Political economy and science

What we have lived through recently in the field of economics will make everyone who has said grand things about economics choke on their words, and for those open to learning it is a set of experiences full of lessons. For those who see economics as a science, everything is in fact very clear. Indeed, when things go badly, a day dawns on which memorized scientific theses are proclaimed with a burst of self-confidence, shouting, treating people as ignorant, even in tones of scolding.

In such times, the relationship of economics to science, or the causal necessity of economics, is presented as the most frequently stated indisputable fact. Yet the always valid, in fact most indisputable truth, that economics is not made up of economics alone and that economic behavior is not subject to a causal necessity, is forcibly suppressed in such times. Meanwhile, it is not even seen how the idea that economics has indisputable, scientific rules affects psychology, which is in fact the real determinant over economics.

Yes, economics is not only economics and is largely concerned with people's behavior. And behaviors are subject to all sorts of influences. People can make their economic choices in all sorts of ways. Even if they seek to be economically profitable, they cannot always find this path because of psychological influences. They flounder in the contradiction between what is profitable for themselves and what is beneficial for society, and in how they will behave in this matter they experience a divergence of choice owing to the reality of being human. Their political stances can also determine their economic choices, and a divergence arises in how they will behave when there is a contradiction between what is beneficial for themselves and what is beneficial for society.

Moreover, even in this divergence there are overlaps. Here there can be no scientific rule about how people will behave in the contradiction between social benefit and individual benefit; the matter is entirely political. Here, the political field in its broadest sense of course also includes religious or moral values or motivations.

That people who leave no stone unturned in nationalist posturing and put forward protecting the Turkish currency as a value of nationalism should, while the exchange rate is rising, invest in foreign currency, putting their individual interest first without caring in the least, even when it is clear that this will cause their country's currency to fall and their nation to grow poorer, is one of the typical behaviors, but not the only form. In this case there may be, and have been, those who do the opposite. But the nationalism that is said to be on the rise would have been expected to set up a defensive reflex in the face of an attack on the country's currency. It could have been assumed that it would form a front in the name of protecting the domestic currency and, from this front, prevent a mass flight into a foreign currency.

Of course we have no data on the distribution of political preference among the masses that turned to foreign-currency deposits. But we can predict that any likely data would reveal a sample containing people from every segment, certainly in different proportions.

In any case, the presentation of the turn toward the dollar against lowering interest rates as if it were a fact of scientific, and therefore indisputable, necessity entirely ignores the social psychology and the world of values in the background. And those who present interest as if it were the necessary scientific truth of economics against the thesis that President Erdoğan has voiced against interest for years are not even aware that they are stuck in an interesting local perception of science, even in relation to the generally valid scientific rules of economics. Because as far as we know, interest is seen everywhere in the world as a cause of inflation and an enemy of investment and production. To the extent that the way of earning by interest is open, no one will enter the path of investing in industry and production. When there is the most guaranteed way of making money, who would push their money onto the risky and laborious path of investment?

Of course people who regard interest as contrary to their religious and moral values will prefer these risky paths, and do. Economic behavior thereby shows that it is not subject to any scientific necessity at all. People may prefer more laborious ways of earning that are more beneficial for society over ways of earning that are easy and guaranteed for themselves but harmful to society.

How does interest, which is regarded all over the world as the enemy of real investment and production, and which is kept at the lowest level in developed countries, and in fact it is only because it is kept so that development can be recorded, become an indisputable fact of the science of economics in Turkey? This is a contradiction that shows how localized, how alaturka-fied the indisputable truths of science have become, how thoroughly they have been reduced to street peddling.

We have watched in amazement how great professors of economics, or professors of every subject, closed the field of economics to debate in favor of the absoluteness of the benefit of interest. They always put forward raising interest to lower inflation and the exchange rate as a great wisdom. As if raising interest would have any result other than turning around and raising inflation and the exchange rate, and thus putting the economy into a vicious circle again. Moreover, as if the matter had nothing to do with the political, and everything took place within the indisputable mathematical rules of science.

What science could have such an indisputable proposition? That economics, which is political through and through, is not only given the title of positive scientificity but is also provided, in favor of interest, with an indisputability that not even science claims, rests, from whatever angle you look at it, only on ideological propaganda.

The reaction that has appeared in the form of the rise of the dollar to the rightful struggle against interest has of course many dimensions, but no one can say that it is necessary, let alone that it is related to Turkey's current economic realities, let alone, still less, that it is not related to the political. Other kinds of reactions and policies are quite possible as well.

It is understood that Erdoğan's insistence on this matter has at least a great deal to tell everyone. A more just world is possible, and a different kind of economy is possible. Because economics is related to the political from beginning to end.

No one can any longer make an order of exploitation into fate by closing it to debate with scientific-looking but entirely alaturka legends.