Abstract

This article shows the real causes of the crisis of the Turkish economy. It argues that it is not the devaluation of the Turkish lira the cause of it or the concentration of power at the hands of Erdogan as mainstream analysts argue: but it is a systemic crisis in the sense that the Turkish economy has been integrated too much in the international market economy and as a result it lost its high degree of independence that it created during the social-democratic consensus and grew its dependence by the market forces of neoliberal globalization. In this sense, the devaluation of the Turkish lira and the concentration of power at the hands of Erdogan, is simply the result of the geopolitical confrontation between America and Turkey. As a result, it shows the vulnerability of the Turkish economy by market forces. So, the real (and ultimate) cause of the crisis is geopolitical. America, in order to realize its ends in the region, it has started to use sanctions at a higher level: it wants, not simply the release of the American pastor and other imprisoned Americans, but to achieve its geopolitical goals in the region: to keep them integrated (for all those countries that have been partially integrated like Turkey and others to start the process of integration) into new world order of neoliberal globalization. The geopolitical character of the crisis in Turkey has brought into the global stage a new characteristic of the financial crisis of all big emerging markets #x2014; a double crisis: both at government, corporate and banking level. It shows, furthermore, the ignorance of the intellectual community in Turkey about the effects of such integration into the international market economy and finance, in which, micro- economics has overlapped macro-economics. As a result, Turkey is at the crossroads and its future will be ominous.