The role of the information and communication technologies in the process of capital accumulation: The Turkish experience

Since 1970s global competition on technological development and it's inclusion into the economic processes are growing rapidly. Throughout this competion, countries which develop technology better and include technology on most of the economic activities and governmental processes, stand out from other countries in terms of level of income and welfare. Information and communication technologies(ICT) can affect and change processes directly and indirectly in all of the economic areas. Therefore ICT is the most effective component on the technological competion. Moreover, in this study the effects of technology development, will be described over the development of information and communication technology. Main purpose of global technological competion is actually purpose of multinational companies to gain more surplus value. With developments on the ICT, capitalist could prefer high value-added manufacturing and direct states towards this goal. Labour has been started to involve in the capital accumulation in more flexible working conditions. This flexibility and other similar working conditions may be described as liquidation of some historical achievements of working class. Also, as it has been described by mostly immaterial labor becomes more common. In addition, immaterial labor is material labor who uses mostly its cognitive and emotional skills to accomplish the work. This type of work will be examined in detail in the thesis. With the help of ICT provided opportunities, capitalist can control and repress the working class as never before. Capitalists, may monitor every motions of the workers, and make tiny improvements on that motions so that to gain more surplus value from the working class. In addition, inequality between the working class and capitalist will become deeper in case there will be more flexible working conditions for the immaterial labor particularly. With the developments on the ICT, capitalist can achieve new capital accumulation areas. Products that can be called information products, especially increased rapidly after the 2000s. After the first production of the information product, reproduction and distribution processes variable costs will decrease dramatically so that capitalist can have an opportunity of excessive capital accumulation. For many years, Turkey, as a late capitalist country, prepared development plans, strategy documents, and implemented science and technology policies to take part in the global technology race. However, basically technology implementation and creation of policies didn't become successful. Capitalist couldn't reach a level to develop technology, labor couldn't have sufficient skills to create and maintain technology in the knowledge area. Therefore, when the economic size of Turkey is considered, the last point achieved by Turkey on technology is relatively low from other similar economies. Toward this goal, Turkey has accelarated infrastructure of technology, established technology development zones, provide tax advantages and partially encourage the use of domestic materials. But according to capitalists point of view, these incentives are not sufficient and also domestic labor skill on technology is not ready for create a sustainable businesses. Turkey's high tech export and the share of ICT on total export remain nearly same over years. This data also shows the preference of Turkish capitalists on economic activites. When compared with the world on ICT issues, Turkey, especially in science and technology education is seen as one of the countries with the worst value. The reality of ICT is primarily based on human labor, if Turkey can not improve its educational system especially on science and technology areas, it should not be expected to become one of the well known countries on the technology. As an example, in the same period average added value from Turkey's labor is % 45 of American counterpart. That data basically shows the effect of technological development. As a result, ICT based changes on economic and social areas has been examined from different theoretical views. The changes on the capital accumulation after ICT development has been described in each step. In the light of this description the changes on the Turkey's capitalist and working class has been explained. Also to show the government's perspective and goals, strategy documents, development plans and other related policies are included. To compare Turkey with the World, most of the ICT based well known indexes are used. Firstly, World Bank's knowledge economy and knowledge indexes were used to evaluate the difference. Then, to measure the international activity on ICT, datas on export values were used with the help of various charts and shapes. In addition, World Economic Forum's Networked Readiness Index has been used to show the Turkey's best and worst indexes on ICT related areas. That was shown with the world rankings. Lastly, Turkey's international effectiveness in ICT and readiness to sustain this sector is measured by the index study of Knowledge Economy Readiness Index (KERI) with 4 sub-indexes. In the last part of the analysis section, a labour oriented index study has been described. This part has been added incontrast to other development indexes. It's main purpose is to show the current situation of labour on the ICT sector and R&D. Index calculations haven't been done. It was added in that section for suggestion for further studies which research labour aspect of ICT development. Employment, working conditions, R&D and education and ICT usage are main components of the index. According to the assessments on Turkey, incentives on technology development, increases on R&D expenditures and number of R&D workers could not help the Turkey to become one of the most developed countries on technology issues. Of course, this view is a determination of the current situation which is in the ongoing process. It would be expected that the development and usage of ICT in Turkey will increase in the process of promoting the productive capital.