This is an interesting study from the Philippines about the electoral behaviour of the poor. It probably won’t mean much to those who assume that those with different political opinions lack ethics, but for those with more open minds it contains many useful insights into local political culture. Here is a brief extract from the preface:
Contrary to stereotypes, the poor follow a mode of rationality in their participation in the electoral process. This study belies the simplistic notion of the “dumb masa,” which entered into wide currency following the dramatized resistance against the ouster of Joseph Estrada from the presidency … But idealising and romanticising the poor … is far from the object of this study. If anything, the study’s findings on people’s notions of leadership and elections are complex and multifaceted. Their views are not homogenous and, strictly speaking, there is no “poor vote.” Not only is there no singularity buy many of the views of the study participants also resonate with those of members of middle and upper classes. Philippine political culture is indeed richly textured and cuts across social classes, ethnicities, and geographic boundaries.
23 responses so far ↓
1 serf // Sep 24, 2007 at 2:55 pm
This does not come as any great surprise. You are probably highlighting the wrong problem anyway. So you can exercise your vote in a rational manner, but you are then faced with a choice of two: repressive monarchists Vs. corrupt popularists. Indeed, your choice is even more limited than that – as the repressive monarchists are also corrupt, and the corrupt popularists also hail from the military academy of repression. Thus, rational voting by the poor is incapable of changing anything. The system is loaded against them at all turns. Perhaps that rationality would be better translated into the creation of grassroots parties with a socialist agenda. Such parties will, of course, be subjected to repression by the two malevolent forces listed above. But such forces are not nearly as ubiquitous and effective as they like to think they are. If that means that the poor will have to return to the clandestine revolutionary movements of the Vietnam War era, then so be it! Folks are going to have to use their rationality to actually subvert this dreadful system.
2 Grasshopper // Sep 24, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Serf, as a poor person, I am offended that I have been cajoled into ‘grassroots’ campaigns to free myself from a Big Brother that I never knew cared for me. I was born into these politics you speak of post-revolution. From experience I can safely say that without a dedicated team of gardeners, these grassroots campaigns can get prohibitively weedy. For instance whilst recently listening to Mahler on the iPod(tm) my daughter sent me from as a result of some sort of bonus in Bangkok, I was unexpectedly stung by some nettles! Sent reeling into the magnificently yellow daisies Big Brother Bhumibol caught me and helped me stand up just as this horrible Bumble Bee Thaksin was about to make a vindictive 4000 Baht sting! I love Big Brother. He already loves you too!
3 serf // Sep 25, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Don’t understand that, although it does have a certain psychedelic charm about it.
4 serf // Sep 25, 2007 at 4:01 pm
So the art of gardening takes time to learn! But in my experience, that time is not ill-spent. Indeed, it is a most agreeable pastime to cultivate one’s own ignorance in the company of other local gardeners. One can almost forget one is poor. In that respect, it is a form of the transcendental in its own right.
Was it really such a good idea to slaughter the garden staff just because they showed slight signs of wanting some bigger say in the running of the garden? They may not have known much about horticultural science, but they certainly knew how to plant stuff. Now we are left with the Semi-Divine gardener, who gardens by decree. Not exactly conducive to a productive garden either. By the time he’s spent hours meditating over the deeper meaning of crop infestation, the harvest is already ruined. Th Divine Gardener’s son isn’t really interested in gardening, but I do know an enterprising property developer who is persuading him it would be a good idea to bulldoze the garden and turn it into a theme park. Adequate compensation and free slum space provided in Bangkok, as a bonus.
5 serf // Sep 25, 2007 at 4:06 pm
Let’s leave the ‘luv’ to those deluded monarchists and TRTs! My ‘garden’ thrives better on a healthy disrespect for the weeds that try to self-sow themselves by blowing in over the fence.
6 Dickie Simpkins // Sep 25, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Grasshopper:
EH? Bumble Bee’s, Big Brothers, Yellow Daisies… what have you been smokin?
Serf:
Politics is always about the worse choice. Socialism has also shown that in the long run, Dictatorshit of the Proletariat results in abuses far worse than corrupt politicians and repressive royalists.
I actually am a big fan of Constitutional Monarchy, and believe that Thailand has by far one of the most open societies in Southeast Asia. Especially when you compare to the lack of freedoms in Burma, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Singapore, Brunei and Malaysia and the uncertainty and strife in Indonesia and East Timor.
Not to say that Thailand is perfect (by any means it is not) but at least the ‘Royalists’ here are obsessed with their face and image; it is difficult to wannabe Godly and then do blatant ungodly things (ie: they too are controlled by their own portrayed image). That is why they were unable to really go after the Thaksinites in this last coup.
As for corrupt politicians: I’ll never trust them, there is a lot of political reform that still needs to be done in Thailand. I have major qualms about the Senate in this constitution. I’ve still never understood why the masses need to go back to their villages so far away to vote. Can’t they just vote in absenteeism or be registered to vote where they live and work? For example, why does the truck driver who lives and has a family in the outskirt of Bangkok have to go back to Surin to cast his ballot? Just because he has a plot of land there where he is still registered? He has an apartment here where he rents, why shouldn’t he just vote where he is?
any ideas?
7 Sidh S. // Sep 25, 2007 at 8:41 pm
I also suspect that any grassroots activism (which could potentially colasce into grassroots politics that could challenge special interests political parties) are often cut down at by the mafia-types, local or national – such as the case of Khun Charoen Wat-aksorn… There are laws in both the 1997 and new 2007 constitutions that protect local rights to manage their resouces – but there are interest groups (often urban-based) and businesses always looking to undermine/manipulate those laws/rights (leading to a ‘divide and rule’ of the poor?)…
8 Indonesia » Blog Archives » Daily Independent (Ashland, KY) - UN chief says breakthrough needed in climate talks // Sep 25, 2007 at 9:12 pm
[...] Comment on The vote of the poor by Dickie Simpkins and strife in Indonesia and East Timor. Not to say that Thailand is perfect (by any means [...]
9 Grasshopper // Sep 26, 2007 at 1:10 am
Yes gardening takes time to master! It has been one year since I moved into my new sufficient village and yet it seems as though I’ve been there forever. My neighbors and I are real pals. Over this last year we have sufficiently exerted ourselves. However, much to my shock, when I strolled off the veranda the nettles had grown! I was appalled. How could this happen? We act sufficiently! Everything should be OK.
As I said earlier, luckily Big Brother saved me from the overgrown weeds in his giant butterfly net. If he did not we could not manage considering we have all forgotten how to garden. My daughter got some very important information for me somehow; she said that I should stay in the countryside and not come to Bangkok to see her because their way is too complicated and I would get lost. For some reason she started to cry?
Lucky Big Brother Bhumibol stands in Bangkok as a blinding, virtuous light amongst fuming devils who will try to pray on my beautiful daughter. If BB were not there, I may have to get off my veranda and go get her! This would take a lot of effort which could be used more effectively for our sufficiency choice. Ah. Everything will take its course. I am just a small piece of BB’s jigsaw yet he spends so much of his time on me. I don’t want him to be lost in time with all of us here in the countryside trying to be complicated! Plus if I stay I get to be with nature and keep Bee’s like BB taught me. I am going to start a honey farm for him!
So surely serf, you will agree now that you can see; that it is better to inhale the fresh air from Big Brother and float free in on a lovely teak seat!?!
10 serf // Sep 26, 2007 at 2:46 am
Well you can believe in that self-sufficient shit if you want to. Personally, I think it’s all bollocks.
I threw socialism in as a bit of a bogey word. You soon get to find out what people really think when you mention the unmentionable.
Have fun academics!
11 serf // Sep 26, 2007 at 3:44 am
“Dictatorship of the Proletariat results in abuses far worse than corrupt politicians and repressive royalists.”
I can’t think of a dictatorship of the proletariat that has lasted more than five minutes. They nearly all ended up being subverted, as in the case of COMMUNIST Russia. In contrast, I can think of endless numbers of corrupt politicians, repressive royalists and even deluded semi-divine constitutional monarchs who have badly abused their fellow citizens. The left-wing threat is largely a ‘bogeyman’ myth. The right-wing threat is a daily reality.
I would settle for a strong opposition with a few mildly socialist ideas. But of course that is all too much for the hardline fundamentalist free-marketers, intelligent designers and neocons.
12 James Haughton // Sep 26, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Dickie: They can’t vote in the city because then they would be a coherent working-class bloc who would probably vote for left wing parties.
13 Dickie Simpkins // Sep 26, 2007 at 6:52 pm
James: It would be the beginning of true reform. They would vote for policies that improve their right of self-determination.
14 Dickie Simpkins // Sep 26, 2007 at 6:55 pm
Grasshopper: Gotcha. Love the satire.
Serf: Read what Grasshopper wrote again. He’s just making fun of the whole system of a living god. Also, how can you be against Sufficiency and for Socialism? They are the same ideology wrapped in different clothes.
15 Ex-Ajarn // Sep 26, 2007 at 7:56 pm
I am not quite sure what all these comments about socialism have to do with democracy and poor people. I haven’t read the book but I assume I would agree with the general concept that poor people are not necessarily stupid when it comes to using their (or if looking at my bank balance, maybe I should use “our” instead of their) vote. The coup in Thailand or the military dictatorship in Burma or any other form of non-democratic government is based on the concept that the poor are too stupid to know what is good for them and it is up to the “elites” (leftists, rightists, socialists, academics, etc…) to decide what is best for the “lower” classes. The extremely strong correlation between democracy and improvements in the quality of life of the poor as measured by infant mortality, life span, and income levels are proof to all but the most die hard supports of dictatorships that the poor do a better job of improving their lives with their votes within democracies than the elites do in dictatorships.
16 serf // Sep 27, 2007 at 4:44 am
By the way, did I ever actually say I was a Socialist?
I just like being able to vote socialist if and when I feel like it.
I’m against SE because it is IMPOSED by someone who really isn’t all that clued up.
17 Srithanonchai // Oct 12, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Switzerland and Thailand — time for a comparison? In a few days, Switzerland will see an election, and the campaign is “Blocher ok pai”. Blocher is Switzerland’s Thaksin — a rightist, populist billionaire with rough electoral habits who can buy up as much advertising space as he wants and put election posters whereever he wants . And the voters love him (though not as much as they loved Thaksin). Which poses questions of whether Switzerland has that many desperately poor people who are easily swayed by populist promises, whether the average Swiss voter is so politically immature that he cannot be trusted to vote “right” (remember, we thought that Switzerland was the archetypus of a mature western European democracy), and whether there will be a coup to prevent Blocher’s advance. There have already been violent demonstrations.
18 col. jeru // Oct 12, 2007 at 6:40 pm
Srithanonchai (#17) Oct 12, 2007 at 3:43 pm – you really will go to ridiculous lengths to place Thaksin Shinawatra on top of a pedestal!
But maybe you are into April fool jokes late October . . . A Swiss politiciain BUYING Swiss votes a-la-Thaksin?
19 nganadeeleg // Oct 12, 2007 at 7:45 pm
You are being a bit hard on Thaksin and his supporters.
Voting for ultra-nationalist/racist policies is worse than selling your vote, and requires a different sort of ignorance.
20 Srithanonchai // Oct 12, 2007 at 8:03 pm
Col. Jeru: As nganadeeleg remarkededin a different context: “Dumb & dumber.” Maybe, you will soon get moved to an inactive position…
21 Col. Jeru // Oct 12, 2007 at 8:58 pm
I stand chastised . . . and ignorance of Swiss politics I certainly admit am I.
22 Srithanonchai // Oct 17, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Rural voters are not at all ignorant — much to the contrary:
“Most of those who sold their votes, or their souls, to the likes of Thaksin knew exactly what they were getting themselves and the country into. The problem is, they did not care whether Thaksin would cheat or steal as long as they got to keep the crumbs under the table. To cynical voters, all politicians are corrupt, and these people made a conscious choice to vote for the devil they knew.”
The Nation, Oct. 17, 2007
As shown in this quote from the editorial, people at The Nation are working hard to increase their degree of ignorance to a level where even the tiny rest of credibility this paper has left is used up. Of course, the editorial doesn’t fail to mention that most of the votes Thaksin got in the elections he won were bought by him. It is sort of a conscious self-destruction of a previously respectable paper–quite amazing.
23 Roxy V // Apr 3, 2008 at 2:24 pm
This IS a very fascinating study! At VoteSizing.org, we feel that the poor should be given a stronger vote… and that money/power needs to be separated to keep the balance. What do you think?
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