Great link (love the luuk thung singer and the dancers on the front page!).

As an aside, before too long an Andrew Walker edited book titled Tai Lands and Thailand: Community and State in Southeast Asia will be jointly published by National University of Singapore Press and NIA Press. As the table of contents probably suggests, readers may want to bear it in mind for a different take on “chumchon”, and related issues, in Southeast Asia.

Best wishes to all,

Nich

http://www.chumchon.go.th/

It belongs to the “Sufficiency Economy Office for Community Development.” It is under the Office of the Prime Minister and headed, if I remember correctly, by Supatra Masdit.

Its Thai name is สำนักงานชุมชนพอเพียง. The opening page shows an advertisement that I found in Post Today, April 17, 2009, p. 3.

in “Thailand Escapes Financial Meltdown: Past Lessons Helped Nation Lessen Risk”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/23/AR2008102303801.html?hpid=artslot

Who would have thought the Thai political crisis had any economic benefits! I say it’s still early days – and Thailand (and all others) will succumb in the scenario that the US and Europe economy further deteriorates…

You say “these days Thai subjects can hardly be labeled citizens with any substance”

Why you talk like this? Why you angry with Thai people. You angry with me too. I feel. Is this true?

There also seem to be a lot of laughing and sneering to do these days – even The Economist seem to be chanting a new mantra (here through KAL’s cartoon):

http://www.economist.com/daily/kallery/displayStory.cfm?story_id=12532624&source=features_box4

There are good things in Sufficiency Economy – it’s the ‘teachings’ that count, everyone has their flaws, it’s a matter of ‘doing what you can do’. It’s up to the individual to ‘put it into practice’. But ‘oh it’s all so flawed!!!’ I hear many say … from an objective standpoint, yes there are many. Sufficiency Economy, as with more ‘religious’ practice, is more of a subjective pursuit.

Andrew Walker does reject the SE concept as a whole, see his paper “Royal Sufficiency and elite misrepresentation of rural livelihoods”, as well as various articles published here.

Referring to the king’s New Theory in his above paper he argues that “The notion that external linkages should only be developed once there is a foundation in local sufficiency is simply not consistent with the economically diversified livelihood strategies pursued by rural people in contemporary Thailand.” According to him these diversified income patterns are mainly due to the scarcity of fertile land… – Well, there is plenty of unused fertile land in rural Thailand. However, in part it is owned by middle-class Bangkokians as a “safe asset”. This means that the problem is rather the lack of state policies addressing the issue of unjust and uneconomical land distribution.

The New Theory is itself borrowed from the Gandhian concept of an ideal village economy: see Ishii, Kazuya (2001) ‘The Socioeconomic Thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi: As an Origin of Alternative Development’, Review of Social Economy, 59:3, 297 – 312