Today, Turkey is experiencing one of the most severe economic crises in its history. Agriculture is withdrawing from production, industry is losing capacity, tourism is trapped in a spiral of low wages and low quality, and health and education are rapidly losing their public character. In this situation, the main task of the opposition is not only to criticize the government, but also to put forward in concrete terms how the country can get out of this collapse. At this point, the main task of the opposition is to come up with alternative projects on how to get out of the crisis and explain them well to the public. It is precisely at this point that the CHP's current economic policy contains a serious gap.
Economy under Ozgur Ozel: Rhetoric, No Program
The CHP, led by Özgür Özel, has a strong rhetoric on the economy, but fails to present an equally strong economic architecture. Inflation is criticized, poverty is talked about, injustice is emphasized, but the questions of how agriculture will get back on its feet, how industry will reproduce, how public investments will be prioritized, how monetary policy and production policy will be balanced remain unanswered. Today, the CHP is more interested in establishing moral superiority in the economy, whereas technical superiority is necessary to be in power.
Keynesianism and Monetarism: Where Should CHP Stand?
Keynesianism advocates the active role of the state in times of crisis and the stimulation of demand through public investment and employment policies. This approach is based on a welfare state approach, fair income distribution and public expenditures linked to production. It is clear that the CHP is close to Keynesian social democracy in terms of its historical and ideological roots.
Monetarism, on the other hand, sees controlling inflation through the money supply and price stability as a precondition for economic order. This approach provides discipline and predictability, especially in monetary policy. However, it cannot be a development model on its own in countries with a weak production infrastructure and declining agriculture and industry.
The right attitude for the CHP is to establish a rational balance that considers production, employment and price stability together, without reducing Keynesianism to populism and monetarism to an absolute ideology. Because past economic experiences show us this.
“There is no power that pots and pans can't take away” But...
As far as I know, the late Suleyman Demirel famously said, “There is no government that a pot and pan cannot take away.” This statement is still true today. However, what is missing is this: A new kitchen plan is needed to replace the power overthrown by the pots and pans.
Today, the CHP says the pot is boiling, but it does not adequately explain what kind of economic order it will establish.
What Happened Under Kılıçdaroğlu?
Under Kılıçdaroğlu, the CHP had an economic perspective. Concrete social policy instruments such as the Family Support Insurance, a social democratic framework that addresses production-employment-income distribution together, planning and institutional state wisdom were the main elements of this period.
There were shortcomings, but there was a backbone. Today, that backbone has been replaced by scattered discourses. Özgür Özel, as the leader of the CHP, acts more with Kılıçdaroğlu's reflexes as an opposition leader, whereas what the CHP needs is a leadership in power.
What is the CHP Losing in the Economy?
Today, the CHP is facing three main risks in the economy at the same time: a weakening of the perception of seriousness, the relegation of state wisdom to the background and a break with historical continuity. The CHP's greatest advantage is that it has the experience of development that was achieved under Atatürk.
What should CHP do?
The CHP should liberate the economy from slogans and bring it back into the realm of reason. It should position monetarism only as a tool to fight inflation, limit the Keynesian reflex to production and employment, and reformulate Atatürk's planned and productive statism with contemporary social democracy.
In conclusion, it is indeed the pot in the kitchen that will take power today. But what will take power tomorrow is a cadre that knows how to manage the economy. The CHP still has an opportunity, but this opportunity should be seized not by criticizing, but by speaking with the seriousness of power.