What leftists usually call the AKP’s “neoliberalism” may be better described as a religious corporatism. Having sold state-owned industries to its friends and allies, the government now seizes the businesses of political undesirables, and plans to pool the profits of industry through a sovereign wealth fund whose investments will benefit favored companies. Facing a patrimonial state that blocks proletarian agency while rewarding loyalty with favors, workers are encouraged to seek the party’s good will while accepting that ultimately their lives are expendable: playthings of fate. Appeals to religion cement this resignation, spiced with a resentful dig at the old professional and bureaucratic class, i.e. “the secular elite.”