The Turkish Industry and Business Association (TÜSİAD) was founded on April 2, 1971, by a bunch of capitalists following the March 12 Turkish Military Memorandum in the same year. Concerning the “birthday”, the TÜSİAD released a statement.
Emphasising that the association “is the representative of approximately 4.000 companies that constitute 50% of the non-public domestic income, that pay 80% of the company tax, and that does 85% of foreign trade”, the statement implies that the TÜSİAD, in fact, owns the country. Those 4.000 companies actually belong to much fewer investment groups.
The TÜSİAD was founded by those who represented the conventional investment groups following the March 12 Memorandum, and quickly assumed a key role in blocking the rise of the progressive leftist wave in Turkey in 1960’s. In this aspect, the association can be seen the civil façade of the memorandum.
The association became more directly involved with the class struggle in 1970’s, causing a government to fall in 1979, which then led to a military coup on September 12, 1980. Following the coup, the working class in Turkey started to be suppressed more harshly, and the TÜSİAD played an active role in the withdrawal of the gains acquired in ‘60’s and ‘70’s and thinning down of syndicate organisation.
With the “globalisation” rampage in 1990’s, the TÜSİAD was again the lead actor in Turkey’s integration into the global capitalist system, resulting in a spread of subcontracting, an unorganised stated among the working class, and the loss of several social rights.
Probably the most profitable period for the so-called "secular" TÜSİAD has been the years after 2002 when Turkey’s Islamist ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power. The past 16 years mark a period during which the transfer of sources to investment groups has been at its highest and in the most direct way.
