The 2004 presidential election seems to have had an early start. Yet every new tactic is still unable to get away from the old national policy-making model, which emphasized only economic development. We have heard of the government's NT$20 billion plan to expand employment through public services and the NT$50 billion plan to expand public construction. We have read of the electoral cooperation between KMT Chairman Lien Chan (
In the war of words, the slogans "direct all efforts towards saving the economy" and "decrease unemployment," the meaning and functions of social welfare have been silently simplified, distorted or misplaced. We have heard such rhetoric as "employment is the only welfare," "welfare will only create a culture of dependence and irresponsibility" and "solve the unemployment problem by developing welfare service industries."
A lighter social welfare burden, higher employment rates and higher economic growth are commonly understood to be the reasons behind Taiwan's economic miracle. However, the new conditions of democratization and the globalization of the international economy have long separated us from the particular advantageous historical position that by coincidence was created between our past reliance on the management capabilities of a bureaucratic authoritarianism and the Cold-War era international economic structure.
Even so, in these hard days of continued economic downturn and a deteriorating unemployment problem, seeking the kind of developmentalism that created results in the past -- even seeking a trade-off with the Devil whereby one accepts anti-democratic authoritarian rule in exchange for stable economic life -- truly may induce strong feelings of nostalgia. The "Chiang Ching-kuo (
The surprising thing is that these kinds of historically retrogressive attitudes often are wrapped up in seeminlgy progressive, novel packaging. The most popular wrapping is a moralistic social order reminiscent of mid-19th century England and US, and the idea of efficient, competitive markets.
The new right -- ?an unscrupulous combination of what has been called neo-conservatism and neo-liberalism (with no regard for the intrinsic logical contradictions between the two) -- sometimes loudly calls for the removal of restrictions on, or cooperation and support with, capitalists and corporations, and sometimes asks that the government create more flexible labor conditions or actively control welfare recipients and users and their individual actions. Stronger demands for the nation's global competitiveness provides the loftiest politico-economic reasons for a constantly swaying pragmatism.
These re-packaged old ideas have made social welfare a flexible semantic tool for subjective manipulation of voters. One important recent example is the explanation provided by the government for the NT$20 billion plan to expand employment through public services. I mean the implication of a famous reason used by John Maynard Keynes in support of government intervention: "In the long run, we are all dead."
This quip by Keynes was transformed by the Cabinet into "leave the debt to our children and grandchildren" to raise short-term funds and avoid angering current tax paying voters. It one-sidedly applies fashionable social capital theories, stressing that its calming effects on the lives of the unemployed and their families can, apart from minimizing sources for crime, also increase interaction, cooperation and bonds of trust between people through maintaining individual participation in social movements.
This way of looking at things of course stresses general trust relationships and connective social cost. It has over and over again been proven, however, that it is very difficult for specific trust relationships and group relationships created through interactive personal meetings to build the human motivation necessary for the creation of general trust relationships and connective social-cost relationships.
Simply speaking, not all participatory activities in civic society will lead to increases in overall social trust and cooperative relationships. Instead, a vicious fight for resources and jealous protection of one's own turf is rampant among small groups. This is reflected in the intense competition for resources between non-governmental organizations.
Looking at the hurried response from local executive authorities towards the excessive number of personnel forcefully allocated by the Executive Yuan we find that it is only a shortsighted method for decreasing unemployment.
Most participants are also expecting that the jobs will last for only one year. How will they be able to create any feeling of stability and trust for cooperation? So-called "active employment policies" are in fact quite negative.
Alfred Marshall said that economists should be both compassionate rational; that they should have a "warm heart and a cool brain." What we see more often are politicians with a heart for power and a brain thinking only about elections.
Chang Shr-syung is an associate professor of social welfare at National Chung Cheng University.
Translated by Perry Svensson
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
As former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrapped up his visit to the People’s Republic of China, he received his share of attention. Certainly, the trip must be seen within the full context of Ma’s life, that is, his eight-year presidency, the Sunflower movement and his failed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, as well as his eight years as Taipei mayor with its posturing, accusations of money laundering, and ups and downs. Through all that, basic questions stand out: “What drives Ma? What is his end game?” Having observed and commented on Ma for decades, it is all ironically reminiscent of former US president Harry