Imagining Crises of Neoliberalism: Covid-19 Pandemic and (Im)Possibilities of Change in Turkey’s Labour Regime

Abstract

This study critically engages with the ‘end of neoliberalism’ debates which have peaked following the globally detrimental impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. The paper suggests that crises of the pandemic predetermine neither the end of neoliberalism nor its regeneration. It is argued that ‘death or resurrection’ of neoliberalism is conditioned in the ways through which subjects experience ongoing crises and translate them into particular actions. On that basis, the paper focuses on Turkey’s labour regime under pandemic conditions to reveal how the imaginings and political practices of the Turkish state, companies, and (self-employed courier) workers regenerate the enduring principles of neoliberalism – including (global) market competitiveness, deregulation, labour market flexibility, economic individualism, and status-seeking – even in moments of crises. The paper concludes with a brief discussion on the emerging visibility of alternative modes of practices, which potentially involve new possibilities to mobilise towards post-neoliberal politics under crisis-ridden pandemic conditions.

Introduction

There seems to be a common agreement among scholars, intellectuals, as well as political and economic elites that globally detrimental impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic have flowed multiple systems of contemporary neoliberal hegemony into a period of crisis (see Buğra et al., 2020; Van Barneveld et al., 2020; Warf, 2021; World Economic Forum, 2022). Controversies regarding the ‘death’ of neoliberalism have been carried out especially through critically engaging with current conditions of the economic system it empowers. It has been suggested that the pandemic, which had emerged on the hard ground culminated by the 2008 financial crisis, further weakened the economic system of neoliberalism due to its damaging impacts on the flow of capital, production, manufacturing, labour regime, distribution of wealth, increase in energy costs, inflation rates, and supply chain.

Prior to the pandemic, the 2008 financial crisis was the most recent example in which scholarly literature and intellectual debates were once again shaped by controversies regarding the ‘end’ or ‘death’ of neoliberalism (see Jacques, 2016; Kotz, 2009; Sitaraman, 2019; Stiglitz, 2019a, 2019b). Nevertheless, as pointed out by Peck et al. (2012, emphasis is added), although

[n]eoliberalism may have lost another of its nine lives in the Great Recession of 2008–2009 . . . it is still very much with us. In fact, the most perverse legacy of the global crisis has been a further entrenchment of neoliberal rationalities and disciplines. (p. 265)

Departing from a similar vantage point, Duncan (2022) comparatively discusses the politics of the UK administration during the 2008 financial crisis and the pandemic era to reveal how even the state-oriented welfare politics in both of these moments have paved the way for the restructuring of neoliberal hegemony in the country.

These analyses illustrate a literature trend striving for explaining the resilience of neoliberal hegemony (see also, Crouch, 2011; Mirowski, 2013; Šumonja, 2021). While controversies on the ‘death’ of neoliberalism have reached their peak again during the uncertainties of the pandemic era (see Avineri, 2020; Cherkaoui, 2020; Golub, 2020; Wong, 2020), abovementioned literature trend invites us to be more careful to not to make a quick jump into this conclusion. Instead, it raises doubts on the possibility that neoliberalism (with its core principles such as financialization, individualism, empowering free market competition, commodification, and deregulation) may have ended up with regeneration.

In the light of these scholarly and intellectual debates, it seems timely to elaborate on the relationship between crises and the endurance, resilience, stickiness or reproduction of neoliberalism. In so doing, we may have a better view to trace new political (im)possibilities that crises of the pandemic open for near future. Neoliberalism is often used pejoratively both in the academic and public sites, with reference to encompassing many elements (including inequalities, injustices, and oppression of working segments) that have been stigmatised not only by leftists but also by defenders of (radical) democratic political ethos (Brown, 2019). On that basis, how can we explain this stigmatised political ideology’s capacity of (re)production under moments of crises despite having been accused for a long time as the ‘real kernel’ of deep and complex regimes of inequalities?

Addressing the neoliberal logics of reproduction and their resilience is clearly a complex task. Having been aware of this complexity, this paper avoids conducting a subsumptive approach. It does not claim to cover all neoliberal politics of social reproduction. In fact, a wide range of scholarly literature (but see Bohle and Greskovits, 2007; Connell and Dados, 2014; Huber and Solt, 2004; Madariaga, 2017; Tansel, 2019) have already comprehensively studied from various perspectives the diverse forms of structural-institutional patterns through which neoliberalism has been reproduced and institutionalised in various modes in different times and places. Instead, the paper limits itself with critically elaborating on actors’ imaginings of and practices under moments of crises to gain visibility to their complicities through which widely acknowledged crises of neoliberalism – potentially involving new political possibilities of transition to post-neoliberal politics – retake the form of crisis in neoliberalism, subsequently leading to its entrenchment. On that basis, the main focus will be on Turkey’s labour regime under pandemic conditions to discuss how neoliberal values of (global) market competition, deregulation, labour market flexibility, economic individualism, and status-seeking have been imagined, practised and reproduced by the Turkish state, companies, and (self-employed) workers even in the moments of crises. It will be argued that the neoliberal fantasies that haunt socio-political imaginaries of these actors conceal the possibilities of change and produce opportunities for neoliberalism’s reanimation in different modes. The paper will conclude with a brief discussion on the emerging visibility of alternative modes of practices, which potentially involve new possibilities towards post-neoliberal politics under crisis-ridden pandemic conditions.

Contextualising the Pandemic: The Crises-Ridden Character of Turkey’s Political Economy

The history of Turkey’s experience with neoliberalisation is an illuminating case to study the (mutually) constitutive relationship between political and economic crises, on one hand, and entrenchment of neoliberal system of relations, on the other. Neoliberalism in Turkey is defined in the literature as a state-centric process to reorganise extant system of relations based on global market rules through depoliticising labour. It is also widely acknowledged that its historical development in the country has continued uninterruptedly since its inception in the early 1980s despite having been exposed to numerous crises (Erol, 2021). For responses of the ruling elites to crises-ridden conditions have resulted in further entrenchment of neoliberalisation. Thus, Turkey’s political history has been haunted by a cyclical crisis-neoliberalisation pattern. The unnamed economic crisis that the country has been suffering from roughly since the 2018, which was deepened under the pandemic conditions, is not an exception to this rule.

During its emerging period under the authoritarian military regime (1980-1983), neoliberalisation was mainly conceived by the military elite and its civilian components as a response against the political-economic crises of the late 1970s, which was marked by ‘the crisis of Import Substitution Industrialisation (ISI), intensified class struggle and political instability . . .’ (Erol, 2021: 19). Accordingly, political economy of Turkey was reshaped by adapting export-oriented growth strategy to improve the country’s competitiveness in the global market (Öniş, 2019: 204). This transition had been carried out through making new arrangements in the labour market, among which politics of wage regression to reduce labour costs, and of de-unionisation to put an end to class-based politics were the two most notable ones (Erol, 2021; Gökten, 2021; Pınar, 2021).

A few years after retransition to civilian politics under the centre-right Motherland Party (MP) administration, labour movement stroke back for the improvement of real wages. Although the movement partially achieved its aim, the MP administration’s macroeconomic response was the deregulation of financial sectors (Erol, 2021: 21). Throughout politics of financial deregulation, not only the immunity of capital(ists) against organised labour demands was to be ensured, but also the expected short-term foreign capital inflows would be used to restore growth and financial debt. Nevertheless, politics of financial deregulation made Turkey’s economy vulnerable to global financial developments, which had revealed itself consecutively in the 1994, 1999, and especially in 2001 economic crises, all of which were caused by the fluctuations in foreign capital accumulation (Gökten, 2021: 40).

The 2001 crisis was the key moment for Turkey’s transition to ‘regulatory neoliberal’ model (Erol, 2021: 23; Öniş, 2019) as the ruling elite’s ‘response to the crisis was a full-fledged neoliberal structural reform programme . . .’ (Orhangazi and Yeldan, 2021: 464). Reforms underlying Turkey’s transition to this model had been mainly shaped around four policies: (1) large-scale privatisations; (2) granting the independence of Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (TCMB) with anti-inflationary policy implementations; (3) high interest rate policy to attract foreign capital inflows; and (4) establishing independent regulatory boards/agencies (IRBs) to oversee, monitor and supervise market activities (Erol, 2021: 20–27). On that basis, this transition could be considered as being based on expanding the limits of free market, on one hand, and on liberating the state from burdens of social and welfare policies, on the other. Accordingly, labour (force) has become more dependent on capital(ists), as the latter was equipped with more power and capacity to implement new forms of control over the former (Gökten, 2021: 44). As will be discussed later, introducing flexible employment models is one of the most notable policies to achieve cheap labour accompanied with excessive control over it.

The single-party administrations of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – AKP) in its first two government terms from 2002 to 2011 were the continuation of this regulatory neoliberalisation process through implementing a heterodox range of policies: (1) labour market flexibility; (2) jobless growth depending on foreign capital inflows; (3) indebtedness; and (4) introducing new social assistance programmes.

1. The new Labour Law no. 4857 issued in 2003 was based on organising labour market flexibility through recognising precarious modes of employment models as well as deregulating labour protections in favour of big businesses. As a result, ‘[s]ubcontracting and other forms of precarious employment [such as part-time work, causal work and compensatory work] and informalization gradually became the norm for the Turkish labour market’ (Pınar, 2021: 41; Gökten, 2021: 44).

2. Similar to the 1990s, the country’s economy and growth under post-millennial regulatory neoliberal regime was also dependent on foreign capital inflows (Orhangazi and Yeldan, 2021: 463). The positive growth trend in economy was not due to the creation of new employments. This ‘jobless growth’ has revealed itself especially in double-digit unemployment rates, which has become chronic since the early 2000s. This problem, which has continued over the past decade as illustrated in Table 1, is a factor imposing (self-)disciplinary control over (cheap) labour.

3. Orhangazi and Yeldan (2021) indicate that a novel feature of Turkey’s regulatory neoliberal regime is indebtedness (p. 475). As they maintain while the ratio of household debt to GDP was around 2% in 2002, it had reached almost to 20% by 2013. As will be illustrated later, indebtedness has peaked under pandemic conditions. The inclusion of lower-income groups to the financial system through consumer credits and mortgages functioned not only ‘as a compensation mechanism that substitutes lack of wage increases’ (Altınörs and Akçay, 2022: 1035), but also as a disciplinary control over labour as the burden of debt payment make workers more dependent on capital(ists).

4. Another key policy implemented by AKP administration in the post2000s is the introduction of new social assistance programmes to unemployed as a ‘non-wage income for the poor’ (Kutlu, 2021). As discussed in the literature (Özden et al., 2017: 195; Kutlu, 2021: 156; Altınörs and Akçay, 2022: 1034), these programmes have been implemented to avoid negative societal consequences through improving households’ level of toleration against the regimes of inequalities instituted by neoliberal patterns. They also lead to shape a dependency pattern between the government and the poor through which AKP has succeeded to gain support of the latter to a large extent (Özden et al., 2017: 195).

Table 1.

Unemployment rate in Turkey (March 2013 – March 2022).

Year	Unemployment rate (%)
March 2013	10.1%
March 2014	9.7%
March 2015	10.6%
March 2016	10.1%
March 2017	11.7%
March 2018	10.1%
March 2019	14.1%
March 2020	13.2%
March 2021	13.1%
March 2022	11.5%

Source: Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK, 2013b, 2014b, 2015b, 2016b, 2017b, 2018b, 2019b, 2020b, 2021b, 2022b).

Despite a temporary negativity experienced in 2009, economy in the country was relatively stable with an increasing growth trend in the first 5 years following the 2008 financial crisis. This was due to the continuation of large-scale privatisation policies, on one hand, and of foreign capital inflows, accompanied with the accumulation of US Dollar (USD) 184 billion to country between 2003 and 2007 (Gökten, 2021: 43), on the other. Nevertheless, this accumulation trend was reversed with the beginning of the contraction phase of global financial sectors in 2013 (Altınörs and Akçay, 2022: 1030). Considering huge foreign trade deficit that the country has been suffering from due to its dependency on importing energy and natural resources (Figure 1), the foreign capital outflows put country’s economy into a difficult position.

Figure 1.

Turkey’s foreign trade deficit (2013 – 2022/First 5 Months).

Source: Republic of Turkey – Ministry of Trade (2022).

This reversal trend showed its negative impact also on country’s GDP, which had gradually declined from USD 957 billion in 2013 to USD 720 billion in 2020 (The World Bank, 2022) (Figure 2). As such, over the past decade, the foreign trade deficit has created an average of 8.5% burden over Turkey’s economy.

Figure 2.

Turley’s GDP (Billon USD) 2013 – 2020.

Source: The World Bank Data (2022).

The post-2013 period was also shaped by significant political crises. The transformation of the partnership between AKP and Gülenists¹ into an antagonistic clash and the emergence of massive Gezi Park protests were the two most notable ones. The former conflict subsequently led to the emergence of a failed coup attempt in July 2016, which resulted in AKP’s declaration of 2 years long state of emergency in the country with drastic consequences, including the transition of political system from parliamentary to executive-centric presidential government system. The latter conflict escalated political polarisation between AKP and a wide-range of social and political opposition challenging massive urban renewal and construction policies, which were deemed vital by the government to keep economy alive. Under these crises-ridden conditions, AKP administration strived for implementing broad political-economic structural changes, which are mainly considered in the literature as indicators of AKP’s turn to authoritarian neoliberalism or ‘new neoliberalism’ (Kutun, 2021).

In line with historical development of neoliberalisation in the country, export-oriented growth strategy to improve Turkey’s global market competitiveness remained as an essential logic of AKP’s new neoliberalism. Nevertheless, the negativities experienced in the financial part of the economy have led President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s AKP to press much more on production, which required much tighter control over labour with much cheaper labour costs. As will be discussed later, this political manoeuvre has facilitated the formation of a ground for the emergence of new atypical, precarious, and flexible employment models. Another significant rupture vis-à-vis the historical development of neoliberalism in the country was the re-politicisation of economy through the domination of TCMB and IRBs by the political elites. During the state of emergency, and following the country’s transition to authoritarian presidentialism in 2018, new central administrations such as Turkey Wealth Fund and Presidency of Strategy and Budget were established. Concomitantly, political elites – most notably President Erdoğan – achieved full control over economy management. While unhindered production with cheap labour costs to manage exportation and foreign trade balance has become the new key strategy to sustain growth, the ‘politicised’ TCMB, whose governor had been replaced four times by Erdoğan since 2018, became subservient to political elites, abandoned anti-inflationary policies, and strived for decreasing interest rates to make the system available to cheap domestic loans and investment.² This has led to an increase in indebtedness and dependency on bank loans in the country.

These developments also have led to a currency crisis with rapid declines in the value of Turkish Lira (TRY) against USD and Euro (EUR) as illustrated in Table 2.

Table 2.

TRY exchange rates in reference to USD and EUR.

Year	TRY/USD	TRY value loss against USD (%)	TRY/EUR	TRY value loss against EUR (%)
1 March 2019	5.3442	N/A	6.0772	N/A
2 March 2020	6.2192	16.37%	6.8903	13.37%
1 March 2021	7.3029	17.42%	8.8059	27.80%
1 March 2022	13.8854	90.13%	15.5556	76.64%
17 June 2022	17.2905	24.52%	18.1730	16.82%
1 March 2019 – 17 June 2022	N/A	323.59%	N/A	299.03%

USD: US Dollar; TRY: Turkish Lira; EUR: Euro.

Source: The Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (TCMB, 2022).

Such value loss has made significant impact on the rise of inflation (Table 3) due to the rapid increase in the prices of a wide range of commodities and sectors including petroleum, energy, construction, housing, rents, production, food, and transportation.

Table 3.

Inflation rates in Turkey (May 2013 – May 2022).

Year	Inflation rate % (yearly basis)	Inflation rate % (monthly basis)
May 2013	6.51%	0.15%
May 2014	9.66%	0.40%
May 2015	8.09%	0.56%
May 2016	6.58%	0.58%
May 2017	11.72%	0.45%
May 2018	12.15%	1.62%
May 2019	18.71%	0.95%
May 2020	11.39%	1.36%
May 2021	16.59%	0.69%
May 2022	73.50%	2.98%

Source: Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK, 2013a, 2014a, 2015a, 2016a, 2017a, 2018a, 2019a, 2020a, 2021a, 2022a).

The Pandemic of the Turkish State: Taking the Advantage in Global Market Competition

The Turkish political administration’s discourses and policies against the pandemic were partly constituted in relation to the abovementioned economic bottlenecks that the country has been suffering from roughly since 2018. On that basis, the authoritarian AKP administration under Erdoğan’s presidency had imagined the pandemic as an opportunity to fix the disadvantaged status of Turkish economy. AKP administration implemented policies that were allegedly empowering Turkey’s competitiveness in the global market. ‘Keeping the wheels turning’ was the major motto of President Erdoğan since the beginning of the pandemic. Accordingly, while policies of lockdowns and curfews to prevent the spread of the virus were implemented especially towards citizens who did not take part in the labour market (such as retired people and students), a wide-range of other policies had been implemented towards the working segments to sustain production and economic growth in general.

In his study, Öktem (2021) states that labour market policy is at the heart of AKP’s social policy response to the pandemic and identifies three major labour market policies: Short-Term Work Compensation, ban on firing workers for employment protection, and Unpaid Leave Benefit (Nakdi Ücret Desteği) (p. 6). In addition to these three, indebtedness – boosting consumer credits and bank loans to sustain consumption and production – can be considered another major pandemic-related AKP policy. A review of these reveals that AKP policies under the pandemic were based on the logic of global market competitiveness and strived for regenerating neoliberal hegemony in the context of Turkey’s labour regime.

Short-Term Work Compensation (25 March 2020 – 30 June 2021) is a policy in which the Turkish state takes responsibility of paying 60% of employees’ gross salaries unless the payment does not exceed 150% of gross minimum wage (a maximum of TRY 5336.25 equivalent to USD 614.75 as of 30 June 2021). Considering that the ‘unemployment benefits are set at 40% of the gross wage with a cap of 80% of the gross minimum wage . . . Short-Term Work Compensation is a comparatively generous scheme by Turkey’s standards’. (Öktem, 2021: 6). Nevertheless, reports published by the Confederation of Revolutionary Trade Unions of Turkey (Türkiye Devrimci İşçi Sendikaları Konfederasyonu – DİSK) indicate that this policy forced approximately 3.5 million workers to live with an income below the minimum wage (DİSKAR, 2020: 32), for 57% of Turkey’s workforce has been working for minimum wage (DİSKAR, 2021: 20). Thus, the average amount that workers benefitted from the Compensation was estimated in the report as TRY 1547, covering 66% of the minimum wage (DİSKAR, 2020: 32). The Minister of Labour and Social Security indicates that approximately 3.8 million employees had benefitted from the Compensation (T.C. Çalışma ve Sosyal Güvenlik Bakanlığı (ÇSGB), 2021). This means that extreme majority of recipients insufficiently benefitted from Compensation.

The ban on firing workers (16 April 2020 – 30 June 2021) was the second policy of AKP administration and was aimed at keeping the already high unemployment rate relatively stable (Öktem, 2021: 6). The last policy, which is unpaid leave permission with unpaid leave benefit (17 April 2020 – 30 June 2021), aimed at rendering ban on firing workers acceptable to employers. The state paid the benefits – which is, on average, estimated as TRY 1068 (DİSKAR, 2021) – of employees who were put on unpaid leave, and temporarily postponed their social security payments (p. 32). However, as pointed out by Öktem (2021), ‘benefits under the unpaid leave scheme were very low compared to wage levels, Short-Term Work Compensation and unemployment insurance benefits’ (p. 6). To maintain this policy scheme, the government increased the cost of employees’ withdrawal acts of their contracts. ‘[I]f employees quit their jobs, they would forfeit certain rights (e.g. severance pay, which can be substantial in Turkey)’ (Öktem, 2021: 6). Under these circumstances, 3 million employees were put on unpaid leave during the pandemic (HaberTürk, 2021a).

According to the data presented by the Minister of Labour and Social Security, a total of 8 million people had benefitted from Short-Term Work Compensation, Unpaid Leave Benefit, and Unemployment Insurance (which is a regular policy in Turkey) (ÇSGB, 2021). The cost of these policies to the state was around TRY 57 billion. Given that the workforce in Turkey is estimated by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) as 26.8 million in 2020, and 28.8 in 2021, it could be argued that approximately 30% of the workforce had benefitted from these supports. To put that in reverse, more than 70% (approximately 20 million) of Turkey’s workforce continued to regularly involve in the labour market to keep the wheels turning (for critical approaches to the working conditions of active labour force in Turkey during the pandemic, see Sarıöz-Gökten, 2021).

In addition to these three policies, AKP administration also boosted consumer credits. This policy could be considered as a definite example of keeping state subsidies at the minimum by directing citizens and companies to the instruments of financial sectors. While the ‘Economic Stability Shield’ package introduced by the government to cope with the pandemic contains a budget around TRY 100 billion for social policies, the use of credit loans during the pandemic was around TRY 3.2 trillion. The official data provided by the Risk Centre Branch of Banks Association of Turkey reveal the rapid increase in loan debts of companies and individuals during and after the pandemic (Tables 4 and 5).

Table 4.

Loan debt general.

Year	Overall money loan		Commercial loan		Retail loan
	Total (TRY TN.)	Increase in yearly basis (%)	Total (TRY TN.)	Increase in yearly basis (%)	Total (TRY TN.)	Increase in yearly basis (%)
2019	2.708	13%	2.2	18%	0.548	−0.4%
2020	3.25	20%	2.6	20%	0.664	21%
2021	3.992	23%	3.1	20%	0.903	36%
2022	5.938	49%	4.8	55%	1.137	26%

TRY: Turkish Lira; TN.: trillion.

Source: Banks Association of Turkey – Risk Centre (2019, 2020, 2021, 2022).

Table 5.

Loan debt of individual users.

Year	Number of retail loan users (million)	Increase in the number of retail loan users (million)	Average credit balance (TRY 1000)	Number of first time retail loan users (thousand)
2019	31.5	1.1	17.4	103
2020	32.4	0.9	21	920
2021	34.5	2.1	26.1	70
2022	36.1	1.6	31.5	132

TRY: Turkish Lira.

Source: Banks Association of Turkey – Risk Centre (2019, 2020, 2021, 2022).

Overall, it seems clear that the labour market policies of the Turkish state under AKP administration during the pandemic stayed within the parameters of neoliberal capitalism. Concerning with the disadvantaged and fragile characteristic of the Turkish economy, crises of the pandemic era were imagined as an opportunity to improve Turkey’s global market competitiveness. To achieve this goal (though failed), the government policies targeted minimising the detrimental impacts of the pandemic on labour market. Through this mode of engagement with crises, AKP administration strived for keeping the wheels turning while at the same time keeping state subsidies at the minimum. While majority of the labour market were mobilised by the government to ensure unhindered production, companies and individuals were directed to financial sectors to ensure growth, consumption, and production. By the same token, the government strived for keeping – on paper at least – the unemployment rate at the minimum. From that lens, (global) market competitiveness as one of the core principles of neoliberal economy seems to be at the heart of the constitution and regulation of AKP policies. Hence, it could be argued that the Turkish state under AKP is one of the definite actors to regenerate the hegemonic patterns of neoliberal capitalism during and after the pandemic era.

The Pandemic of Companies: Seeking Profit through Deregulation and Labour Market Flexibility

The detrimental impacts of the pandemic were not identical in all economic sectors. While some sectors such as tourism, transportation, and construction were hit hard by the pandemic (Voyvoda and Yeldan, 2020), food retailing market, e-commerce, and online food delivery services were affected either minimally (Dilek and Öztürk, 2021) or positively. Food and beverage sector is an interesting case to analyse impacts of the pandemic on market sectors. For this sector is related to other fields of market including e-commerce and platform-based economy, courier-delivery services and gig economy in general, and restaurants and food retail sectors. A discussion on this sector will also enable us to understand that not only the Turkish state, but also companies imagined and practised crises of the pandemic in compliance with the principles of neoliberalism, among which deregulation and labour market flexibility are the most evident.

Lockdowns, curfews, and social distance policies were the main precautions taken by the Turkish state to prevent the spread of Covid-19 virus. These policies naturally put some branches within service sector, which comprises approximately 55% of Turkey’s labour force, into a very difficult position. Especially restaurants and cafes suffered from these policies (Gürçam and Güneş, 2021). The circular issued by the Ministry of Interior (2020) on 21 March 2020 required all restaurants and cafes to serve with limited number of personnel and only in the form of take away and delivery services. As a result, at least 900,000 employees either lost their jobs or were put on unpaid leave (Çiftçi, 2021). Considering the crisis-ridden conditions of the country’s economy, this development increased demands to work on flexible and precarious employment models, as will be discussed below.³

At the same time, however, the digitalised and platform-based infrastructure of Turkey’s service sector facilitated an opportunity to partially cover the negativities that restaurants and cafes had suffered from due to precautions to limit physical proximity. Among these digitalised services, the Yemeksepeti Company was the most prevailing one. Established in 2001, Yemeksepeti is the oldest online digital restaurant site in Turkey. Its business model works through increasing the numbers of member restaurants and cafes and by taking commissions varying from 8% to 12% from each online order made by the users through its website or mobile application (HaberTürk, 2021b).

Until recently, Yemeksepeti was a monopolising force given that no other company got involved into the sector it operates. Turning into a success story within the field of entrepreneurship, the company was bought by German DeliveryHero Company in 2015 for USD 589 million (CNN Türk, 2015). Following the emergence of the Getir Company in the late 2010s, online food and beverage sector was diversified. Both companies have been delivering services on national scale, and operating in some other countries as well. Whereas Yemeksepeti established companies in the Middle Eastern region, Getir enlarged its field of activity by moving towards Europe and North America (Bloomberg HT, 2022; CNN Türk, 2014).

Prior to the pandemic, operation fields of Yemeksepeti and Getir were segmented. While Yemeksepeti dominated the field of online restaurants, Getir was specialised within the field of online food retailing services such as supermarket and grocery items. During the pandemic era, new players emerged within the online food and beverage sector. Largest supermarket chains (such as Migros and CarreFourSA) have begun to provide online order and delivery services much more intensively within the field of food retailing. Largest online shopping sites (such as Trendyol and HepsiBurada) diversified their services by getting involved in online food retailing and restaurant orders. Yemeksepeti begins involving in online food retailing and grocery services by establishing two new sub-branches called Banabi’ and Yemeksepeti Mahalle, whereas Getir gets involved in online restaurant services by establishing GetirYemek.

These developments could be considered as an example to see how companies operating within the branches of online food and beverage sector experienced crises of the pandemic as opportunities to increase their growth and profit. Lockdown and curfews had made local restaurants and cafes dependent on digital platforms given that these platforms turned into their main sites of receiving orders. Accordingly, digital platforms had turned into sites of competition for growth and profit among multiple companies providing online services. Thus, far from creating a dismantling effect over the enduring principles of neoliberalism, it seems that the inclinations of companies during the pandemic have led to the regeneration of (neo)liberal capitalist conception of civil society that Marx (1992) identifies as ‘the war of all against all’ (p. 221). Pandemic conditions did not only lead to the emergence of opportunities towards the ‘end’ of neoliberalism, but also facilitated the formations of new digital markets governed by the principles of neoliberalism.

Over the past 2 years, e-commerce has rapidly grown in Turkey. According to the data provided by the E-Commerce Info Platform (2022), which operates under the Ministry of Trade, the number of companies engaging with e-commerce activities had increased 275% in 2020. The number of companies engaging with e-commerce activities increased from 68,457 in 2019 to 256,861 in 2020, whereas the e-commerce trade volume had increased 66% from TRY 136 billion to TRY 226.2 billion.

The rapid growth of e-commerce also showed its impact on the online food and supermarket sector. While in 2019 the trade volume of the sector was around TRY 2.8 billion, in 2020 it climbed up to TRY 5.7 billion with an increase around 283%. This trend is observed also in the first 6 months of 2021. The trade volume of digital food sector increased to TRY 6.1 billion. Compared with the first 6 months of 2020, the growth rate was estimated in the Platform’s website as 198%.

These rates in the sector could also be traced from the rapid growth of Yemeksepeti. As indicated by the CEO of the company (Gözütok Ünal, 2021), the real growth rate of Yemeksepeti in 2021 was two times higher than the expected rate. In the first year of the pandemic in 2020, the number of users increased from 15 million to 20 million, whereas 32,500 new restaurants became members of the company’s website (Dünya Gazetesi, 2021). According to the data provided by the CEO of the company (Gözütok Ünal, 2021), by the end of 2021, Yemeksepeti has had more than 25 million users with more than 55,000 member restaurants and delivering services in all of the 81 provinces of Turkey and 400 out of 522 districts.

The rapid growth of e-commerce companies in tandem with the increase in the competition especially within the field of food and beverage sector naturally brings new labour needs. Among these needs, the most crucial one is the empowerment of delivery and courier services. As the need for delivery and courier services increase, companies strived for finding new possibilities to minimise the cost of labour through developing new types of employment models. The so-called ‘self-employed courier’ model (esnaf kurye modeli) is one of these new labour sectors. This model is an exemplary act, illustrating the interconnection between platform-based digitalised market economy, on one hand, and the advancement of gig economy based on flexible, cheap and insecure labour, on the other.⁴ It is a particularly illuminating case to track the linking of platform-based and gig economies through the companies’ deregulating practices, which have been implemented to create not only new forms flexible and cheap labour, but also new forms of control over labour.

Self-employed courier is a flexible labour model which has been recently developing in Turkey to meet the increasing needs in the field of delivery and courier services following the rapid growth in the demands on online shopping. Although no well-structured statistical data exists, an estimated 100,000 people are currently ‘registered’ as self-employed couriers (Üstün, 2022), mostly comprised of young and otherwise unemployed social segments.⁵ During its emerging phase roughly since late 2018 or early 2019, the government and companies had strived for promoting this model through employing certain strategies mainly towards the abovementioned social segments. To encourage the youth (aged between 18 and 29) to work in these precarious models, AKP administration implemented incentive-based policies such as covering social security expenses for 1 year if they establish their own companies. Companies, on the other hand, inclined to mobilise the unemployed by advertising the model under the motto ‘be your own boss’ and earn ‘up to’ a salary allegedly 4–5 times higher than the minimum wage. According to Kıdak (Cırık, 2021), the expression of ‘independency’ in these advertisements is an important factor leading to an accumulation of demands towards precarious labour models such as self-employed courier. For this kind of advertisement was found attractive especially for the younger generation who refuse to be under authority.

Companies also implemented a number of strategies to reduce the number of regularly employed courier workers through mobilising them to switch from employed to self-employed courier model. They initially withdrew in-kind aids (such as cost of transportation fares, food aids, and tips) they used to provide to their employers. Meanwhile, increase in the unemployment rates within service sector under pandemic conditions created a new wave of demand towards flexible models. Accordingly, companies acquired more power to determine labour cost. Following the announcement of 50.5% increase in minimum wage in January 2022, most companies kept wage increases at the minimum to rearrange courier salaries equal to minimum wage (Kardeşoğlu, 2022). To prevent potential organised resistances against low wage scales, companies also implement de-unionisation policies, such as shifting occupation branches of couriers from transportation to office staff (Gazete Duvar, 2022b). The low wage scale was the final straw and was followed by courier strikes and (forced) resignations. By any means, companies succeeded to create a flow of demand from employed to self-employed courier model, for a considerable portion of those couriers who resigned their jobs began to work as self-employed courier.

The development of self-employed courier model reveals how, apart from the state, companies in Turkey also appear as another set of actors that are complicit in entrenching neoliberal principles of deregulation and labour market flexibility under the crisis-ridden conditions of the pandemic. Flexible employment models such as self-employed courier are designed to minimise employer responsibilities and labour cost while at the same time optimising labour control. One of the self-employed couriers I interviewed with defined the model as ‘nothing but a name referring to those workers, who do not have the rights that employed workers have’.⁶ That is, although employed and self-employed couriers are doing the ‘same’ job to the ‘same’ company, the latter lack any right or protection that the former have. Regarding regular employments, Turkish Labour Law requires employers to meet employees’ social security payments and health insurances. They are required to regulate employees’ wage scales in compliance with the minimum wage arrangements, and to supply and maintain all necessary equipment (vehicles, uniforms, helmets, etc.). It is also mandatory for employers to arrange working hours and work conditions of employees. In self-employed courier model, however, employers are not responsible for any of these requirements. Requiring self-employed couriers to establish their own companies, to pay their own social security and health insurances, and to purchase and maintain all necessary equipment by themselves, companies avoid employment costs. They also avoid taking legal responsibilities especially in cases of accidents, absences due to illness, and criminal acts. Setting up contracts on piecework payment, they free themselves from responsibilities of arranging workdays, working hours, and work conditions. Taking this non-responsibility as an advantage, they also implement policies such as performance-based bonus system to force self-employed couriers to overwork. Most self-employed couriers often exceed their mandatory 10-hour long regular shifts, and work 14–16 hours to get bonuses.⁷ For prices offered by companies per one delivered package are considerably low, couriers are partly dependent on bonuses, so they have to overwork. Self-employed couriers are also deprived of union rights; by law, they are not workers but company owners (Ceviz, 2022; Kıdak, 2021, 2022). This makes them more vulnerable and subservient against company policies. With all these rightlessness, far from enjoying the liberty of ‘being their own boss’, self-employed couriers were taken under the control of companies as much as companies control courier personnel. Companies determine times of their shifts, districts they work, packages they deliver, routes they follow, salaries they are paid, and uniforms they shall wear. In terms of hierarchy and control, there is no difference between employed and self-employed couriers. The difference is that the latter is deprived of all rights and protections that the former have.

The Pandemic of Workers: From ‘Becoming Independent Entrepreneurs’ to ‘Workers with No Rights’

Precarious employment models such as self-employed courier are mainly introduced by the Turkish state and companies. Nevertheless, their consolidation or ‘normalisation’ cannot be fully explained without addressing to the formations of demand flows towards them. The discussion so far has revealed at least three mechanisms to produce this flow: state incentives, company promotions and pressures, and unemployment. Yet, a more comprehensive analysis of this flow requires moving the focus away from structures to workers themselves. Such an analysis allows not only to make sense of the mobilisation of workers towards these models, but also to relate workers’ experiences and practices to the broader phenomenon of regeneration of neoliberal hegemony under crisis-ridden conditions of the pandemic.

At first sight, (feeling of) despair could be correctly seen as the definite factor leading to the formation of this demand flow. Structural reflections of economic crisis in the country such as significant unemployment rates, and increases in inflation and life expenses clearly create available conditions for workers to work at any job with or without social security, general health insurance, and union rights. Indeed, flexible employment models are mainly preferred by the two disadvantaged segments of the labour market – young and unemployed segments – as their ‘last choice’. Self-employed couriers are mainly composed of those workers who cannot find job in public and private sectors (Kıdak, 2021: 60). The two self-employed couriers I interviewed with insisted that the extreme majority of couriers would leave their jobs without giving a second thought if they find any other job to work at. Thus, self-employed couriers could be considered as victims of the neoliberal system, which leaves them with no work opportunity and does not protect their labour rights.

Although despair is definitely a prevalent factor leading to the formation of a demand flow within the labour market towards these precarious employment models, it leads to the formation of different imaginaries regarding the crisis-ridden conditions of Turkey. Especially during the emerging phase of these flexible models, this feeling was blended with some ‘positive’ inclinations, most notably the hope of ‘becoming an independent entrepreneur’. This imaginary is shaped by two logics that are critical for the hegemonic resilience of neoliberalism: economic individualism and status-seeking. Economic individualism refers to a practical inclination leading the subject to give prevalence to profit and independence over labour rights and protections. Thus, instead of (or despite) contesting the unprotected nature of these employment models deprived of labour rights, subject interacts with them. Status-seeking, on the other hand, is an identification logic in which subject stays within the parameters of class-based identification but by marking its difference from working class. Similar to economic individualism, status-seeking also leads subject to give secondary importance to labour rights and protections.

The qualitative research conducted by Kıdak (2021: 61–63) with 12 self-employed couriers working in the courier and transportation sector provides examples of the prevalence of these two logics during the emerging period of self-employed courier model:

It is more attractive to me than working as a worker. For if I was a worker, I have to wait for the beginning of the month. The money I receive at the beginning of the month will hardly be enough for my personal expenses only.

If I was a worker, I would hardly send my child to public school.

If I was a worker, I’d be stuck between the manager’s lips. We are also like that but, at least we are doing our own job.

These examples reveal the entrepreneurial fantasy that self-employed couriers were gripped by. This fantasy leads them to differentiate themselves from working class both economically and in terms of identity (if I was a worker, which I am not). This differentiation could also be seen in self-employed couriers’ reservations against unions and organised collective acts as some couriers expressed their distrust against unions as well as their preferences to stay independent of institutional regulations (Ergine and Uysal, 2022).

Economic individualism and status-seeking are the two constitutive logics through which subjects ‘positively’ relate themselves with these new precarious models. Nevertheless, the density of these ‘positive’ inclinations is contextually conditioned, and their impact can be traced only during the emerging phase of the self-employed courier model, when salaries were relatively better and life was more affordable. In a telephone interview, the chairperson of newly established Tourism, Entertainment and Service Workers Union indicated that working as a self-employed courier was relatively more reasonable until January 2022, when the minimum wage was raised 50.5%. Prior to it, self-employed couriers had the opportunity to earn approximately 50% more than employed couriers do. Until then, income remains to self-employed couriers following the payments of additional expenses (such as social security, vehicle instalment, vehicle maintenance, income tax, corporation tax, fuel and so on) was more or less equal to that of employed courier.

On that basis, it could be argued that the flow of demands among the disadvantaged segments of the labour market comes into play partly through their individualistic and status-oriented inclinations towards precarious employment models. This should also be considered as a factor leading to the regeneration of neoliberal hegemony in the country through enhancing the ‘normality’ of flexible labour market comprising cheap labour and labour control. Although available conditions may make these jobs relatively attractive, the entrepreneurial fantasy shaped around these two logics also plays a role on making labour rights and protections secondary to income and status.

By the beginning of 2022, these available conditions had begun to change. Minimum wage was raised from TRY 2850 to TRY 4250 while at the same time inflation and living expenses increased dramatically. Prices of basic necessities such as rent and food as well as costs of routine services such as education, special care, and transportation fares have begun to increase continuously in a context where household debts were also on the rise. Buying a house or a vehicle has become almost a dream for the great majority of the population. Gasoline and diesel prices have begun to change almost daily. In addition, a new wave of demand towards flexible jobs was mobilised as a result of the increase in unemployment due to the impact of the Turkish state’s pandemic policies over service sector. Under these circumstances, price of self-employed courier labour increased minimally. These developments put self-employed couriers in an economically vulnerable position. Couriers had begun to work 14 to 16 hours to afford their subsistence. They could not afford paying their social security instalments, therefore excluded from the health system despite their job involves high risks of accident and illness. In an online interview, a self-employed courier stated that in addition to many other debts, he owes TRY 40,000 to social security debt and that he is not an exception on that matter. According to him, if any self-employed courier says that he or she does not have any debt, he or she lies.

These developments also lead to a change in the way in which couriers relate themselves to precarious employment models. The entrepreneurial fantasy has been replaced by a new fantasy of ‘workers with no rights’. Far from differentiating themselves from working class, self-employed couriers have begun to identify themselves as workers and mobilised to be recognised as workers and to have same rights and protections as all other workers do. Indeed, much of the demands that self-employed couriers have been claiming in the strikes they rallied, protests joined, and new organisations they established since early 2022 are based on being recognised as workers and enjoying labour rights and protections: paid time off, social security, right to establish trade unions, and rearrangement of working hours in compliance with relevant legislations. As such, far from regenerating the neoliberal principles of economic individualism and status-seeking, the transition from entrepreneurial fantasy to workers with no rights has been accompanied with the repositioning of self-employed couriers as political adversaries of flexible labour models, which is a crucial instrument for the structuring of neoliberal regime of relations.

Conclusion: Crises, Neoliberalism, and (Im)Possibilities of Change

Crises of the pandemic clearly involve dimensions and directions towards change. Nevertheless, these dimensions and directions are not predetermined by crises themselves. Change is related more to the ways in which subjects experience these crises and ethico-politically relate themselves to the latter in organising their actions. Departing from a critical engagement with the ‘end’ of neoliberalism debates, this paper suggested that crisis-ridden conditions of the pandemic gain visibility not only to ways out of neoliberalism, but also to its regeneration through intensifying regimes of inequalities. By focusing on the imaginings, experiences, politics and practices of the Turkish state, companies operating in Turkey, and (self-employed) working segments in Turkey, the study tried to reveal how these actors are complicit to regenerate neoliberalism’s enduring principles of global market competition, deregulation, labour flexibility, economic individualism, and status-seeking in their engagements with uncertainties of the pandemic. Such an analysis also reveals that there is no single force that reproduces and regenerates neoliberal hegemony and its principles. On the contrary, the Turkish case allows us to see that the hegemonic production of neoliberalism and the creation of its ideological environment is a multi-sited phenomenon such that actors who regenerate neoliberalism vary from states and governments to workers. Thus, it seems that how crises are experienced, interpreted and mobilised into actions are more important than the emergence of crises themselves given that neoliberalism has proved its endurance to crises-ridden conditions over the past half-century.

The claim that crises do not predetermine change also means that it does not predetermine regeneration either. Indeed, by the beginning of 2022, the country had begun experience workers’ mobilisations in the form of waves of strikes and of establishing new organisational dynamics to enhance labour rights and protections. 17,000 workers from a wide-range of sectors including iron mining, sock factories, textile, metal industries, construction, courier, and storehouses rallied wildcat strikes against rapid declines in their life standards (Emek Çalışmaları Topluluğu – Evrensel, 2022). As indicated by Birelma and Sert (2022), extreme majority of these strikes (105 out of 108) were carried out by blue-collar workers (pp. 8–15). Ninety-six of them were rallied for better salaries, better working conditions, and more power to participate in the decision-making processes regarding labour regime and relations. Half of them occurred spontaneously without the involvement of trade unions, whereas 26 of them were rallied by independent unions, and 30 of them were organised by unions that are members of large union confederations (such as DİSK and TÜRK-İŞ). Each of these mobilisations opens productive political possibilities for the making of participatory, equal, and just modes of labour relations. At the very least, they energise political challenges against further entrenchment of neoliberalisation, and the spread of precarious employment models to other sectors. While a self-employed courier was explaining to me about their collective appeal to court against the exploiting practices of companies over self-employed couriers, he stated that they named their ongoing trial as ‘breakwater case’ for the trial is not limited to protect rights of self-employed couriers only. Rather, the trial was defined as an act to protect all workers in all sectors from the introduction of flexible labour models. At best, these mobilisations may lead to the production of protean possibilities towards post-neoliberal political movements based on principles of participation, equality, and justice. In any case, the kind of system of relations emerges out of the ambiguous relationship between crisis and neoliberalism is conditioned in the ways through which subjects experience and imagine ongoing crisis and translate them into particular modes of actions.