The Dark Side of Taiwan's Globalization Success Story

Abstract

Government regulators and researchers in Taiwan (Republic of China) express optimism about their country's economic success in its transition from a traditional society to a first world, industrialized nation. But this economic success, as measured by the standards and ideology of globalization, also has a dark side for many ordinary workers, especially Taiwan's 300,000 foreign workers. The promise of growth and future prosperity is conditional upon global economic practices and an adherence to a science-technology ideological perspective that shapes political content. Multiple centers of opposition and critical thinking have no public presence in Taiwan; nor do organizational defiance and resistance by trade unions. Instead, individuals and small human rights groups seek to reveal areas of human degradation and suffering in a response to poverty and the American dream. Meanwhile, the dominant ideological perspective as articulated by globalism seeps into and directs all public policy on the work environment so that it is coherent with the neoliberal political agenda of multinational corporations. This direction is being questioned by students of the work environment and by labor activists in North America, who report the deterioration of working conditions and worsening of government regulatory instruments for protecting workers from physical, mental, and social risk and harm in the workplace.