The mass social unrest we are witnessing is not taking place despite the economic performance of the country; it is partially a result of the kind of economic policies embarked on by the government in the last 10 years.
Having come to power in 2002 on promises of economic stability in the wake of a devastating economic crisis the year before, the decade-long neoliberal AKP rule saw the creation of favourable conditions for capital accumulation, especially in sectors newly integrated into the sphere of accumulation such as healthcare, alongside stagnating real wages in virtually every sector of the economy. A decade was clearly long enough for an increasingly significant part of the population to become aware of the fact that behind all the talk about a miraculous economic growth, there was nothing in it for them. Under these circumstances of growing inequality in what was already a fairly unequal society, tales about how the country has finally managed to pay off all its debt to the International Monetary Fund (where it has just been replaced by a much greater resort to borrowing from other outside sources, nearly a third of which is now short-term) do not satisfy even those who fail to realise what that statement conceals. full: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/12/turkish-protest-what-it-is-not _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
