Neo-Marxist Theories

Apart from the ECLA wing, the most fundamental speciality of Neo-Marxist theories is that they attribute the condition of development of the underdeveloped economies/countries to the disengagement from capitalism.

Another speciality is that underdeveloped countries, together with Neo-Marxist thesis settle in the center of theoretical analysis themselves. Capitalist propagation is not evaluated as a positive and progressive thing in the Neo-Marxist thesis. Therefore, it would not be wrong to say that it is a relative disengagement from the European centralization (Başkaya, 2000: 76).

Although the Neo-Marxist approaches have been started in the literature with Baran‟s literary work named as The Political Economy of Growth, Jose Carlos Mariategui from Peru who sees the underdevelopment problem being based upon neo-classical and modernizationist opinions is the first person to formulate most of the dependency thesis which Neo-Marxists allege. According to Mariategui, the problems of underdeveloped countries cannot be resolved with the policies based upon neo-classical and modernizationist theories; on the contrary, problems will get deeper. Capitalist development is in fact the development of the monopoly capital. Since Feudal and semi-Feudal structures are also in the service of monopoly capital, it would be wrong to expect the pre-capitalist relations to be eliminated (Başkaya, 2000: 78).

The evaluations of the authors which constitute/maintain the Neo-Marxist line about the world-system are pervading in a wide area. However, since the subject is the underdevelopment theories in Turkey‟s Customs Union process, the aforementioned authors‟ comments about international trade will be emphasized.

3.3.2.1. Paul Baran: The Political Ecomomy of Growth

Baran states that the capitalism propagates by means of colonization policies and that the capital accumulation process of the Western Europe countries cannot be actualized in the colonized countries, and emphasizes the mechanisms which take the surplus value out of underdeveloped countries.

According to Baran, surplus value is being spent not only by transferring from third world countries to the central countries, but by withdrawing of lumpen bourgeoisie, semi-developed industrialists, foreign companies and governments in those countries (Cirhinlioğlu, 1999: 128).

According to Baran, those four dominant classes who distrain on the residual do not profit from the transformation of peripheral economies and industrialization.

Therefore capitalism, which causes economic developments before in the core countries in different conditions, loses this dynamism in the underdeveloped countries (Kaynak, 2011: 164). In addition, underdeveloped countries are not able to develop, because of reasons like economic surplus‟ going to the industrialized countries or the dominant class‟ being used in the luxury consumption in the underdeveloped countries, competition‟s not allowing the infant industry to develop, industrialization‟s obtaining a monopolist condition from the beginning and foreign companies‟ transferring an important part of the profit out of the country in relation with the dominance of foreign capital (Başkaya, 2000: 81).

3.3.2.2. Andre Gunder Frank: Metropolis-Satellite Relation

According to Andre Gunder Frank, who considers the development ideas of modernist progressive opinion, not on the basis of social class relations, but international trade and changes, capitalism has caused two basic structures to be created; metropolis and satellite in the international system. Today, the reason of the trouble which we call as underdevelopment is based on the unequal relation between metropolis and satellite.

According to Frank, distraint practices for the economic residual which cause development in the metropolitan centers, and underdevelopment in the surrounding satellites, originate from the internal conflicts of capitalism (Özdemir, 2010: 197). Therefore capitalist propagation is itself the reason of underdevelopment. Because the basic speciality of the communities who have not meet with capitalism is not underdevelopment, but undevelopment.

According to Andre Gunder According to Frank, who claims that capitalism is always a development for the minority and underdevelopment for the majority (Başkaya, 2000: 84), the basic condition of development is breaking off the relation between the center and commercial relations. According to Frank, the countries which have the closest relation with the West are the poorest countries today. However in this period, the Latin America countries, whose relation with the center have been weakened after the World War II could develop further (Cirhinlioğlu, 1999: 142).

3.3.2.3. Samir Amin: Distorted Development

Although the metropolis-satellite distinction of Andre Gunder Frank has become core-periphery with Amin, it has not changed in essence. Over developed exportation sector is the basic speciality which defines the peripheral countries developing according to the needs of core countries (Kaynak, 2011: 169). The growth which is foreign-oriented and irregular in the surrounding structures, is mostly because of different structures‟ being together in the country. So, while productivity increases in the sectors which produce for exportation, it remains constant or decreases in the areas where pre-capitalist relations go on (Başkaya, 2000: 86).

According to Amin, the industrial products which are imported from the center collapse the economy in the surroundings. This is another factor which connects the underdeveloped countries to the developed countries. However in some conditions, industrialization is an expected situation in the surrounding structures. According to Amin, industrialization in the surrounding structures, is based on light industry which uses advanced techniques (Başkaya, 2000: 86-90).

3.3.2.4. Cardoso: Dependent Capitalist Development

Being founded by Cardoso, and detailed by Evans and O‟Donnell, the approach points to a partial separation from the Neo-Marxist line. Apart from the opinions which claim that the capitalist propagation and developing international trade accordingly causes the underdevelopment, according to Cardoso, capitalist

development creates a partial development; however, this development is called as a dependent development and it serves to the needs of core.

According to Cardoso, the purchasing power should increase for the multinational companies to sell consumer goods to the surrounding country‟s people. According to the increase in the purchasing power, development in some of the consumer and industry goods is a matter of fact to be expected.

Being up to the technological opportunities which are given by the centercountries, this development will allow the countries which have sold only raw materials, to be able to produce industry goods (Başkaya, 2000: 154).

3.3.2.5. Emmanuel and Unequal Exchange

Starting from the analysis of Prebish and Singer which shows that the foreign trade breaks down against underdeveloped countries, Emmanuel has explained the break down in international terms of trade, by means of Marx‟s labor theory of value (Kaynak, 2011: 91). The reason of transfer mechanism which is defined as unequal change is that the labor power to produce same amount of labor value creates different prices in different countries (Keyder, 1979: 91).

According to Emmanuel, when the free trade is plied between the countries with different price levels, the aspect of the exploitation increases. According to Emmanuel which states that a few of the authors like Kindleberger, Nurkse, Linder, Perroux, Weiller, Rosenstein-Rodan, Gendarme and Prebisch have deeply examined the basics of free trade, (Emmanuel, 1972: 38), unequal exchange is inevitable in the free international trade between the economic structures in which there are differences in the price levels.

According to this approach which takes the unequal exchange as the only exploitation and value transfer mechanism that is necessitated structurally by the world economy notion, price levels are the only parameter to show the development level. Although the per capita income is high, since the labor wages are low in the countries like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in which underdevelopment still go on, the per capita output cannot be completely spent

in the country and development criteria cannot be reached accordingly (Keyder, 1979: 91-100).

3.3.2.6. Wallerstein: World-Systems Analysis

Wallerstein‟s World-Systems Analysis has several characteristics in common with Frank‟s metropolis-satellite dichotomy which is based on the differentiations of specialization worldwide. However, Wallerstein discusses the international economic relations in a wider historical perspective.

According to Wallerstein, international system is composed of the relations of three structures like core, periphery and semi-periphery. The core which withdraws the surplus value from the weak countries, makes the international market unequal in favor of itself. Periphery remains standing by exporting low price goods (Cirhinlioğlu, 1999: 164). Semi-periphery between the two groups has more capital intensive industrial structure than the periphery. Semi-peripheral countries should be evaluated in the dependent development model of Dependency School with their continuous dependency to the core (Özdemir, 2010: 212).

It is possible for a country to change its status (for example from semi-periphery to core) in the current hierarchical system. According to Wallerstein, it is possible to upgrade from semi-peripheral to core status by methods like finding the possibilities which allow the production of more goods for cheaper prices and protecting the internal production by strictly keeping the importation under control (Cirhinlioğlu, 1999: 167).

While discussing Turkey‟s customs union process in terms of dependency and underdevelopment, it will be analyzed on the basis of comments of Dependency Ecole theoreticians which focus on the international unequal relations which are shortly summarized above. It will be possible to understand if the theoretical discussion which Dependency School has developed as part of unequal relation-unequal change overlaps with the relation of Turkey with the EU by evaluating the process by means of some parameters.

3.4. EVALUATING THE CUSTOMS UNION WITHIN THE SCOPE OF DEPENDENCY ECOLE

While explaining the mechanisms creating the underdevelopment, Dependency Ecole theoreticians have emphasized some aspects of free international trade and have evaluated the dependency relation between the core and periphery by means of several parameters. The most important ones among those parameters are: foreign trade and international terms of trade, growth and productivity, technological evaluation/comparison, new commodity production character and political dependency. Since Turkey‟s customs union process has been discussed in terms of dependency, it has been deemed suitable to add the parameters like effect of trade with third countries, tax income losses and ecological change, in the analysis.

3.4.1. Evaluating the Effects of Customs Union on Foreign Trade within