Abstract:

Sugar operations which found scope of practice by the establishment of the republic in Turkey, have been shaped as the forms of new regime with social classes on one hand, and, on the other hand, as a resultant of capitalism’s given conditions abroad. Sugar production, organized in the form of companies, had a symbiotic qualification developed interpenetrated with the state, beyond many privileges and exemptions given. An intensive nationalist discourse played along with the foundational and operational process of the sugar companies. This process unexceptionally functioned crucially in the embodiment of the internal architecture of the state by getting over the economic and political spheres. In Veblenian terms, the companies, with their legal statuses, profits and financial accounts are institutions which belong to the business space, not the industry. Hence, it is not possible to approach the companies with a developmentalist rhetoric for a common good. According to the theory of ‘capital as power’ which uses the concepts of Veblen, the basic algorithm of the business space is capitalization. Contrary to the studies on this issue, this study claims that all activities related to sugar companies are conditioned by the capitalization mechanism and the requirements of the business space and determined within this framework. This qualitative study which used archive resources was also supported by quantitative data and it found out that a specific capitalization mechanism was constituted in the business space through sugar companies in the early history of the republic in Turkey.

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