ABSTRACT
Researchers attribute the economic success of the newly industrializing countries (NICs) to strong and effective state intervention in economic development. These strong states often restrict civil liberties in some ways. Labor rights are a case in point. Researchers of labor studies frequently show that the states in industrializing countries repress labor. Recent studies show that labor policies in industrializing countries are imbedded in their historical legacies. In this paper, the author differentiates between political labor repression and economic labor repression. The author also describes the limit of state corporatism. The power elites have differing ideologies and argue about labor policies. The labor administration has very limited resources to enforce labor laws and to maintain managerial-labor cooperation. Recent democratization has caught the state unprepared to deal with social forces previously repressed by the security apparatus.
