New Mandala

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• 1 New Mandala » Sufficiency and superfluity // Oct 5, 2006 at 4:34 am

  [...] And the second from Kasian Tejapira’s New Left Review article on “Toppling Thaksin” previously featured (before he actually was toppled) on New Mandala: After the 1997 crash royal-nationalism was supplemented by a concept of Setthakij pho-phiang, or economic self-sufficiency, in which the King promoted a simple way of life over consumerism and materialist values. Estimates of the Royal Family’s personal assets range from $2bn to $8bn, managed by the Crown Property Bureau, with equity stakes in companies such as Siam Cement and the Siam Commercial Bank. Around 36,000 of the CPB’s properties are leased or rented to third parties. [...]

• 2 New Mandala » Puppet on a string // Mar 1, 2007 at 3:47 pm

  [...] in their longstanding battle with the “electocrats” (a term I am borrowing from Kasian), then the months that have followed have shown just how fleeting victory can be. A series of high [...]

• 3 nganadeeleg // Mar 1, 2007 at 4:49 pm

  I had not read Kasian’s article before – it makes excellent reading in light of recent events.
  I particularly liked his comparison of Thaksin & Sondhi.

  The junta needs to read Kasian’s last paragraph so it can re-focus it’s activities:
  “How best should this regime be targeted? One priority must be the fight for a thorough-going reform and development policy for the countryside that will raise the current miserable living standards without creating widespread indebtedness, and will guarantee a real improvement in rural healthcare. But the immediate task should be to remove the linchpin of the corrupt and criminalized system, who should face the due process of law for the crimes alleged against him—the scores of extra-judicial killings that have been sanctioned in the cities and the South, and the Shin Corporation’s tax-free privatization of national assets. The malfunctioning constitutional bodies, set up as checks and balances, need to be thoroughly investigated and, if necessary, purged of crony members, as a prerequisite to the establishment of the rule of law—as urgent in the South as elsewhere. Finally, the ambiguities of the 1997 Constitution need to be revisited, and its concentration of executive powers in the hands of a presidential prime minister revised. These would be the minimum legal-political requirements for transcending Thaksin’s globalized electocracy.”

• 4 Srithanonchai // Mar 1, 2007 at 11:49 pm

  The last two sentences sound a little bit as if, at that time, Kasian would opt for eliminating the party-list system, in order to reduce the perceived “presidential” element of Thaksin’s use of power. I am not sure, but presently, he seem to tend to see this as a reduction of popular sovereignty and a “relocalization of national politics” (Matichon, March 2, 2007, p. 6, on ระบอบเลือกตั้งธิปไตยกำลังจะกลับมา).

• 5 21Jan // Mar 2, 2007 at 9:55 am

  Now that Thaksin is toppled, we now could “fight for a thorough-going reform and development policy for the countryside that will raise the current miserable living standards” – and please don’t tell me that this is what sufficiency economy is all about.

• 6 Srithanonchai // Mar 2, 2007 at 2:33 pm

  “countryside that will raise the current miserable living standards” >> I am not sure when was the last time Ajan Kasian left his Thammasat office or Bangkok intellectual circles for having a look at the Thai countryside. It just doesn’t make any good sense to keep repeating the old cliches about the impoverished rural areas outside Bangkok. There certainly are those areas, but for developing realistic policy suggestions, one will need to arrive at a more realistic assessment, and take stock of the immense changes that have taken place during the past two decades. In fact, New Mandala had this discussion a while ago, initiated byh Khun Jopha.

• 7 21Jan // Mar 2, 2007 at 3:44 pm

  Srithanonchai, of course you are right that the living conditions of the rural population have improved a lot during the last years (maybe also because of the “populist policies that pander to the unprincipled wants and needs of the people”) – still I think there are a lot of disparities between Bangkok and the rural areas, especially when it comes to political representation and to educational standards. I still think that some kind of affirmative action regarding people from the more impoverished areas of Thailand could ease the rifts in Thai society.

• 8 Srithanonchai // Mar 2, 2007 at 5:57 pm

  21 Jan: No doubt that there are great disparities. One might also point to disparities between the many urban areas throughout Thailand and their respective rural hinterlands, to the disparities among urban areas of various sizes, and of all those urban areas and Bangkok: Chiang Mai, Suphanburi, Phitsanulok, Pattya, Khon Kaen, and Hat Yai, etc. need their BTS! (just joking)

  As for poverty reduction, this seem to have been a longer-term trend, not dependent on Thaksin’s policies. Some time ago, New Mandala featured the World Bank’s Economic Monitor of November 2006. It contains some useful data on poverty alleviation. The link is http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTTHAILAND/Resources/Economic-Monitor/2006nov_econ_monitor.pdf

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