Atatürk's economic legacy

Abstract

The readers who turn to this article are already likely to know that the year 1981 marked the centennial of the birth of Mustafa Kemal, later Kemal Ataturk' and Turkey's leader during most of the inter-war period. Scholars in various disciplines have used the occasion to evaluate the achievements of this great man and to judge his influence on Turkey's post-1939 modernization. That community of scholars has not included many development economists, however. In this paper, one member of the breed lists and comments on the several properties of Atatuirk's approach to economic development. I am especially interested, however, in examining the degree to which a particular property has become part of Ataturk's economic legacy to Turkey. In the process, two operating rules are followed. First, whatever policies were adopted during Ataturk's presidency are assumed to be 'his', in the sense that at the very least he allowed them to be pursued. They are in turn regarded as part of his 'legacy' if they affected the state's policies after his death in 1938. The paper is built on the predication that institutional forces affect the operation of an economy. Assume that the level of output is affected directly by the labor force, resources, the stock of physical capital, the stock of human capital and the level of technology. Non-economic and institutional forces can then modify output indirectly on two counts. One is to affect the magnitudes of the inputs. A stable government with consistent policies should exercise a favorable effect on the stock of physical capital and the level of technology, and it may be motivated to expand the stock of human capital as well. The other fashion in which these less tangible factors exert themselves is in influencing the relationship between input and output. This is illustrated by the levels of public and business administration. The private ownership of land, as opposed to farm tenancy, may affect output in both indirect ways. On the one hand, it may well add to the stock of physical capital because of added farm improvements; on the other hand, it can result in a higher productivity of land because of the greater intensity with which the land is cultivated. In considering the various properties of Ataturk's approach to development we thus adopt this broader view of the role of institutions in economic change. It is a view which has gained prominence in development economics in recent years, especially during the decade of the seventies.