Historically, the concepts of “public” and “publicness” have taken on different meanings and connotations. The concept of the “public,” which can be identified with the state and the people, has also been the subject of diverse perspectives and interpretations in discussions of the public sphere. As Durmuş also notes, “most commonly, the public is conceptualized as open to everyone, belonging to the entire society, not private or personal, not family- or market-based, encompassing collectivism, collective ownership, and solidarity, as well as the sphere of public action, the people (a group of individuals), public spaces (space, place), public services (institutions), and the right or responsibility of citizenship and the sphere of representation (Durmuş, 2012: 34).”
Although no consensus has yet been reached in discussions regarding the public sphere—and indeed, no agreement has even been reached on its general contours—Benhabib (2008) discusses three concepts of the “public sphere” that have taken shape within Western political thought. First, she outlines the “agonistic” (contestational) and “constitutive” view, which is rooted in Hannah Arendt’s ideas and represents a “shared understanding of the public sphere in traditions that ground the republic and civil life in virtue.” The second model is the “legalistic” public sphere model, which began with Kant and was shaped by the liberal tradition’s understanding of a “just and stable public order.” Finally, she explains the “discursive “public dialogue”“ model, in which Habermas is situated. Discussions on models of the public sphere generally take Benhabib’s framework as their basis. Yükselbaba (2008) adds Negt and Kluge’s ”proletarian public sphere” model to these three frameworks.
“In their work *Public Sphere and Experience*, Oskar Negt and Alexander Kluge introduced the model of the ”proletarian public sphere.“ This model, which defines the public sphere through relations of production, aims to bring the proletariat into the public sphere and to seize the dominant public sphere. The proletarian public sphere distinguishes itself from other models—all of which are liberal and aimed at resolving the crisis of legitimacy of liberalism—because it defines society through classes (Yükselbaba, 2008).
The significance of Negt and Kluge’s work can only be understood when placed within its historical context. The early 1970s witnessed numerous oppositional movements, including student movements, actions by Marxist-Leninist parties, anti-imperialist campaigns, environmental and anti-nuclear movements, and women’s movements. Negt and Kluge’s work served as a unifying force for these groups and led them to define themselves as both oppositional and public.
According to Negt and Kluge, the period in which the bourgeois public sphere emerged was also a time when various forms of the public sphere came to the fore, and these publics—which “compete” with the bourgeois public sphere —such as nationalist publics, popular peasant publics, women’s publics, and working-class publics—are “subaltern counter-publics” that draw on shared dynamics.” Subaltern counter-publics refer to spaces where members of dependent social groups can negotiate their own identities, interests, and needs, and produce dissenting discourses outside the dominant narrative.
Negt and Kluge define the public sphere as follows:
1. The public sphere is a dynamic mix of different types of publicness corresponding to distinct stages of economic, technical, and political organization.
2. It is a space for discursive conflict among multiple, diverse, and unequal participants.
3. It is a potentially unpredictable process due to the overlaps and interplay between different types of publicness and various public spaces.
4. It is a category that encompasses an inclusive dimension enabling communication among diverse and varied publics grounded in material structures, rather than in abstract ideals of universality.
Negt and Kluge (2008) classify public spaces into three categories:
1. The dominant political public sphere is a space that involves complex structures and mechanisms through which social struggles are regulated in a way that ensures the reproduction of the system. This sphere emerges from the interplay of the tension-filled zones between the weakening bourgeois public sphere and the strengthening industrial-commercial public sphere.
2. The alternative public sphere consists of words and actions that seek to resolve the problems arising from globalization in nation-states in favor of the oppressed. The alternative public sphere is class-neutral, but through its stance against inequality and domination, it can take sides in class relations and engage in democratic struggles within this sphere.
3. The counter-public sphere is a space constituted by anti-capitalist, collective, and constitutive political discourse and action, grounded in the class struggle and rooted in the conflict between labor and capital. The counter-public sphere stands in opposition to the bourgeois public sphere. This sphere creates relationships of collective solidarity and reciprocity in response to the bourgeois public sphere’s othering and exclusion.
Although these three public spaces are of different types, they sometimes overlap, sometimes coexist in the same space, and in many cases do not appear in their pure form. These public spaces exist simultaneously.
When it comes to the public sphere, workers and the oppressed must set aside the models of the public sphere that have been put forward as solutions to capitalism’s crisis of legitimacy and instead give serious thought to the “proletarian public sphere”—a model that stands in opposition to capitalism.
However, political parties and labor movements that stand with workers and the oppressed—from whom we expect to develop counter-public sphere practices in the political and labor sectors—generally define the concept of the public sphere by narrowing it down to the financing of public services. In doing so, they remain stuck in a policy that assumes it is sufficient for these services to once again be free of charge, based on the results of capitalism’s transformation from a social welfare state to a neoliberal state and within the framework of the commodification of public services. We can cite the example of Eğitim Sen, which, despite slogans like “Free education, free healthcare,” lacks an education policy or an alternative education system beyond its stance of “opposition.”.
To develop alternative policies, it is first necessary to accurately analyze the neoliberal transformation taking place in Turkey. There have already been quite comprehensive analyses on this subject. To put it briefly, the crisis of the import-substitution capital accumulation regime experienced by the welfare state—which began in the 1970s in the capitalist world and in the 1980s in Turkey—was attempted to be overcome through a new accumulation regime based on export-oriented capital accumulation. This transformation amounts to a shift from the welfare state to the neoliberal state. This transition has had economic, social, political, and societal consequences. These consequences include the unrestricted movement of capital, increased flexibility in the workplace, de-unionization, precarious employment, subcontracting, the fragmentation and downsizing of workplaces, the reduction and privatization of public services, the downsizing of the public sector, the neutralization of unions, the purchase of people’s futures through long-term debt in derivative markets, the depoliticization of people and their relegation to the role of spectators, and the eradication of their dreams of labor and freedom as a whole.
All authorities, both domestic and international, agree on these effects of neoliberalism on society. The point of disagreement, however, is which arguments it uses to make society accept these effects and generate consent—or, to put it more accurately, which tools it employs to establish its hegemony. On this matter, the fundamental approach of the papers presented at the “Symposium on Secularism in Education” and the “Workshop on Public Education”—particularly those authored by academics who shape the public sphere and secularism policies of Eğitim Sen—can be summarized as follows:;
Neoliberal bourgeois ideology, through its collaboration with other established ideologies such as religion and conservatism, has transformed into an ideology that commands absolute allegiance—much like a new religion—while simultaneously laying the foundations for a new cultural hegemony. This cultural hegemony, by invoking references such as “patience, trial, gratitude, resignation, and fate,” ensures that both the inequalities within society and the gradual transformation and narrowing of the public sphere are viewed as normal, accepted, and consented to by society (Durmuş, 2012).
In this regard, Durak (2010) notes in his study titled ’Workers“ Resignation to Labor: Employer-Employer Relations and Piety,” it is evident that in this region, where flexible working arrangements and informality are prevalent, labor control is maintained through the cultural hegemony that permeates daily life; this labor control extends not only to the workplace but also to life outside of work; employers, following the concessions they make, create an environment of mutual agreement between workers and employers; workers are compelled to speak the same language as dominant groups, share the same worldview, and form a bond of shared destiny with employers; due to the religious motifs that adorn working life, workers have developed coping mechanisms such as patience, trials, gratitude, resignation, and fate in the face of inequalities; and as long as conditions remain this way and workers hold these views, the formation of a working-class consciousness is impossible.
We certainly find this study very valuable, however, we observe that the results of similar studies conducted in other fields do not align with this study; we see that the reasons for workers’ submission, acquiescence, and obedience are not religion or religious rituals and discourses, but rather the consequences created by neoliberalism—such as the loss of self-confidence, routines, alienation, lack of future prospects, fear of insecurity, unemployment, job loss, and social exclusion—all consequences of the system.
These studies and their results can be summarized as follows:;
The first study is by Özdemir (2000), titled “Rebellion, Compliance, or Submission: The Story of Blue-Collar Workers in the Hegemonic Factory Regime.”.
The study was conducted using ethnographic research methods with 425 workers at the Toyota automobile plant in Adapazarı. The study examined the management’s ideological, technical, and bureaucratic control mechanisms aimed at establishing a hegemonic factory regime, as well as the blue-collar workers’ stances—such as resistance, acceptance, or submission—toward the factory regime.
According to the study’s findings, while workers do not endorse the regime, they do not adopt a fully oppositional or rebellious stance toward it either. This is attributed to the dynamics of the labor market in Turkey—structural unemployment, the absence of social security outside the factory, etc.—which narrow workers’ horizons while increasing their dependence on the factory and, consequently, the conditions of submission. Consequently, the social relations produced and reproduced within the capitalist factory can be understood within the economic and political structures that transcend the factory’s particular context and that encompass, limit, and determine these relations outside the factory (Özdemir, 2000).
The second study is a qualitative research conducted by Nurol (2015) with bank employees. “Why do white-collar workers accept being managed? A sociological analysis of consent to domination in the workplace,” the study utilized in-depth interviews conducted with bank employees in Ankara and Istanbul between October 2012 and May 2013.
According to the study, five contemporary dimensions underlying a banker’s acceptance of the challenges of their working life—as a prototype of the white-collar worker—have been identified:
The first of these points to the structural dimension of consent and is related to the growing precariousness of labor markets.
The second dimension can be viewed as the dimension of opportunities. Opportunities for advancement within the bank’s hierarchy and incentive-based rewards are presented to employees as opportunities waiting to be seized, thereby fostering consent.
The third dimension can be referred to as the interactive dimension. This section focuses on teamwork practices that transform relationships among employees.
The fourth dimension is the symbolic dimension. In this dimension, we will assess the efforts banks make to foster a sense of belonging among their employees and the impact of these efforts on the employees.
The final dimension is the strategic dimension. This dimension encompasses individual strategies that employees implement covertly, without management’s knowledge, to secure greater financial income and more free time for themselves.
The third study presents the findings of a study conducted with call center employees, as detailed in Özdemir’s (2015) book titled “The Stubborn Mole.” According to the author, multidimensional and complex forms of control operate over call center employees. These include:;
-Simple and straightforward audit,
-Bureaucratic oversight,
-Technological audit,
-Ideological control.
Call center employees are monitored through direct and bureaucratic rules, but what is truly exhausting and destructive is technological and ideological surveillance. New communication technologies have taken surveillance to levels that even capital cannot fathom. Workplaces are monitored by cameras, calls are listened to, and every second of an employee’s work time is tracked under computer surveillance. In addition, ideological control mechanisms can be both enticing and threatening. In metropolitan areas, mechanisms such as human resources management, career advancement, and trust in the company are used as enticements, while the threatening stance is enforced through intra-class conflict and the presence of the unemployed. In rural areas, alongside modern methods of ideological control, religious-conservative references may also be employed. Here too, the approach of viewing the workplace as a family and emphasizing obedience, along with the motive of protecting the family, often takes center stage.
Beyond these studies, regarding the establishment and entrenchment of neoliberalism—and why workers and the oppressed accept, submit to, or consent to this system that destroys their lives and runs counter to human nature—numerous findings can be found in Richard Sennett’s *The Fall of Public Man*, “Together,” “The Culture of New Capitalism,” and “The Corrosion of Character.” None of these findings contain evidence that would validate the views of Education Sen, or, by extension, the experts who shape Education Sen’s policies.
Finally, regarding the functioning and consequences of capitalist society, we must turn to Marcuse. According to Marcuse (Kızılçelik, 2013:500-501), capitalist society alienates, homogenizes, and standardizes individuals, increases monotony and boredom, suppresses dissent and freedom, and, in particular, eliminates organized opposition (such as proletarian opposition), thereby eroding the proletariat’s capacity and potential to bring about social change.
Such a structure in a capitalist society is established through various means. These means are as follows:
1-Technological Hegemony: In the capitalist system, the illusion is created that technological advancements benefit everyone, thereby undermining the will of the exploited to change the system.
2. Limited Freedom: In the capitalist system, individuals can choose among various political parties and commercial products, but the differences between them are quite minimal.
3-Commercial Advertising: Consumption is fundamental in capitalist society. Social control is even maintained through artificially created needs. The system produces the very same products and needs that surround the proletariat. It markets them very effectively and thus perpetuates itself. The fundamental principle here is to transform the proletariat into a consumer society and to suppress its resistance.
4-Mass Culture: In capitalist society, culture loses its critical dimensions and aspects; in other words, it transforms into mass culture. As the dominant cultural paradigm, mass culture perpetuates the capitalist system because it is an indispensable part of it.
5-Sexuality: The capitalist system grants people every kind of freedom—except for the freedom to participate in important political decisions regarding their own lives—and particularly sexual freedom. Excessive sexual freedom reinforces obedience to the capitalist order and eliminates all forms of discontent.
Beyond what has been described, the current resistance of metalworkers is one of the most significant examples of a movement that both dismantles the practices of yellow unions and shatters the conventional wisdom regarding “religiosity” that has prevailed until now. That is to say: Have metal workers, who until now obeyed and did not rebel thanks to religiosity, now rebelled because they have distanced themselves from religiosity?
Didn’t the Gezi protests—as a result of the great diversity of religious identities—show us that religion and religiosity cannot forever compel obedience to the established order?
Doesn’t this suggest that, in order for debates on the public sphere and public education to give rise to practices capable of creating counter-public spheres that transcend neoliberalism from the perspective of workers and the oppressed, the dominant perspective of Eğitim Sen on this issue must first be updated?
Instead of the views prevalent on the Turkish left—which present the concept of the ‘public’ as something ‘belonging to everyone’ independent of its content, thereby transcending the tendency to always associate it with the ‘state’—we should define the state as a union of various institutions and organizations subject to social regulation and strategic selectivity; whose function is to make and implement binding decisions for society’s members in the name of the common good and collective will—as a stage in class struggles, and by distinguishing the state from the public, wouldn’t it be more accurate to envision a new understanding of the public sphere?
Ever since the founding of the Republic of Turkey—and indeed, since the early 19th century, when capitalist relations of production began to take root in the Ottoman Empire—just as the ruling classes have acted as an organized force, doing whatever is necessary to ensure the continuation of the capitalist system; the working class must also create its own counter-public sphere in collaboration with marginalized workers, Kurds, Alevis, religious groups, minorities, women, and those with diverse sexual orientations—all of whom have been excluded from this society—and work to bring the ideals of freedom and equality closer to reality.
Sources
Durmuş, M. (2012) Public Sphere Revisited: Redefining the Public Sphere or Proposing a Revolutionary Alternative. TTB Journal of Occupational Health and Safety. July–December 2012.
Yükselbaba, Ü. (2008) Models of Public Space and Their Contexts. Istanbul University Faculty of Architecture Journal, Vol. LXVI, No. 2, pp. 227–272, 2008
Benhabib, S. (2006), ”Models of the Public Sphere,” Cogito, Issue 8
Durak, Y. (2010) The Submission of Labor: Labor-Employer Relations and Religiosity in Konya. İletişim Publishing House.
Kızılçelik, S. (2008) The Frankfurt School. Anı Publications.
Nurol B. (2015) Why Do White-Collar Workers Accept Being Managed? A Sociological Analysis of Consent to Domination in the Workplace. Journal of Labor, Power, Industrial Relations, and Human Resources. Vol. 17, No. 1
Özdemir, G. Yücesan (2000a) Rebellion, Consent, or Submission: The Story of Blue-Collar Workers in the Hegemonic Factory Regime. Society and Science 86, Fall 2000
Özdemir, G. Yücesan (2000b). The Proletariat of the 21st Century. Supplement to Redaksiyon Journal. Issue: 10. Ankara