Three decades after the end of the Cold War, it became clear that we are not in fact living at the end of history and that the current US world order might sooner than later come to an end. While the US may have enjoyed its first two decades as the sole remaining superpower by abusing its power in the most vulgar ways imaginable, the 2010ʼs have recreated the fierce competition and belligerent rhetoric that characterized an era where the US wasnʼt able to do as it pleased so easily. China, and the geopolitical bloc it represents, now stand in the way of the US as a rival power. This state of affairs has peaked much interest in the left worldwide, with many that are enthusiastic about the opportunities the new multipolar world might bring before them.
There already exists much research into the main points of interest in the debate, such as a war over Taiwan and Chinese loans to Africa. More often than not, analysts focus on China and the key enemies of the US that take her side. Although there might be more intrigue there for a thrill-seeking audience, there remains a whole host of actors lying in between the antagonistic dynamics whose roles are not properly examined. This is all the more important if one were to try to make politics out of it rather than merely commenting on how exciting everything is becoming again.
In this view, Turkey deserves special attention. Although it isnʼt excluded from the conversation, when it is mentioned not much of substance ends up being said. The “What if?ˮ scenario of Turkey breaking with the US gets brought up a lot, but as discussed in a previous article, this is wholly improbable under current circumstances. At its core, this line of thinking ignores how deeply the US and its coercive military apparatus are embedded into Turkey, like roots larger than the tree it supports. Instead of fantasizing about unlikely hypotheticals, it would be more useful to look at how Turkey finds itself in this dawn of multipolarity and what it means for the objectives of the class struggle.
The Crescent and the Moon already have a place in the Sun
Before anything else, Turkey is an export-based economy, and it has been this way ever since the major political shift brought about by the coup of 1980 [1]. It employs cheap labor and sells its product on the international market where the owners make abundant profits. This is the tried-and-true formula that gets tinkered with but never tampered with. That being said, the continuous rise in the volume of global trade, tied to the rise of China and other emerging economies, has created new opportunities for Turkish capital to invest in the form of logistics. Indeed, there is a programmatic interest in turning Turkey into a logistics hub, with major infrastructure projects being announced to support the planned increase in trade going through the country [2].
These developments are in line with the major foreign policy project of China, the Belt and Road Initiative, a global infrastructure development project that involves dozens upon dozens of countries. Turkey being open to both the East and the West makes it an ideal subject for BRI. It is not unique in this regard, Georgia, who is right next door to Turkey, is also being groomed into such a role [3], but Turkey still does manage to stand out by the magnitude of the investments being planned. Nevertheless, turning the country into a great big highway like this doesn’t promise any change in the conditions of the working class.
The infrastructure projects will surely create more employment but it would be naive to say that this would tighten the labour market and push wages up. The clear trend in the recent period has been for employment to increase in proportion to a decrease in wages [4]. The Turkish bourgeoisie is very much aware of the danger that a high rate of accumulation without an adequate rate of growth of the workforce would bring, and they are also aware of the demographic crisis Turkey is going through at the moment, where the rate of growth of the workforce is higher than the rate of growth of the population. It is for this reason that business groups make calls for even more migrant workers from Asia and Africa, even though the larger part of the population has become extremely hostile towards them.
Knowing how careful they are with keeping their profits as high as possible, there is no point in hoping for the Turkish bourgeoisie to shoot itself in the foot by over-accumulating and bettering the position of labor against capital. China has seen intense capital accumulation and a subsequent rise in industrial wages because it was a conscious decision of the state capitalist policy of the CPC [5], not too much unlike the post-war Labour governments in the UK, but there is no reason to expect the same from the AKP in Turkey.
China poses the most important challenge to US hegemony worldwide, but it isnʼt the only challenger. Besides China, there are the countries making up the BRICS group who are also able to use their economic weight against the interests of American and allied capital. Although the group has no pretensions of being socialist, its anti-American foundations evoke hope in many leftists who see in it the spark to trigger progressive change in developing countries. Of course, this may come about here and there in a roundabout way, but this idea obscures the fact that BRICS is first and foremost a trading bloc. As such, the countries that will get the most out of mingling with BRICS are those that are excluded from US-dominated international trade by way of sanctions and embargoes. Iran, Syria, and Venezuela to name a few might have a lot to gain from BRICS, counting not only the bourgeoisie but also the working people that canʼt get access to basic medicine because of the blockade.
In this regard, Turkey has nothing to gain. Western media might fuss about Erdoğan meeting Putin or imprisoning journalists but Turkey is still very well integrated into the American system, and therefore the international system. There are no sanctions or embargoes to be bypassed, no inaccessible foreign markets, and no threat of subversion.
The one point that does merit some interest, however, is the effect this “South to Southˮ trade will have on dollar hegemony. Trade being conducted in local currencies between members is a huge blow to the status of the dollar as the default reserve currency, and the talks of a currency union for debts between members are even scarier for the US. For currency sovereignty, this is undoubtedly a positive development. Unfortunately in our case, a stronger lira is against the interests of the Turkish bourgeoisie. The monetary policy of the AKP after COVID has been to purposefully debase the lira, reducing labor’s share of income so that capitalists take home a larger part of the value realized. Even after the end of the AKP rule, de-dollarization would only be meaningful in a Turkey that turned away from export-led immiserating growth.
Poles without Gravity
Besides the economic implications of multipolarity, there is also the seemingly more basic question of who will fight alongside whom. As alluded to before, should NATO go to war, there is no doubt that Turkey will fulfill its obligations as its second power. There is, however, the hope that rapprochement with the opposing bloc may lead to a fragile peace in the region.
Currently, Turkey is involved in a war in Syria where it occupies much of the north of the country and supports “opposition forces” in places like Idlib [6]. Syria is a close ally of Russia and Iran, who are in turn close with China, so could a rapprochement with the China bloc get Turkey to pull out of Syria for good? Certainly not, and not because the other powers would hesitate in asking. Even if they pressed Turkey to let Syria be, it wouldnʼt be persuaded, as Syria, and to an extent Iraq, are part of the Neo-Ottomanist agenda of the AKP and a key part of its foreign policy for more than a decade. If Turkey were to be a good neighbor to all, there wouldnʼt be any place left for power projection, which a regional power like Turkey canʼt do without even if it’s against the interests of the larger bloc. If this werenʼt the case, then the Cyprus problem would have been resolved years ago, the Turkish armed forces wouldnʼt engage YPG units doing busy work for the US, and the Aegean would have remained forever calm.
This basic truth goes beyond just Turkey. Multipolarity is usually only mentioned with regard to the US and China. The geopolitical role of any given country will be judged based on its proximity to these two powers, but this approach will often lead to a mishandling of the real dynamics at play. To take the Caucasus for example, the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict is framed in terms of east vs. west, with Armenia being tied to Russia and Azerbaijan to Turkey. After the seizure of Karabakh, the script seems to be flipped, now Azerbaijan is framed as having embraced Russia and Armenia the US, and Europe [7]. While it is true that these rapprochements did take place, it is not necessary to pit East and West against each other when their interests are very much aligned when Azerbaijan asks for a corridor through Armenia.
This hypothetical Zangezur corridor would connect Azerbaijan to its exclave Nakhchivan and thus to Turkey, serving as another logistics project among many connecting east and west for increased trade. Perhaps the irony of the whole debate on multipolarity is that although many analysts frame the existence of the two blocs in purely antagonistic terms, they also share many common interests when it comes to business. This lends credence to the ideas of some authors who see the dynamics rising from multipolarity as being ultimately subordinate to the rules of the existing system [8].
The process of Eurasian integration may at first be seen simply as China expanding its influence, and while that is certainly true in a way, it doesn’t paint the full picture, as the very same process also offers many opportunities for European investors. Of course, private Western investors tend to avoid capital-intensive investments as they aren’t profitable in the short term, so their part in the building of these large infrastructure projects will naturally be secondary, but in any case, they will still reap the benefits of the reduced transport costs for their commodities.
Conclusion
What to make of multipolarity? With regards to Turkey, it brings a wave of logistics projects and not much else. This isnʼt to say that things arenʼt changing, but that the role of Turkey in the international system isnʼt of the sort to be upset up by the direct effect of the new institutions of multipolarity. Indeed, the idea of multipolarity should be interpreted as an ideological and political project with the potential to shake up the system in place. If not, then the existence of more big economies only implies more business opportunities for the countries that already had a place in the international system.
Progressive governments like Nicaragua that are marginalized by the US may get good use out of the new terrain of multipolarity to bypass the obstacles put before them to impeach their development. This would indeed shake up the roots of the US system as it would allow left-wing governments in the South to better the conditions of their people without being subject to chronic underdevelopment through economic coercion. In this way, multipolarity serves as a helping hand to local left forces more than anything. It doesnʼt have the power to enforce strict, ideologically backed political alliances as during the Cold War, so the political orientation of countries will still be based on the interests of moneyed interests. With this in mind, leftists should remember who they wish to fight for. Our man is neither the businessman nor the statesman.
Our man is the worker
And our man is king.
References
[1] fatih yaşlı on X: “24 ocak 1980 kararlarından bir hafta önce açıklanan tusiad raporu. mealen diyor ki tr kapitalizmi ancak ihracatla kurtulabilir, bunun için de iç talebi kısmak,ücretleri düşürmek,döviz kurunu yükseltip tl’yi değersizleştirmek gerekir. 44 yıldır aynı kabusu yaşamaya devam ediyoruz. https://t.co/Xfe65mw0jY” / X (twitter.com)
[2] Küresel Ticaret, Tedarik Zinciri, Devletin Uluslararasılaşması: Türkiye Nereye? – Kansu Yıldırım (siyasaliktisat.com)
[3] Russiaʼs Intended Naval Base in Ochamchire: Implications for Georgian and Black Sea Security – PONARS Eurasia
[4] https://x.com/meeeeenekseee/status/1730677693841018905
[5] Paul Cockshott, How the World Works, Chapter 6.3
[6] https://youtu.be/i_-d6VYee4E?si=0NqU_HlRB8Ekm1dI
[7] In the Caucasus, Another Year of War or Peace – Carnegie Europe – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
[8] Western Imperialism and the Role of Sub-imperialism in the Global South (cadtm.org)
Cem Poyraz Özbay, the "great Turk," was born in Istanbul and is currently studying law in France. He is interested, among other things, in Marxist political economy and the philosophy of materialism. He may seem a bit bold at first, but rest assured he becomes even more so as you get to know him. He is also a big fan of Elis Regina.