its internal worlds and loyalties within the situation that are of at least of equivalent importance.

The state’s form cannot be described, either, without thinking of the network among the institutions making up the state, the hierarchy within this network, the culture and ideology that holds this network together as a whole and enables it to be elevated to the position of a hallowed object by conceiving of it as a whole from the outside and the financial-technical and staff inputs that enable it to function.

In short, without surmounting the bankruptcy of liberalism and the left’s confused thinking, the situational components (the CHP and everything that is deemed to be on the left are in this situation) cannot be considered factors capable of changing the current condition. Until they can, this regime is permanent.

 Bu rejim kalıcıdır!