Comment On The Wangs' Case At "Global Voices"

Below, I reproduce my comment awaiting moderation at I-Fan Lin's recent piece: "Taiwan: A Family's Forced Eviction Casts Shadow On Urban Renewal Act" .... I also have another, shorter, comment awaiting moderation at the complementary piece: "Taiwan: Protect Homeowners Against Forced Demolition" which was also written by I-Fan Lin. Over the weekend, I might try to write up what follows below into Mandarin and send it to the Apple Daily before the Wangs' case gets forgotten about.

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What happened to the Wangs is outrageous not because it demonstrates the "fragility" of private property rights in Taiwan, but because it illuminates either (a) the legal non-existence of these rights, or (b) their criminal violation by the government.

Allow me to explain.... if you have a "right" to private property, then you are have exclusive control over how that property is to be used and nobody, not even a King or a President, can rightfully take it away from you. Although it is common to see the term "property rights" used with the predicate "must be balanced against the public interest", this is an epistemic error. In that case what is being referred to are not "property rights", but "property privileges". The key point is that a person's "rights" are non-negotiable*, but "privileges" are politically contingent and can therefore be justifiably rescinded.

So what the Wangs case demonstrates, as did the case of the Miaoli farmers in 2010 and other cases further back in history, is that there are no private property rights in Taiwan - there are only private property privileges**.

However, it is not only the actions of the Taipei City government at the behest of Le Young that reveal the point. It is also revealed by the denouncements from DPP politicians (e.g. Tsai Ing-wen) that were not really denouncements, and from the protests of the University professors (e.g. Hsu Shih-jung (徐世榮)) that were not really protests. In every opinion editorial I have read on this case (I'm afraid I only read the Taipei Times), the denouncements thrown at the Taipei City government always focused on the legal conditions through which a "public interest" excuse could be made for expropriation. According to the erstwhile leader of the DPP and her university eunuchs, the problem is not that the Wangs' property was effectively stolen, the problem is that the government did not use the correct excuse and did not implement the excuse in the appropriate way so as to "avoid controversy". So, for instance, Jui-Chung Allen Li (李瑞中) criticized the Taipei City government because their urban renewal plans were centred on areas of Taipei City where property values were already high, and not in areas where they were low, the implication being that "urban renewal" must be carried out for the benefit of the poor (those living in low-value areas) rather than the rich. But if that is to be intended as an argument to establish a "public interest" case under which expropriation can be excused, then the arrogance is breathtaking, for consider what it means: poor people who do not understand their own interests and refuse to sell, can have their properties expropriated, and the progressives in the universities will call it "social justice", and talk about how "democratic" they all are.

Which leads me to my final point, and it is really the central point.

The Wang case, and the reaction to it on the pan-green side, also demonstrates why there are no private property rights in Taiwan. That is the superordinate political status ascribed to democratic procedure, and the collectivist premises underlying it. Violation of private property rights can only be opposed in principle by those who hold the opposite premises: those of universal individualism. And this is the tragedy of Taiwan - the overthrow of the old totalitarianesque KMT regime by the democracy movement in the '80s left a soft-marxist (i.e. "social democratic") ideological legacy that is now finding itself unable to come to grips with the adjustment of the KMT to democratic conditions. In every opinion editorial I have read on this case (I'm afraid I only read the Taipei Times), the denouncements thrown at the Taipei City government always focused on the legal conditions through which a "public interest" excuse could be made for expropriation. According to the erstwhile leader of the DPP and her university eunuchs, the problem is not that the Wangs' property was effectively stolen, the problem is that the government did not use the correct excuse and did not implement the excuse in the appropriate way so as to "avoid controversy". So, for instance, Jui-Chung Allen Li (李瑞中) criticized the Taipei City government because their urban renewal plans were centred on areas of Taipei City where property values were already high, and not in areas where they were low, the implication being that "urban renewal" must be carried out for the benefit of the poor (those living in low-value areas) rather than the rich. But if that is to be intended as an argument to establish a "public interest" case under which expropriation can be excused, then the arrogance is breathtaking, for consider what it means: poor people who do not understand their own interests and refuse to sell, can have their properties expropriated, and the progressives in the universities will call it "social justice", and talk about how "democratic" they all are.

The DPP in its present ideological form can offer no principled and compelling moral opposition to the predatory economic policies of the KMT - because they share the same basic collectivist premises.

 
*A person can, however, forfeit his rights - by for example, violating the rights of others.

**Or alternatively, if you would like to stipulate to the natural rights understanding of private property rights (a la John Locke), then the conclusion must necessarily be that Taiwan is governed by criminals who can violate the private property rights of the people merely by passing pieces of legislation to excuse themselves. (Yes, I know my use of incendiary language is why nobody will publish my writings - but the logic behind my choice of words is correct). 

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Update: this comment has now been published at Global Voices - as has my other comment.