| Summary: | 博士 === 國立政治大學 === 台灣史研究所 === 101 === What were the historical sources of the small and medium-sized enterprises in Taiwan after the war? What was the dialectical relationship between them and the capital existence in Taiwan before the war? It has been one of the main topics in Taiwanese economy history since the rise of the research of localization, and a few scholars tried to cut in through the small and medium-sized factories. On one hand, they opened the conversation with two key prominent scholars, Yanaihara Tadao and Chao-Yen Tu, and on the other hand, they tried to dig out the capital accumulation process from the general small and medium landlords or businessmen under the sequence of ideas of capitalism after Taiwanese five key families. However, not all of the researchers agreed that the reason why the small and medium-sized enterprises in Taiwan could be rising and flourishing after the war was because of the foundation of the capital accumulated by Taiwanese people before the war.
This research started with the same question concepts, but with different object of the study from the past research results, which was only used small and medium-sized factories as the study object, and emphasized the “independence” side of Taiwanese capital accumulation process; they generally cut the time of the research period when there was any state power changed or transferred. Instead of that, this study planned to use transportation industry as the study case, discussed from how Taiwanese capital accumulation process linked to national power, and then laid special emphasis on how Taiwanese capital accumulation process learnt from capitalism that the colonialists brought in; especially, the operation concept of the modern enterprises which gave priority to capital accounting (retained earnings and assets depreciation). Furthermore, the study adopted cross-political power research approach and discussed how Taiwanese capital accumulation before the war and the management capacity development of the modern enterprises became the important basis of passing through the take-over period to throw into the small and medium-sized enterprises. A theoretical analysis was addressed here.
The study first found the binary opposition framework of so-called Taiwanese investment/ Japanese investment or colonialists / natives was not sufficient to explain economy structure in Taiwan before the war. Taiwanese capital accumulation process was existed on one aspect which linked to the colonialists, and this linkage to national power lasted to postwar.
Basically speaking, transportation industry as a franchising sector should be run by the nation to avoid monopoly; Japan, as a later emerging capitalism country, allowed private capital to develop the nation’s transportation industry though intense supervision and protection by the government because the insufficient national power after Meiji restoration; there was a special interaction model between the official and transportation dealers. After occupying Taiwan, Japan continued relying on private capital to develop local transportation such as privately-run railway and road transportation due to it hadn’t established its capitalism firmly. Nothing but Taiwanese capital was the subject which was dependent on at that moment, the capital accumulation of the Taiwanese capital for this industry proceeded under the assistance of Taiwanese Governor General’s Office.
Through transportation industry, Taiwanese capital widely applied modern enterprise system brought into by the colonialists. Transportation industry featured high proportion of capital-intensive and fixed capital, and it needed to run in large-scaled operation types. Taiwanese capital used high-proportion of limited liability companies ((ka bu si ki gai sya in Japanese), and it showed the essential difference from the small and medium-sized factories (mainly agriculture, agriculture product processing and light industry) that pervious research focused on.
Under the precondition that Taiwanese capital highly used modern enterprise system in transportation industry, the study further revealed that it was not enough to only examine why Taiwanese capital existed excellent enterprise management capacity from cultural aspect. That was to say, the social characteristic of immigration and the prosperous cooperated organizations were the foundation of Taiwanese capital joining capitalism, but whether it could fulfill modern enterprise system which gave priority to capital accounting (retained earnings and assets depreciation) played an even more significant role. Although the social characteristic of immigration presented the adventure and aggressiveness of Taiwanese enterprises, the prosperous cooperated organizations after Ching Dynasty helped Taiwanese capital get used to the operation of modern market economy easily. However, only when constructing sound assets structure and financial status, Taiwanese enterprises could show the quality of “sustainable operation”.
In the end, the study claimed that the small and medium-sized enterprises in Taiwan after the war were still based on the Taiwanese capital before the war. Though the current research results mostly held the same academic view, they couldn’t fully approve how Taiwanese capital passed through the war of resistance against the Japanese in 1937 to National Government retrieved to Taiwan in 1949, the intensive political turbulent period of time. Compared to this, Taiwanese capital in transportation industry could fill the gap in a certain level. First, Taiwanese capital in transportation industry instead of subordinating to or being eliminated by Japanese investment, it integrated the Taiwanese capital spread out in different places and expanded the operation scale on the basis of transportation governing system; its capital strength increased as a result. The transportation governing enterprises which were managed by states but guided by Taiwanese capital directly transformed into local transportation carriers, and it showed extremely direct and clear continuity.
Second, the fulfillment of the modern enterprise system and the starting of the relevant industries of transportation industry were implemented during this stage. In terms of the former, as what mentioned above, Japan was a later emerging capitalism country, and its development of capital accounting was slow; this led the system used during the war become the key stage of the development establishment, which meant that government used different governing methods to force the enterprises followed the standard business accounting (especially the calculation of assets depreciation). Moreover, transportation industry was one of the important governing enterprises, and it drew more colonialist government’s attention on whether the capital accounting system had been established in the industry. As for the latter, we talked about the essential difference between transportation industry and other traditional industries, and the transportation industry played an important role in pushing industry revolution in Europe, America, and Japan so that it was with great possibility that Taiwanese capital moved towards modern industries through transportation industry. This could be seen on the contact with mechanical kinetics on one side, and on the other side, it marched towards industry. The indicative meaning of this was presented on the relevant enterprises, especially the vehicle maintenance and repair incident to the system during the war and the industrialization for Army.
In conclusion, the chain mechanism existed in the Taiwanese capital accumulation process from prewar to postwar, and it was “non-machinery light railway the attempt on steam powered and electricity (also invested electricity industry) machinery vehicle transportation new and developing machinery manufacture and chemistry local transportation carriers small and medium-sized enterprises”. Of course, the development was not a straight line process, and there were some obstacles in the way; however, the basic successive relationship could still be tracked.
|
|---|
