Reproduction of social classes and class relations in underdeveloped countries: The impacts of cash transfers on the conditions of livelihood of classes of labor

In many developing capitalist countries, including Turkey, non-contributory cash and in-kind transfer policies (NCT), which are implemented with the aim of alleviating poverty, have become commonplace since the 2000s. Studies investigating these policies and their effects in fields such as development studies, political science, and social policy are plagued by the lack of generalizable and explanatory theoretical frameworks. This study aims to develop a framework for explaining social policies in general and NCTs in particular in the case of Turkey, based on a historical materialist approach centering on the poverty-producing tendencies of the capitalist mode of production and social class relations. In order to develop this framework based on the analysis of concrete historical facts, the study maps the social class composition of the country's population, based on official population-level individual and household income and living conditions statistics. It examines the transformations in the class composition of the population caused by the processes of dispossession, proletarianization, and wage labor repulsion generated by the expanded reproduction tendencies of the capitalist mode of production within the social formation. Based on the concept of relative surplus population (RSP), which refers to the poor population excluded from the processes of social production and reproduction, different forms of poverty that exist among classes of labor in the country are revealed with reference to the differentiation among these classes. The transformation of the conditions of sustenance, and impoverishment trends of segments of classes of labor between 2010 and 2021 are considered as the conditions that determine the emergence and implementation of the NCTs. The results of the research show that during the period under review, the large swaths of agricultural small producing sector has rapidly dissolved, wage labor in the advanced capitalist sector has expanded, and as a result of these processes, the proportion of laboring class segments working irregularly, precariously, without wages or with low wages in the agricultural and non-agricultural sectors to the population has decreased. At the same time, the proportion of the dispossessed classes of labor, who have no other way to earn a living other than employment in wage labor processes, has increased. Such transformations in the social class composition of the population have reduced poverty among classes of labor as a result of the growth of the active proletariat. On the other hand, the growth of the pauperized and floating segments of the surplus population, which have not been absorbed in the capitalist wage labor process, has increased the ratio of households that are excluded from all productive activities that make subsistence possible, and thus in absolute poverty. The expansion of the active proletariat in sectors where wage levels are relatively low and employment unstable has increased relative poverty among this class in terms of income level. The study found that NCTs are largely targeted to the RSP, and that such social policies are therefore the forms under which the social reproduction of the RSP take place. As a result of the transformations in the class composition of poverty, the share of households receiving NCTs has decreased among classes of labor, while the total amount of transfers, and the share of transfers in these households' incomes have increased. The coverage of poor households in different segments of classes of labor within NCT programs and the effects of transfers on their livelihoods vary depending on the variation of their relations to the capital accumulation and wage labor processes. NCTs are more inclusive of floating and stagnant segments of the RSP, which function as the reserve army of labor, while excluding a large share of poor households in the active proletariat, and the latent segment of the RSP, i.e. the laboring classes of the small producing agricultural sector. In terms of both coverage and poverty reduction rate, the reproductive function of NCTs was found to be highest for the pauperized segment of the RSP, which is comprised of households of those who are unable to work and thus permanently excluded from capitalist processes of production and reproduction. The poverty reduction effect of NCTs, though varying in terms of strength among different segments of classes of labor, is very low. These results support the proposition that NCTs, and social policies in general are elements of the state form that capitalist class relations take. Social policies are the state forms in which the reproduction of the segments of classes of labor that are dispossessed, repulsed from capitalist labor processes, and therefore cannot reproduce themselves within the commodity forms of the capitalist mode of production. NCTs are the state form of capitalist class relations under which the reproduction of those segments of classes of labor that are dispossessed, repulsed from capitalist labor processes, and therefore cannot reproduce themselves within the commodity forms of capitalist relations of production, take place. Since social reproduction, which is the expression of the sustenance of social classes, is the reproduction not only of their lives and labor power but also of class relations, it also reproduces the social class differentiation and class relations specific to the capitalist mode of production. The selectivity of NCTs among segments of classes of labor and, their differential impact on their conditions of sustenance is explained in the light of this proposition. Since poverty is a condition produced by capitalist relations of production in different but determinate forms, it is not possible for NCTs, the state form of these relations, to eliminate or reduce poverty. Scientific explanations of elements of the capitalist state, including social policies, cannot treat their phenomenal forms and the way they are perceived as explanatory variables. It is necessary to make these forms and perceptions themselves the object of explanation. The forms and functions of the state at the level of their appearance, can be explained by revealing the underlying social class relations which gives rise to them. In this respect, NCTs are properly explained only when they are abstracted from their apparent aim or function of reducing poverty, and treated as the state forms taken by capitalist class relations. Poverty, after all, is the result of the necessary contradictions of capital accumulation, which produce it by destroying the conditions of reproduction of classes of labor. Social policies then, are the form of class struggle between capital and classes of labor over social production and reproduction of human existence.