I do not put down what the young Turkish Republic achieved in the 30’s. I may not agree with some of its features, but I cannot deny that something was achieved and a national economy on this land was established for the first time. How strong it was is a question that we should answer by restricting ourselves to the conditions of the 30’s. I do not think that the Turkish economy of 30’s is comparable to today’s economy. Owing to their specific conditions, they are two different things. It would be like comparing apples to oranges. However, one may try to show if the Turkish economy of the 30’s would make it in our era, would be enough for this country of 70 million people with many desires and very different spending habits. I seriously doubt it. Many things are different now. Neither the economic structure nor the habits and methods of the 30’s (that is, Turkey in 30’s) would be able to deal with today’s economic problems and pressures. The Turkish people of the 30’s were interested in spending less for the sake of the new nation, in letting the government have full control over the economy, in giving up their rights for the nation, some social utopia or some different sense of satisfaction. Now, nearly 80 years later, not everyone in Turkey would agree with these ideals, aims and principles. We now have different desires, habits and goals. Can Kemalism take on this new job? I hardly think so. I don’t think it even has a clue. The present day Kemalism does not really offer real solutions. It is a way of dealing with our frustrations and appointments by creating a utopia, a utopic period when everything was great. Yet, everyone was actually poor. How long can people stay poor? How long can people be told not to be interested getting rich, owning things? This alone is enough proof to show that the so-called Kemalist economy, which is nothing other than a primitive form of state economy, would not even make it beyond the 30’s. . Thanks to the Second World War, it made it to the beginning of the fifties.
If you want to convince me, you should probably cut the rhetoric and concentrate on answering the questions I have been asking. One of them was why I should care who my boss is, if we are to stay in a capitalistic form of economy and the other one was what makes you think that the economy of 30’s can deal with the problems of a today’s economic reality. Do you expect that people will start spending less and sacrificing more for the sake of the collective whole without considering anything in return for themselves (and I am not talking about a war)? This is what they did in the 30’s. It was also the time of the closed economies and totalitarian and authoritarian political systems, but this is not the case anymore.