TY - CHAP
T1 - The political economy of the transition to capitalism in the Ottoman empire and Turkey
T2 - Towards a new interpretation
AU - Duzgun, Eren
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, The Author(s).
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - This chapter takes issue with the common view that the Ottoman Empire and Turkey transitioned to capitalism during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Drawing on Political Marxism, I argue that there was no transition to capitalism in Turkey until the 1950s, that is, the late Ottoman Empire (1839–1918) and early Turkish Republic (1923–1945) followed a non-capitalist (and non-socialist) path to modernity. Furthermore, while the process of capitalist development began in the 1950s, the newly emerging agrarian/industrial classes and institutions remained either unwilling or unable to expand and deepen capitalist social relations. However, in the period after the 1950s, another group of capitalists, excluded from state-based rents and organized in the Islamic “National View Movement” (NVM), began to rise in the political scene, advocating a purely capitalist development strategy. Contesting the conventional interpretations of NVM, I show that the movement, albeit unsuccessful electorally from the 1970s to the 1990s, provided the blueprint for a novel capitalist modernity, which would be taken up by Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party in the new millennium.
AB - This chapter takes issue with the common view that the Ottoman Empire and Turkey transitioned to capitalism during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Drawing on Political Marxism, I argue that there was no transition to capitalism in Turkey until the 1950s, that is, the late Ottoman Empire (1839–1918) and early Turkish Republic (1923–1945) followed a non-capitalist (and non-socialist) path to modernity. Furthermore, while the process of capitalist development began in the 1950s, the newly emerging agrarian/industrial classes and institutions remained either unwilling or unable to expand and deepen capitalist social relations. However, in the period after the 1950s, another group of capitalists, excluded from state-based rents and organized in the Islamic “National View Movement” (NVM), began to rise in the political scene, advocating a purely capitalist development strategy. Contesting the conventional interpretations of NVM, I show that the movement, albeit unsuccessful electorally from the 1970s to the 1990s, provided the blueprint for a novel capitalist modernity, which would be taken up by Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party in the new millennium.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85064432500&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-319-95657-2_11
DO - 10.1007/978-3-319-95657-2_11
M3 - Book Chapter
AN - SCOPUS:85064432500
T3 - Marx, Engels, and Marxisms
SP - 265
EP - 290
BT - Marx, Engels, and Marxisms
PB - Palgrave Macmillan
ER -