local class relations within the dialectics of value and socialisation

325 Pages·2015·2.09 MB·English

by  A A

LOCAL CLASS RELATIONS WITHIN THE DIALECTICS OF VALUE AND
SOCIALISATION: THE CASE OF KAYSERİ

A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL
SCIENCES OF MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY

BY
İBRAHİM GÜNDOĞDU

IN PARTIAL FULLFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR
THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
IN
THE DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AND PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION

FEBRUARY 2015
Approval of the Graduate School of Social Sciences

Prof. Dr. Meliha Altunışık
Director

I certify that this thesis satisfies all the requirements as a thesis for the degree of
Master of Science/Arts / Doctor of Philosophy.

Prof. Dr. Ayşe Ayata
Head of Department

This is to certify that we have read this thesis and that in our opinion it is fully
adequate, in scope and quality, as a thesis for the degree of Master of
Science/Arts/Doctor of Philosophy.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. H.Tarık Şengül
Supervisor

Examining Committee Members

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Galip Yalman (METU, ADM)
Assoc. Prof. Dr. H.Tarık Şengül (METU, ADM)
Prof. Dr. Ahmet Haşim Köse (AU, ECON)
Prof. Dr. Metin Özuğurlu (AU, LEIR)
Assist. Prof. Dr. Mustafa Kemal Bayırbağ (METU, ADM)
PLAGIARISM

I hereby declare that all information in this document has been
obtained and presented in accordance with academic rules and ethical
conduct. I also declare that, as required by these rules and conduct, I
have fully cited and referenced all material and results that are not
original to this work.

Name, Last name : İbrahim Gündoğdu
Signature :

iii
ABSTRACT

LOCAL CLASS RELATİONS WITHIN THE DIALECTICS OF VALUE AND
SOCIALISATION: THE CASE OF KAYSERİ

Gündoğdu, İbrahim
Ph.D., Department of Political Science and Public Administration
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. H. Tarık Şengül

February 2015, 313 pages
This dissertation analyses the recent industrialisation process in Kayseri from a
particular theoretical perspective that focusses on the relations between capital
and labour, labour regime in particular. However, it is neither a theoretical study
on industrial accumulation nor an empirical investigation for a local industrial
growth; but rather a theoretically-informed analysis of the development of class
contradictions between capital and labour within the city of Kayseri where a
remarkable level of (private) industrial investments has taken place in some
locally specific ways over the last two decades. In line with a particular
conceptualisation based on historical-geographical materialist understanding of
capital accumulation process, this study reveals the historical, social, economic,
cultural, institutional and legal aspects of such development in the local industry
of Kayseri at different spatial scales ranging from the international and national to
the local and workplace levels.
Keywords: Turkey, capital-labour relations, labour regime, local industrial
development, Kayseri.

iv
ÖZ

DEĞER VE SOSYALİZASYON DİYALEKTİĞİ İÇERİSİNDE YEREL SINIF
İLİŞKİLERİ: KAYSERİ İLİŞKİLERİ
Gündoğdu, İbrahim
Doktora, Siyaset Bilimi ve Kamu Yönetimi Bölümü
Tez Danışmanı: Doç. Dr. H. Tarık Şengül

Şubat 2015, 313 sayfa
Bu tez Kayseri’de yakın zamandaki sanayileşme sürecini, sermaye ile emek
ilişkilerinin gelişimine, özellikle emek rejimine, odaklanan belirli bir kuramsal
yaklaşımdan incelemektedir. Bununla birlikte, ne sanayi birikim süreçleri üzerine
kuramsal bir çalışma, ne de bir yerel sanayi büyüme öyküsüne yönelik ampirik
incelemedir; daha çok, son iki onyıl içerisinde yerel olarak özgün yollarla dikkate
değer bir (özel) sanayi yatırımının gerçekleştiği Kayseri kentinde sermaye ile
emek arasındaki sınıf çelişkilerinin gelişimine yönelik kuramsal olarak
temellendirilmiş bir araştırmadır. Bu çalışma sermaye birikimi sürecine ilişkin
tarihsel-coğrafi materyalist kavrayışa dayalı bir kavramsallaştırma içerisinde,
Kayseri’de yerel sanayide sözkonusu sınıf ilişkilerinin -uluslararası ve ulusal
ölçekten yerel ve işyeri ölçeğine uzanan çeşitlikte- farklı mekansal ölçeklerde
gelişiminin tarihsel, toplumsal, ekonomik, kültürel, kurumsal ve yasal yönlerini
açığa çıkarmaktadır.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Türkiye, sermaye-emek ilişkileri, emek rejimi, yerel sanayi
gelişimi, Kayseri.

v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This was a very long journey and I have benefited from the patience,
kidness and ongoing support of many people.
First of all, I would like to express my gratitudes to Assoc. Prof. H. Tarık
Şengül, the supervisor of this thesis, for his guidance, contributions and critical
assesments. I would like to give my sincerest thanks to the examining committee
members, Assoc. Prof. Galip L. Yalman, Prof. Dr. Ahmet Haşim Köse, Prof. Dr.
Metin Özuğurlu and Assist. Prof. Mustafa Kemal Bayırbağ, for their vital
criticisms and suggestions for the final version of the dissertation. I am also
especially grateful to Dr. Jamie Gough who also guided me for the writing of this
dissertation not only at a time when I was in the University of Sheffield as a
visiting scholar in 2011 but also during the whole years since I started to
collaborate with him on spatial political economy.
I would also like to thank to my colleagues Sümercan Bozkurt, Sırma
Altun, Yelda Kaya, Beyhan Erkurt, Sedat Yağcıoğlu, Müslüm Kavut, Emel
Karabulut and Sinem Topçuoğlu for their invaluable friendship and assistance
throughout the writing of this thesis. Some of my deepest thanks go to my long-
year friend Demet Gürbüzler for her support during the hard times of the PhD.
I must also express my thanks to Özlem Çelik who read the final draft of
the chapters and made important suggestions. After a long-year of disconnection,
she also did not hesitate to provide me with invaluable friendship and assistance
in the last months of the submission of the PhD.
I must also give my thanks to my parents, my mum Elife Gündoğdu and
my father Kaya Gündoğdu, for all of their support they have given me throughout
the PhD.
vi
My special thanks to go to all my interviewees, the workers in particular,
in Kayseri. This Phd thesis would have not been possible without them. At this
point, I must express my deepest thanks to those who both helped me develop
contacts for some interviewees and showed invaluable friendships during the field
study in Kayseri. Hence, thanks to Eylem Sarıoğlu-Aslandoğan, Yakup
Aslandoğan, Ümit Kartal, Ezgi Aksoy and Veli Şahin.
Last but not least, I must also mention the Çer-Sa workers who fought for
an independent labour union at their workplace at a time when I was doing the
field work in Kayseri. This thesis is dedicated to those and other workers in
Kayseri seeking for better working and living conditions within collective
struggles.

vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS

PLAGIARISM ............................................................................................................................. iii
ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................. iv
ÖZ .................................................................................................................................................... v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................ vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS ......................................................................................................... viii
LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................................... xi
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ................................................................................................... xii
CHAPTER
1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................... 1
1.1. The Aim of the Thesis ............................................................................................ 1
1.2 The Motivation of the Thesis ............................................................................... 2
1.3. Research Questions and the Methods ............................................................. 5
1.4. The Structure of the Thesis ................................................................................. 7
2. CLASS RELATIONS AND LABOUR CONTROL REGIME ................................... 10
2.1. Introduction ........................................................................................................... 10
2.2. The Relations of Difference and Commonality within Capitalist
Development .................................................................................................................. 13
2.3. Labour Process: A Key Starting Point .......................................................... 17
2.4. Contradictions of Capital-Labour Relation within Labour Process .. 20
2.5. Contradictions of Capital-Labour Relation within the Reproduction
Process.............................................................................................................................. 23
2.6 Theories of Labour Control within Capitalist Development: From the
Management of Labour Process to the Labour Regimes ............................... 25
2.7. An Alternative Approach: Considering Capital-Labour Relation
within the Dialectics of Socialisation and Value ............................................... 35
2.8. Concluding Remarks ........................................................................................... 43
3. THE DEVELOPMENT OF LABOUR REGIME IN TURKEY................................ 46
3.1. Introduction ........................................................................................................... 46
viii
3.2. The State’s Building of Labour Regime Between Protectionism and
Authoritarianism .......................................................................................................... 50
3.3. The Rise and Demise of Conciliatory Labour Regime within
Domestic Capital Accumulation Process ............................................................. 53
3.4. The State’s Repressive Labour Regime under Neoliberal Agenda ... 58
3.5. Labour Regime in the post-2001 Period: From State Repression to
Direct Market Ruling? ................................................................................................ 64
3.6. Concluding Remarks ........................................................................................... 82
4. DEVELOPMENT OF INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION IN KAYSERI .................... 85
4.1. Introduction ........................................................................................................... 85
4.2. Local Industrial Production within Inward-Oriented Capital
Accumulation Process ................................................................................................ 87
4.2.1. First Episode: Crafts Quarter (Sanayi Çarşısı) and The
Cooperation of Craftsmen and Traders .......................................................... 88
4.2.2. Second Episode: The Shift to Mass Production via Worker
Remittances ............................................................................................................... 91
4.3. Development of Local Industry in Kayseri within Neoliberal Context
........................................................................................................................................... 100
4.3.1. The Revival of Local Industrial Production ..................................... 100
4.3.2. Changes in Local Industry since 2001 ............................................... 110
4.4. Concluding Remarks: Contradictions within Local Industry ............ 120
5. ACTUAL DYNAMICS, FORMS AND TENSIONS OF LOCAL CLASS
RELATIONS ....................................................................................................................... 124
5.1. Introduction ......................................................................................................... 124
5.2 The Field Research Method ............................................................................ 125
5.3 Local Labour Market and The Recruitment Process ............................. 128
5.4. Production and Workplace-Level Relations............................................ 139
5.4.1. Technical Division of Labour and Inter-Firm Relations ............. 139
5.4.2. Working Conditions and Wage-Regime ............................................ 146
5.4.3. Labour Control Strategies and Workers’ Responses ................... 153
5.4.3.1 Direct Disciplinary Labour Control via Journeyman ............ 156
5.4.3.2 Paternalist Labour Control within a Religious-
Communitarian Utopia ................................................................................... 158
ix
5.4.3.3. Confining Labour Struggles into Multiple Company Bodies
................................................................................................................................. 164
5.4.3.4. Top-Down Unionisation ................................................................ 165
5.5. (Urban) Social Reproduction Process ....................................................... 174
5.5.1. Local Business Culture: “Trading Mentality” and Kayseri Model
..................................................................................................................................... 174
5.5.2. The Urban-Workplace Nexus ............................................................... 183
5.5.3. Class Culture and Class Consciousness ............................................ 197
5.6. Conclusion: The Making of Working Class in Kayseri? ....................... 226
6. LOCAL CLASS RELATIONS AT WORK: AN ANALYSIS OF A
UNIONISATION MOVEMENT WITHIN A METAL FACTORY .......................... 235
6.1. Introduction ........................................................................................................ 235
6.2. The Context of Unionisation: Labour Process, Forms of Socialisation,
and Class Relations ................................................................................................... 237
6.3. The Development of Unionisation Movement: Workers’ Organisation,
Collective Action and Resistance ......................................................................... 245
6.4. The Fading of Unionisation Movement and The Restructuring of
Labour Process ........................................................................................................... 253
6.5. Class Consciousness and Class Culture ..................................................... 255
6.6. Concluding Remarks ........................................................................................ 259
7. CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................... 263
7.1. Introduction ........................................................................................................ 263
7.2 Local Class Relations within the Dialectics of Value and Socialisation:
The Case of Kayseri ................................................................................................... 265
7.3. The Main Findings of the Thesis and Future Directions .................... 277
REFERENCES .........................................................................................................................280
APPENDICES
A: TURKISH SUMMARY………………………………………………………………………294
B: CURRICULUM VITAE ............................................................................................... 312
C: TEZ FOTOKOPİSİ İZİN FORMU ............................................................................ 313

x