Özatalay K. C., Altinoklu Ersoy M. N.
CRITICAL SOCIOLOGY, vol.0, no.0, pp.1-32, 2026 (SSCI, Scopus)
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Publication Type:
Article / Article
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Volume:
0
Issue:
0
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Publication Date:
2026
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Doi Number:
10.1177/08969205251379713
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Journal Name:
CRITICAL SOCIOLOGY
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Journal Indexes:
Scopus, Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), IBZ Online, Public Affairs Index
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Page Numbers:
pp.1-32
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Galatasaray University Affiliated:
Yes
Abstract
This article examines the restructuring of capitalist reproduction in neoliberal Turkey through two interlinked dynamics: the transformation of self-employment into pseudo-entrepreneurial outsourced labor and the increasing integration of wage earners into financial markets as a survival mechanism. Rather than democratizing opportunity, these processes represent new modalities of accumulation in which survival strategies are subsumed into capital. Drawing on post-2018 data, we argue that wage earners are increasingly positioned as both exploited labor and subordinate participants in rent-based regimes. We introduce “share-commodifying” to capture how stable wage relations are dismantled and reframed as entrepreneurial risk-bearing, and “compensation-driven financialization” to describe workers’ reliance on financial markets, not for wealth creation but to offset stagnant wages and insecurity. Together, these generate a “survival strategy trap”: adaptive responses to precarity that ultimately deepen market dependence and capitalist control, reorganizing social reproduction by turning coping strategies into vehicles of valorization.