1950年代 前半 臺灣自由主義者의 自由主義 摸索 : 《自由中國》 論說 分析을 中心으로

Abstract

This paper analyzed editorials related to liberalism posted in magazine Free China and attempted to trace the content of liberalism sought for by liberalists and their activities. Through such tracking, this paper intended to explain that the content of liberalism became systematized to some extent by the mid 1950s and confrontation and antagonism between liberalists and the Nationalist Party became clearer. In the process of exploring liberalism until the mid 1950s, this article paid attention to from 1952 to 1953. The reason is that liberalism started to be systematized from this period and logical grounds for criticism about the Nationalist Party were obtained during this period. The content analyzed in this article is summarized as follows. Liberalists sought for liberalism encompassing socialism by inheriting liberalism in the 1940s. They understood socialism and liberalism as having complementary relationship and established freedom and equality as a task to pursue at the same time. Liberalists did not agree on the priority between freedom and equality but were in common in that they did not regard both were not contrasting with each other. However, even though liberalists had favorable attitudes toward socialism, they could not continuously use the term socialism because of the conceptual ambiguity of the term socialism and political and social reality in which they had to be opposed to communism and resist against Russia. So-called “economic socialization” was a term selected by liberalists to avoid such perplexity. As Taiwan was included in the U.S.'s East Asian anticommunist defense system after the Korean War, internal and external stability of Taiwan was secured. Liberalists advocated so-called “political counteroffensive” and emphasized the purport of winning political democracy, and criticized the Nationalist Party which pursued Party-State system. However, what should be paid attention to is from 1952 to 1953, rather than the Korean War, in liberalism's process of unfolding. The first reason was that liberalists obtained the ground for assuming not only communism but also the Nationalist Party as the subject of criticism and opposition by putting up "opposition to totalitarianism" with the goal of anti-communism. The second reason was that liberalists started to review in earnest important matters constituting liberalism such as individual freedom, free economy, realization of constitutional government, and defense of the constitution. Liberalists proclaimed that the genuine meaning of liberalism lied in individuals' freedom and individuals' freedom should be all rights and all basic freedom. Arguing that political democracy should be based on free economy, they newly emphasized the importance of free economy which they had been on the alert against and criticized in the past. They also started to take notice of the meanings of constitutional government and the constitution as institutional instruments to guarantee smooth operation of the free economic system. Based on such liberalism groped for and asserted leaning on liberalist thought of Hayek, liberalists heightened the level of criticism against the Nationalist Party. They pointed out the Nationalist Party's management and control policies on the economy as a planned economy and strongly urged implementation of constitutional government. What is noteworthy is that such activities of criticism by liberalists were oriented toward emphasis of the justification of the opposition party. It came from the judgment that the duty and future Taiwan, the matrix of Free China, should take charge of cannot be entrusted to the Nationalist Party any longer which was pursuing one party rule system. It is self-evident that the more the justification of the opposition party among liberalists was stressed, the more obvious their confrontation and rivalry with the Nationalist Party became.