19. Yüzyıl Osmanlı Ekonomisinde Devlet-Sermaye İlişkileri: Yabancı Demiryolları Örneği

Abstract

This study examines the economic developments and their implications on subordinate financialization in the 19 𝑡 ℎ -century Ottoman economy through the example of foreign railway investments. Foreign railway investments intensified in the Ottoman Empire in the 19 𝑡 ℎ -century, when the world economy experienced the first era of modern globalization. In the first era of modern globalization , foreign direct investments, public debt management, and the commercialization of land by arazi kanunnameleri [land laws] were the developments that accelerated the Ottoman Empire's transition to capitalism. Foreign railway investments contributed to the transition of the Ottoman economy to a market economy by generating the capitalist mode of production within the Ottoman economy. This study aims to analyze the contribution of foreign railway investments to the integration of the Ottoman economy into capitalism in terms of state-capital relations. In this context, the first section of the study examines the role of the state in integrating the Ottoman economy into capitalism. This section also discusses the problems in agricultural production and the effects borrowing had on the integration into the world economy. The second section of the study analyzes Türkiye's foreign railway investments in terms of the level of internationalization regarding capital structure, imperialist spheres of influence, investment financing, and their economic impacts on Ottoman economics. This section analyzes the contributions investments made to financialization by revealing the relationship of Ottoman foreign borrowing with railway investments. The study also examines the role the Ottoman Public Debt Administration had regarding the railway investments. In this context, the study examines the effects that collecting the tithe tax in the regions along the railway line routes under the supervision of the Ottoman Public Debt Administration and allocating a significant part of it to a kilometer guarantee had on the Ottoman financial system. With reference to this analysis, the study aims to explain the place railway investments had regarding the Ottoman Empire's relationship with capital using the concept of subordinate financialization.