Following the presidential and legislative elections on Jan. 16, transitional justice has once again become the center of attention. Civic society’s rethinking and demands regarding human rights and other progressive values are also reflected in the expectations that people from various backgrounds have of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文). Transitional justice in the realm of politics involves many aspects, such as revealing the truth about human rights abuses under the rule of former dictators in an authoritarian era, bringing the perpetrators to account, bolstering human rights safeguards and deepening the democratic system. Although society is still beset by many disagreements on deep-seated issues, and by difficulties as to how to actually accomplish these things, at least they provide a direction toward which Taiwanese society should be ready to strive together in the long term.
However, another aspect of transitional justice — the economic aspect — is generally overlooked by the mainstream and the media, despite being an important aspect that has far-reaching effects.
The immediate cause of the outbreak of the Sunflower movement in March 2014 was opposition to the cross-strait service trade agreement and the way in which the agreement was negotiated and signed behind closed doors, but there is a more profound reason why the movement was later able to garner the support of broader civic social forces — namely dissatisfaction with the longstanding distorted plunder economy and a backlash against it.
The long course of Taiwan’s economic development has been marred by many negative effects, such as injuries suffered by disadvantaged workers, the low-wage generation, environmental pollution, soaring land and housing prices and so on. While these issues might not seem as bloody and violent as incidents of political repression, when one looks back over the many real examples from the history of Taiwan’s economic development, going back to the RCA dispute, and including issues like air and water pollution caused by petrochemical and other heavy industrial zones in central and southern Taiwan, factory closures and the resulting job losses, land speculation under the guise of development in Dapu (大埔), the low-wage generation and the impact that offshoring and hollowing out has had on the “four miserable industries” — the DRAM, LCD, LED and solar power industries — it can equally be called a shocking tale of blood and tears.
Economic transitional justice should include at least the following three aspects on different levels.
The first task is to reveal the truth about the harm done in the course of Taiwan’s plunder economy. The price paid by Taiwan and the harm it has suffered in the course of its past economic development must be investigated and revealed. This includes, for example, the air, water and land pollution, as well as harm caused to the health of workers and other people, because of plunderous economic development.
Apart from harm done to the environment and workers, there is also the matter of hidden subsidies provided by the state to specific industries by means of tax breaks, which has caused the tax burden to be unfairly distributed and is a resource distortion that lies hidden behind the high productive value of scientific and technological industries.
Furthermore, compared with the owners of huge sums of capital, the industrial structure based on low-waged labor also demonstrates how Taiwan has, in the course of its economic development, paid the price of a continual erosion of workers’ rights and wages.
The second aspect is bringing the “perpetrators” or “policymakers” to account. Consideration of Taiwan’s past pattern of economic development should not be restricted to bringing individual businesses to account for the harm they have caused workers or the environmental damage they caused.
More important still is clarifying the contemporary political responsibility and rethinking our basic economic mindset. For example, the background mindset and policies that have driven Taiwan’s manufacturing offshore, caused industry to be hollowed out and wages to be kept low needs to be clarified and reconsidered from a macroscopic angle.
At the same time as clarifying the truth and establishing responsibility, this would be a good opportunity for Taiwanese to re-establish and deepen its understanding and interpretation of the history of the nation’s economic development.
The third point is to establish an innovation economy centered on progressive values. As with the process of political transitional justice, where reforms are aimed at political democracy and a system that safeguards human rights, if anyone expects to achieve an innovation economy that incorporates distributive justice and labor safeguards and that can handle international challenges while sticking with an old economic system and mindset that have not been thoroughly reconsidered, it would be like climbing a tree to catch a fish.
A model of economic operations that uses capital-intensive measures to support horizontal technology transfers and cut production costs to seek rapid growth in the scale of mass production would once again fall into the mire of a plunder economy. Furthermore, it cannot lay down the long-term technological foundation that an innovation economy needs.
Finally, what we need to ask is whether Tsai, who went on whirlwind tours of industry before and after the elections, has thoroughly reflected on the blood-and-tears history of Taiwan’s economic development. To what extent do her ideas about promoting the five major innovative industries — “green” energy, “Asian Silicon valley,” national defense, biotechnology and medicine and smart machinery — still adhere to the economic mindset and logic of the “two trillion and twin star development plan” that was promoted by the previous DPP administration from 2002 onward.
Whether economic transitional justice can succeed is also a test of whether the new ruling party can meet the twin challenges of building an innovative economy and achieving social justice.
Lin Minn-tsong is a distinguished professor of physics at National Taiwan University and a member of the Taiwan social democratic economics society.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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