台灣鐵路民營化的政治經濟分析

Abstract

80年代是全球政經結構產生解構巨變，對立化的兩極國際冷戰局勢告終，強調開放 競爭的全球化時代來臨。隨著全球化擴張，政治民主化、經濟自由化與社會多元化成為 普世價值。1980年後，民營化變為世界主流，公營事業民營化政策成為許多國家的施政 重要項目，希望能經由民營化引進的自由競爭觀念，以降低生產成本，提高經營績效；並能減少政府財政支出，俾使國家資源能作最佳有效運用。 1989年我國亦宣布推行民營化，台灣鐵路局於1990年列入民營化名單中，台鐵被列入民營化理由，其內部原因是：自中山高速公路啟用後，營運不振，財務出現赤字，且因為各項公營事業法令的限制，欠缺獨立經營自主權，及管理面上眾多無法克服的問題，陷入每年虧損近百億元的困境。台鐵雖曾進行改革，但效果不彰。外部原因是：台灣鐵路雖然是台灣西部長程運輸重要工具，惟高速鐵路興建通車後，將使台鐵乘客大減，流失營收來源，現在已經嚴重虧損的台鐵財務狀況必然更加惡化。台鐵可能宣佈破產關閉。但考量整體運輸需要，台鐵有其存在的必要性。其最佳解決之道乃台鐵民營化。 國民黨政府於1995年決定將台鐵民營化採「車路分離」方式辦理：2000年政黨輪替後，民進黨執政改弦易轍為「車路合一」方式辦理，其原因何在？乃因兩黨均將台鐵作為國家政策（汲取性、生產性、保護性）的執行工具，並欲藉台鐵民營化獲取該黨最大利益，以鞏固其執政權。本論文即由政經面向探討相關行為者間相互影響互動的過程。

At the end of 1980s, the whole world experienced tremendous transformations, fundamentally changing both economic and political circumstances and society structure. The end of “Cold War” terminated the polarization of world campaigns and increased global competition. Economic liberalization, political democracy, the diversity of society, and the rapid expansion of globalization have become the worldwide standard of the current era. The state-owned enterprise has also slowly faded. Many governments in the world have applied the policy of transforming state-owned enterprise into private ones as one of their major policies in running the government. They anticipate utilizing the idea of free competition brought from privatization, in order to reduce costs, to promote operation efficiency, to improve the quality of services, and further to reduce government financial load and make good use of worldwide resources. In 1989 the Execute Yuan declared to proceed state-owned enterprise to privatization. Taiwan Railway Administration（TRA） was arranged into the state-owned enterprise privatization list in 1990. The interior reasons for TRA privatization are as follows. The first freeway has come into full operation, the TRA has been facing a severe impact, and the operation scale declines, resulting in deficit. Secondly, under the restrictions of several codes guided for state-owned enterprise operation, TRA lacked the right to operate, as well as TRA had problems in management. As a result, TRA had to suffer the negative situation of loosing tens of billions of NT dollars per year. Even though there were several attempts on re-structuring, unfortunately the result was still in vain. The exterior reasons for TRA’S privatization are as follows. For a long period of time, TRA has played a key role in the long-range ground transportation services along west corridor area of Taiwan. This unique operational environment is no longer existed after Taiwan High Speed Railway started its operations. The decrease of its revenue becomes inevitable and its financial burden turns out extremely heavy. TRA may be in the awkward situation into bankruptcy while competing with the Taiwan High Speed Railway Corporation that will be run by a private sector. However, the overall demands seem to remain high; therefore, TRA managements should have to think out a best operational strategy to defeat this operational predicament. The best effectual method is privatization. For TRA privatization, The KMT regime decided to apply “Government own railway-private operation system” in 1995. However, after the transfer of regime in 2000, DPP changed it to “Private own railway-private operation system”. The difference of and the reason for the policy change is because both parties regard the operation of TRA as part of national policy that has the characteristics - exploitative, productive and protective. The potentially considerable revenue generated from the operation of TRA should also be taken into account. Both parties take advantage of it to consolidate its political stakes. This thesis illustrates the process of such phenomena and the chain reaction between related actors from the aspect of politics and economics.