Enough is enough what do the Gezi Protestors want to tell us? a political economy perspective

Abstract

In this chapter I will address the reasons behind the Gezi protests from a political economy perspective. Following Karl Polanyi, I will argue that protestors resist the commercialisation of land as well as commodification of labour. According to Polanyi, a market economy regards land and labour as having been produced for sale, i.e. each has a price, which interacts with demand and supply. By subjecting labour and land to the process of buying and selling, Polanyi argues, they have to be transformed into commodities.1 In line with Polanyi, this chapter will contend that Gezi Park can be read as the last straw in a long process of accumulation of discontent against neoliberal policies, which increasingly created areas of rent for large corporations and eroded the economic security of a significant part of the labour force in Turkey.