Our President Abdurrahman Kaan shared written assessments with Dünya Gazetesi regarding the political and economic developments that have begun in the world after the coronavirus process.

The process that began with CORONA marks a milestone for the economic-political and social architecture of the world. We are now in a process of redistribution and reconceptualization in which new economic and social forms of behaviour are described as normal. Even the main framework that we describe merely as geopolitical will, in the world of tomorrow, give rise to new concepts such as the geopolitics of knowledge and R&D (info-politics), the geopolitics of food and biological distribution, that is, bio-politics, the industry-politics in which production, supply and logistics lines will be reshaped, economic irredentism as a field of economic definition rather than merely a political term, and culture-politics in which culture and art will operate as instruments of economic penetration and social perception engineering; concepts that will cause us to rewrite classical economic theories from the very beginning.

THE PANDEMIC BEING OPERATED AS A SAVIOUR FOR THE GLOBAL OLIGOPOLISTIC UNDERSTANDING OF THE ECONOMY

The pandemic became like a point of explosion for a world system that was already under strain. All the countries of the world are in fact living through a process in which crisis management and conventional risk management methods and political approaches are being tested. When we examine the global economic data before the pandemic, the OECD and WB growth forecasts prior to the COVID-19 outbreak pointed to a contraction of production in the world. In the statements we gave at that time, we underlined that a sharp commodity crisis awaited the world in 2020 and in the period thereafter. We repeatedly stated that we were in a vicious circle in which not only commodity problems but real economic problems were being addressed with financial instruments and policies, and that this situation would cause money to lose its value and its definition, especially through the swelling in derivative markets, and would even bring the monetary system to the point of collapse. Leaving aside the trade that was shifting towards the East before the pandemic, the marked declines observed since 2017 in global goods trade and in logistics volume on the basis of ports and air transport were already telling us that the global economy needed a new model and a new motivation in order to revive again.

THE PHASES THAT WORLD HISTORY HAS PASSED THROUGH UP TO THE PANDEMIC:

THE 20-YEAR TRANSFORMATIONS OF WORLD GEOPOLITICS

When we examine the economic-political history of the world, we see that every 20 years the economic pattern passes into a different period and undergoes a transformation. Every two decades the system revises itself. If we take even only the 20th century;

In the years 1900 to 1920, the dominant powers of the industrial revolution entered into a fierce war in order to establish capitalism. The First World War rewrote the rules of the economic history of the world and the borders of countries were drawn.

We may say that the foundations of many of the geopolitical impasses that even we experience today were in fact laid within those 20 years. Within these 20 years Türkiye was waging its own struggle for national liberation and independence and was almost entirely a player outside the system.

When we examine the period between 1920 and 1940, the economic depression of 1929 caused us to reconsider the existing processes. In the 1920s American dominance had made itself felt in the global system. In this period American banks, which carried out deposit transactions together with investment activities, had begun to take the place of British banks. The strained world system found itself in the middle of a second war in 1939, and this time the way was opened for wars of hegemony.

After the Great Depression, financial controllers took the stage because of the free entries into financial markets, the balance of payments imbalances in countries, capital flights and debt burdens. In this process we were dealing with the integration of a renewed country into a new form of governance.

When we examine the period between 1940 and 1960, we saw that with the Marshall Plan and the Bretton Woods system the independent economies of countries were brought under control one by one. In these 20 years Türkiye had been obliged to integrate into its own country the dominant financial system coming from the West.

When we look at the period between 1960 and 1980, the Euro Dollar markets had become the centre of global finance together with the oil shock. The quadrupling of the oil price in 1973 following the Yom Kippur War, and its tripling with the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and Iraq's threatening of Iran in 1980, led to a profound shaking of the flow of global finance. Thus the world returned to the 1973 approach that made the state a prerequisite for development. In this phase we were living through the processes of coups and memorandums. We virtually prepared the ground for a mentality unable to attain democratic maturity to make us economically dependent on the outside.

The 1980-2000 period became the harbinger of a transformation rarely encountered in the world. In the years following the end of the Cold War, the world became acquainted with a new set of economic definitions and attitudes, both through the differentiation of political understanding and conditions in the international arena and through progress rarely encountered in technology. International socio-political relations that until that day had been based on the nation and the pact, that is, on the region, gradually gave way to a global inquiry into production and welfare that accepted all the nations of the world as its interlocutor.

Yet globalization was not a final outcome; on the contrary it was a transition period economy. Today we see the correctness of this hypothesis through the economic attitudes during the Corona process.

The defenders of the world system used to define the global financial system as an “illusion” created by the class forces dominating the economy, restricting the freedom of movement of states in the international arena and, on the same plane, taking the place of state strategies. Today this segment states in a much louder voice; “that the existing economic system, even with neo-Keynesian regulations, is far from bringing countries and nations closer to one another and turning economic relations into global welfare. Did we not witness this closely during the Corona process?

Did we not see that the oligarchic financial system revolving on the axis of incorporation and branding has led to deeper and more destructive divisions and economic chasms among the nation, and has even destroyed the fundamental element of trust in the trade system?

How then was globalization, which was criticized so harshly at the time, able to find such a favourable ground for itself? Because it presented the discourses of free trade and free movement of colonialism, under the guise of democracy, as an advantage in favour of developing countries. Or it supported such a perception with the financial system.

Yet the same system also brought with it uniform rules, that is, standardization in the eyes of all the nations of the world. Uniform cultural currents even subjected the cultural codes that nations had developed throughout their histories to a grading within the concept of “civilization”.

Unfortunately, from this point on, the fundamental elements of the real economy such as production, employment and social welfare lost their importance and began to surrender to money and to the financial system around it. That is to say, the process of managing economic policies with financial instruments in fact began. The derivative began to take the place of the real.

The years 2000 to 2020, for their part, pointed to a process in which not only the monetary system but money itself was redefined in its paradigmatic sense. The process that began with the September 11 attacks in fact became the milestone of brand-new hegemony struggles, and in time China joined the game as a giant player. With China's entry into play, economic production and supply lines also began to shift increasingly towards the East.

However, there is a critical point here that is important in terms of the further course of the effects of the pandemic: while the production-based growth course of the top 20 developing countries before the crisis was upward, in the developed 20 this course was downward. As the world economy shifted towards the East, production bases were changing hands and capital was finding new areas of production. In a world where national economies regained strength, while the production capacities of the developed countries under the dominance of large companies decreased, the world's new area of investment and production was the blocs formed by the developing 20.

Now, together with the substantial fiscal packages announced by the developed countries in the recovery process, this also indicates that in the period ahead there will be a much more radical decline in the growth rates of these countries and that in parallel they will turn towards tighter fiscal policies. Here we may find ourselves face to face with the option of balancing investments and the budget through self-financing. This is possible only by increasing production capacities and by establishing domestic and national strategic knowledge production agencies.

POSSIBLE CHANGES IN THE WORLD AFTER THE PANDEMIC AND THE INCREASING IMPORTANCE OF TÜRKİYE

First of all, our ways of life and our perception of socialization will change. This change will leave us face to face with a new working order and a new set of regulations in economic life.

We will need to redefine the relationship between our value system and the public sphere. In this process, for sustainable human development, every nation must review its system of values and economic life must be designed in a manner respectful of these values.

We need a new paradigm of economic production and distribution for the just distribution of production, supply and value chains among all the countries of the world. This crisis has shown us that China alone, or the countries that hold the production and supply chain alone on a sectoral basis, and the economic system that supports this, have fallen into a void in times of crisis. For this reason a multi-participant system of sharing awaits us, in which almost every nation can take part in global world output with its own economic values. Because the economic contraction that will be experienced in the post-Corona period will also trigger a global impoverishment. In this respect, global welfare must be redefined and its conditions must be determined anew.

Our ways of doing politics will change. In this process and thereafter the world is testing a leader-based direct democracy that nevertheless grows stronger by drawing its power from the grassroots. We have seen how a participatory yet pluralistic structure yields successful results in crisis processes with the momentum coming from leaders and from their grassroots forces.

Our definitions of education and our scholastic education systems will change. We may say that a new model of education and economic management now awaits us, in which the possibilities of remote access are used effectively and qualified human resources are trained in multiple disciplines in this way.

A process awaits us in which we will question the conceptual balance between science and religion and redraw the boundaries of positivism. The world is coming to understand that within the triangle of science, religion and moral values it can walk neither on a harshly positivist line nor on a line completely closed to the world.

The relationship we have established with the environment and with nature must be redesigned, and we must move towards a new covenant of compassion and accord between ourselves and nature. In this process we have once again seen that nature is one of the most precious assets entrusted to us.

Our conventional elements of national power will change. We see how the elements of national power that we once defined as land, capital and military dominance have diversified, and how new concepts have been included in the spectrum of national threats.

Today China is perceived in many fields as the domino force of trade. However, this situation must not make us forget the footsteps of a new East-centred hegemony. Moreover, this new power is a far hotter threat in terms of both population and geopolitical positioning when compared with the overseas interventions of the distant continent. Likewise, when the intelligence power it has established in Central Asia and in the Asia Pacific is added, it also reveals a much closer threat that we will experience in the future: Economic Intelligence Wars.

In this context, it is exactly the time to review not only our economic parameters but also our security perceptions.

In the measurement of national power we must separate national resources into technology, enterprise, qualified human resources, financial capital and natural resources. Natural resources, for their part, now open up an area of obligation for us in terms of acting on the basis of stocks. What are these stock resources: food and seed stocks, technological know-how stocks of critical importance, precious metal stocks and of course energy stocks. At this point it will not be enough to possess energy; in addition we will be obliged to pursue a strategy of energy stockpiling. For this reason, minimizing external dependence in energy and moreover expanding resources, and even spending the profit to be obtained from the energy reserves that are found on the discovery of new reserves, stands before us as a critical strategic decision. Because the four fundamental stock powers we have listed above, energy first and foremost, will remain our most valuable card at the tables where we determine economic-political strategies in particular. When we look at the increase in world energy production on the basis of regions, it is seen that the countries that will meet this increase will be the developing countries, and these countries, with the increase in their energy needs in parallel with their increasing production, will in fact also be countries possessing a high level of energy demand for themselves. This situation emphasizes the strategic importance of Eurasia and therefore of Türkiye, the transit country of Eurasia. The increase in the transfers made via Eurasia is particularly important. Here again Türkiye provides transit services with both land traffic and strait traffic. For this reason, apart from merely reaching gas reserves, it is essential that the channels on the transport lines of these reserves and of the reserves of other countries also come back onto the agenda. Here, although it causes intense debate, the importance of the logistics strategy that the Kanal İstanbul model will add to Türkiye as a transit country emerges once again.

PROPOSALS FOR THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE INVESTMENT LINE

Our national performance, for its part, is measured by three fundamental components:

The security of capital, the creation of economic intelligence, the design of commercial and economic diplomacy in such a way as to serve the creation of a trade and investment line

The competitive advantage we will bring forth in these three fundamental components will raise our country to the level of economic sufficiency.

Economic sufficiency is the key factor in today's new world order. Economic sufficiency, however, is not the scaling and classification of capital; it is the creation of a network economy spread to the grassroots and fed from the grassroots.

One thing must now be very well known; movements that do not find a response at the grassroots or that do not gain broad acceptance at the grassroots level are not long-lived.

The same applies to economic structures and organizations. A national capital bloc that has spread to the grassroots and established dominance over a broad mass provides the following advantages:

1.It does not segregate capital; on the contrary it spreads it to the grassroots.

2.It prevents informality in the formation of capital stock.

3.It ensures the active participation of SME-like structures in the formation of capital stock.

4.It paves the way for SME mergers and for the formation of large capital groups. It increases specialization in production.

5.It lays the ground for the capital front to establish an internal funding system and to make good its own losses with these fund systems. It reduces the costs on the state such as "company rescue and restructuring”, and incentives. The capacity to plan the future of strategic resources and to react instantly to change, that is, "economic reflex”, is an indicator of our capability for economic struggle. Not merely mobilizing market actors on the basis of stocks, but increasing the effectiveness of firms within a flow system and, like the need for new blood, establishing an entrepreneurial ecosystem, revaluing our SME market which balances the inertia of large enterprises with its narrow scale but great efficiency, and bringing forth new playmakers from this market, must be one of our fundamental investment policies. For this reason, articulating investment onto the production-trade line as a complementary element is our main strategy. Thus the new process puts on the table the option of operating effectively our self-financing resources in our investments as a country as well, just like the self-financing of firms. We must encourage the transfer of the cash held by both our final consumers and the producer segment out of a precautionary motive to safe and new areas of investment.

We must turn towards the construction of a new entrepreneurial and competitive economic system that will eliminate what is termed in economic language the crowding-out effect of investments. Because the digital transformation that inevitably awaits us in the new process will create a whirlpool effect that will bring many fields under its influence, from our ways of doing business to our new logistics and supply networks. In this respect, the concept of money, whose definition and function will change, is pushing us towards a new investment model. The model to which we give the name investment-production-trade synchronization, for its part, draws its source from the logic that our SMEs, the backbone of the economy, must be the main element of investment and that they should be evaluated selectively, grown in suitable campuses and commercialized as investment agents and even as an export product.

PRINCIPLES OF EFFICIENCY AFTER THE PANDEMIC

The pandemic must move us to question the efficiency of three fundamental points:

1. Capital and capital stock efficiency. The rescuing power of a state in times of crisis is its capital stock. However, many countries saw in this process how fragile a capital stock they possess in this regard. Many countries, including ourselves, became aware that capital accumulation is clustered in a few countries, China first and foremost, and that the national capital stock in their own country is insufficient and has been shaped in a manner far from efficient.

2. The efficiency of incentives and supports. That is, we may speak of testing how efficiently the supports are converted into investment. Incentive systems and supports render the capital cycle efficient as long as they serve investment and capital accumulation at the end of the day. However, the pandemic has shown us that we live within a system that keeps itself occupied within a serious paradox between capital and wealth.

3. Our Entrepreneurship Policies and Entrepreneur efficiency. The pandemic process in fact offered a test environment for all the companies of the world in parallel with the magnitude of their scale. We may think of it as a kind of resilience test. While encouraging entrepreneurship we must consider the following: Is there any need for everyone to be an entrepreneur or a producer? This must have certain preconditions and limits. Otherwise, fragile firms become a burden on states in such times of crisis. We have seen this too during the pandemic process.

4. Regulatory efficiency. We are obliged to build a regulatory shield for our commercial partnerships to be made with the Asean Bloc, China first and foremost. There is a need for a comprehensive set of regulations both in terms of company acquisitions and in terms of the export of our firms for the purpose of investment.