There is a saying that having money does not make up for stupidity. However, businesspeople who work hard to make money are still admirable.
In his autobiography, one of the founders of modern Japan, Yukichi Fukuzawa, said that the glorious victories of armies, the rapid rise to power of politicians and the way wealthy people accumulate money are the achievements of a lifetime of work. While on the surface such things may seem vulgar, they are actually very worthy of appreciation and should not be laughed at.
However, it is totally unacceptable when businesspeople start making irresponsible remarks about politics and attack democracy out of selfish self-interest. It is also unacceptable to show no regard for the law or the Constitution and play along with political lies while agreeing with ideas that contravene human rights and making political threats in the name of economics.
This logic applies to what we see happening in Taiwan now, with the government pushing the phony idea of the so-called “1992 consensus.” It is evident in the way businesspeople deny that violent acts happened in Tiananmen Square in China in 1989, when they say Taiwan will collapse without the cross-strait service trade agreement, and when they act as if democracy is worth nothing and constantly sing the praises of China.
Businesspeople have long been involved in anti-democratic movements. During the Nazi era, a painting of US industrialist Henry Ford hung in the headquarters of the Nazi party in Munich. Ford, who amassed his wealth from automobile manufacturing, sent 50,000 reichsmarks (about US$12,000 at the then exchange rate of 4.2 reichmarks to US$1) to Adolf Hitler as a birthday gift each year, made at least 78,000 military trucks for Hitler and also published a book The International Jew, which bolstered the impetus of anti-Semitism.
US journalist, war correspondent and historian William Lawrence Shirer has proven that during the French Third Republic, extremist right-wing gangs that took to the streets were backed by large businesses and financial institutions. Major business leaders even tried to persuade the French to drop parliamentary democracy and embrace totalitarian government, like the fascism of Germany and Italy. German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said: “Just look at these superfluous people! They acquire wealth and make themselves poorer with it. They desire power and especially the lever of power, plenty of money — these important people.”
This is a very important thing for us to remember because without money, there would be no revolutions nor would there be any dictators.
Whether it be with the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), the cross-strait service trade agreement or the government’s free economic pilot zones policy, we face the same challenges. Multinational corporations now have the “power of definition” in the modern world, for they not only wish to define the systems of international capital and division of labor, they also want to get involved in the domestic politics of countries and social order to directly manipulate democracy, constitutions, human rights and the law.
The study of political economy holds that economics always involves politics and politics always involves economics.
Democracy and economics need not be viewed as mutually exclusive, but democracy, human rights and constitutions cannot be ignored when we are talking about economic development. This is something we must be very careful about.
Lin Chia-ho is an assistant professor at National Chengchi University’s College of Law.
Translated by Drew Cameron
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