Seminar: "The Failure of The Turkish Tobacco Bank, 1938-1969"

Date: August 6, 2014 Wednesday
Time: 15.30
Place: santralistanbul Campus, E5-103 

Lecturer: Dr. Özgür Burçak Gürsoy

Abstract: 
This study examines the failure of the Turkish Tobacco Bank between 1938 and 1969. The discussion is based primarily on documents from the Prime Ministry State Archives, personal archives of two high-ranking Monopoly managers, four different sector journals, congress proceedings and newspaper reports. Tobacco, the most important export crop of Turkey, was taken under the state monopoly by special laws in the 1930s. Contrary to the promises of the legislations for an effective state intervention and smooth functioning system orchestrated by the Monopoly (TEKEL), Turkish tobacco market was the arena for “eternal anarchy and chaos,” as described in the primary historical sources. The “chaotic” atmosphere was fed by the struggling policies of the market actors – the tobacco producers, the merchants, the experts and the Monopoly - around several conflicts such as prices, grading, warehousing conditions or credit system. As an absolute solution to the unending problems of the tobacco market, an institutional reform package was proposed by the tobacco experts in the war years. According to the original package, producers would have been organized under cooperatives, sales done in exchange markets, and both of the cooperatives and exchange markets established by the main regulatory institution, the Turkish Tobacco Bank. Despite serious revisions in the reform package in the post-war years, the idea to establish a “regulatory institution” – apart from the Monopoly - gained power among the Turkish governing elites. With the promise to establish that institution, a compulsory levy was imposed on the tobacco producers for eleven years from 1947 to 1957. The foundational law of the institution was enacted in 1950, and the targeted start-up capital was raised by 1957, but the tobacco bank could never be established. The political and social power balance among the different market actors had a decisive impact on the fate of the regulatory attempts. In this study, I discuss the challenging historiographic insights that the unknown story of the Turkish Tobacco Bank presents for the economic and political history of modern Turkey.