Just briefly, Focus on the Global South have published an article by Chanida Chanyapate and Alec Bamford that discusses “The Rise and Fall of the Sufficiency Economy” (picked up via Prachatai). It will be of interest to many New Mandala readers.
Chanida and Bamford conclude that:
If more attention were paid to what is happening on the ground, if the ideas and principles of those who are already practicing the sufficiency economy were better known, then perhaps the serene smile of the sufficiency economy will replace the smirk of capitalism.
7 responses so far ↓
1 Tosakan // Aug 12, 2007 at 4:57 am
When I read an essay like this, I have to wonder what the person’s background is in Thai economics.
What the king should have done was make a speech to CFO’s of major Thai corporations and tell them to stop cooking their books, stop cheating on their taxes, stop bribing their CPAs, stop expecting 200% returns every quarter, stop practicing insider trading, and stop borrowing when they don’t have the collateral or don’t have a business plan that is realistic.
And the first CFO’s he should have smacked down are the ones who control his own Crown Property Bureau.
Unlike the king, who inherited his wealth and property by virtue of being born to a celestial prince, most of the hoi polloi have to borrow money to achieve any type of material advancement.
Money doesn’t miraculously rain down on people’s head like the rain shown in the royalist propaganda clip before the movies.
In normal capitalist economies, people borrow money for many reasons, normally to buy homes, cars, finance business, etc.
To avert risk, there are complex statistical formulas put into place to weed out the people who are at high risk, and if high risk, they have to pay a higher interest rate.
In Thailand, if you are a big shot, a military general or the second cousin to the bank manger, hey, here is some free money for you. And by the way cuz, if I approve your loan, I expect a new Benz in my parking spot tomorrow morning.
In Thailand, you can be mortgaged to hilt, and all you have to do is cook your books with your other cousin, and then go back to the bank with a big shit eating grin to show him all your non-existent cash flow, and the circle of financial life in Thailand continues.
As for the poor, well, before Thaksin, they had loan sharks. And all these massive banking conglomerates, Bangkok Bank, Thai Farmer’s, that we have now all started out as loan-sharking operations.
Chinese immigrants would sell their labor power to the Thai aristocracy for cash payment. Ethnic Thais, on the other hand, had to work for free, because they were slaves. As the Thai economy transformed from a subsistence to a capitalist one, Thais had to start spending money to purchase things in the market. But, they had no cash. The Chinese did, however, so the Thais borrowed from the Chinese, using their land as collateral. When the Thais couldn’t pay back the outrageous interest charged because the Chinese were also the ones who were cheating them when purchasing their farm products, they would have to give up their property to the Chinese loan sharks, with full protection from the crown. Then, the Thais ended up being tenant farmers on their own land and have to pay rent to their land lords as well as continue to get cheated on the market value of their goods.
But for some reason, we don’t hear much of this economic analysis.
All we hear is blame the poor for not wanting to be poor, blame Thaksin for giving the poor credit that didn’t come from loan sharks, and blame the farang for inventing capitalism.
Capitalism in not the problem; the problem is the structure of Thai capitalism. And as long as the elites continue to cheat, lie and steal while espousing sufficiency economy on one hand while keeping the poor ignorant and dependent on them for survival, which is what they want, nothing will ever change.
2 jeru // Aug 12, 2007 at 1:44 pm
It’s just common sense Tosakan . . .
Fools quickly rush in when capital is nearly free! The meltdown in world markets we see now because of promiscous credit is definitely NOT sufficiency economy, but raw capitalism at its best and at its worst!
Imagine Tosakan raw capitalism at Thai villages . . . and the fools who will rush in a hurry, and the sure pain that will befall these fools later on.
Sufficiency economy is just what the doctor recommends for the Thai villagers.
3 serf // Aug 13, 2007 at 1:40 am
Imagine Jeru, the imposition of SE in villages where once they lived in something like SE as part of their normal way of life. Numerous capitalist fools rushed in to tell villagers that all their problems would all be over if they went to live and work in the Bangkok sausage factory. It has been obvious to some people (including many villagers) for decades that this wasn’t the entire solution. Suddenly, the same capitalists have woken up to the reality that this has a negative impact on them too. Now pretty much the same capitalist fools are rushing in to tell people that they have to go back to something approximating their former lifestyle, complete with all the forelock tugging to the Pu Yais that was expected in the past.
The difference between the rural ‘fools’ and their supposedly sophisticated & clever urban cousins is that the urbanites rarely hang around to clear up the mess caused by their ignorant ‘one solution fits all’ logic.
4 serf // Aug 13, 2007 at 1:54 am
Furthermore, Khun Maw should stick to his job of curing people’s medical ailments. And spend less time being a follower of political fashion. Indeed, how many farmers did Khun Maw buy out at rock-bottom prices when he and his chums decided to set up that country club golf course two decades back. Now Khun Maw is trying to convince us that he can run his golf course on SE principles by planting a few rather unproductive coconuts on land where people once lived and farmed to feed themselves. Now the same folks are living in Khlong Toey and getting pissed off because the only politician who ever really took any notice of them (even if only for votebuying purposes), has been removed by his erstwhile partners in crime.
If anything Jeru, we all seem to be suffering from too much of other people’s (short-sighted) commonsense.
5 jeru // Aug 13, 2007 at 12:16 pm
Any fool can see
That village loan meant for me
Was other people’s money
Never meant to be free
Any fool but me
6 jeru // Aug 13, 2007 at 7:40 pm
It is an amusing read – When Fools Rush In, The Joke’s on Them
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20214947/site/newsweek/
In the capitalist system Tosakan will blindly embrace and recommend to the eager village hicks, we need to remember capitalists too when greedy can be such fools!
I like the NINJA (No Income No Job No Asset) loans described in the article. We let capitalist crooks like Thaksin distribute village loans to many who I suspect would not be far behind in NINJA skills needed to qualify . . . the 300,000 Thai villagers I remember reported recently in the Thai news as defaulting and in dire need of ‘political accommodations’ is the fool’s pain I was singing above.
I am not sure whether Frank S. sang that song . . .
7 Awzar Thi // Aug 15, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Elsewhere in “the rise and fall…”:
“It was the leaders of the military coup d’état which toppled Thaksin in September 2006 who brought sufficiency economy back to life by enshrining it in the interim constitution. This time the intent was to counter the supposedly excessive spending and risk-taking by the Thaksin government.”
Do they mean that it wasn’t because the regime needed the monarchy as a political and ideological crutch?
Whatever the case, Chanida and Bamford’s poor assemblage of borrowed ideas and worn-out metaphors is at its best confusing and at worst incomprehensible:
“The sufficiency economy stopped being a nebular concept that meant everything and nothing and, like the coup itself, became a controversial concept.”
So many concepts, so little time: presumably they mean that before the coup, the sufficiency economy notion was vague and indistinct (rather than somehow relating to hypotheses on the origins of the galaxy). But even so, is a nebulous concept somehow precluded from controversy? And by what virtue might it cease being nebulous by reason of its becoming controversial?
This sentence is also indicative of the many giant leaps of illogic found throughout the article, as it appears to contradict the authors’ insistence that “the sufficiency economy is a fact on the ground”, in which case it should not have required an explanation from a retired general to turn it (as if by magic) from cloudy gas into controversy. But I may have misunderstood again.
Perhaps the authors are having difficulty because they have been trying too hard to Focus on the Global South (warning: staring at fictional geography can cause lasting damage to retinae) and “dismantle oppressive economic and political structures and institutions… create liberating structures and institutions… [and] promote demilitarisation and peace-building… in the paradigm of deglobalisation” while simultaneously struggling to buttress ultra-conservative elite constructs of rural economy and apologise for military coup-makers; see further.
Little wonder that your average foreign businessperson in Bangkok (where can I get one?) is sniggering. For further readings on politics and economy in Thailand, perhaps we can all stick with Pasuk and Baker.
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