The enthusiasm with which the new regime in Thailand has latched onto the “sufficiency economy” concept underlies its regulatory force. Over the past decade or so a number of different approaches have emerged which seek to moderate and regulate the aspirations of Thailand’s rural poor. Expressed in various elitist, royalist and activist forms these approaches have argued that the rights of rural people should only be fully respected provided they are willing to pursue livelihoods that make modest claims on natural resources and government budgets. Many of the rights-based campaigns waged by NGOs have been based on a regulatory vision of rural lifestyles in which images of subsistence-oriented economic pursuits (grounded in traditional local wisdom and original local communities) predominate. Participation in the market was all too often condemned as an individualistic aberration.
Now the chickens of this regulatory vision are coming home to roost. Not only are rural people to be shielded (or excluded) from full and active participation in the national economy but their full and active participation in electoral democracy has been pushed aside in favour of Bangkok’s enlightened national leadership. Sufficiency democracy, like sufficiency economy, amounts to keeping rural aspirations firmly in their place.
21 responses so far ↓
1 Vichai N // Oct 4, 2006 at 1:55 am
I have not read adequately on the subject to comment. But offhand, if your statement below is true:
“Expressed in various elitist, royalist and activist forms these approaches have argued that the rights of rural people should only be fully respected provided they are willing to pursue livelihoods that make modest claims on natural resources and government budgets.”
then the ‘Sufficiency Democracy’ is ethically wrong, economically unsound and absurdly divisive.
That is why I disbelieve Mr. Andrew Walker on his stated thesis about Thailand’s ‘Sufficiency Democracy’.
2 Anon // Oct 4, 2006 at 10:49 am
The key question for the Thai people is “how to give them peace and security, have safety and live under a fair and just government.” The problem is that “Procedures and principles that we have imported for use are sometimes not suitable to the condition of Thailand or the character of Thai people.”
Thus, Thai people must be willing to “accept the acceptable. We must use what we have available. It is evident that in the past three years that several countries established on the basis of idealist theories of government have collapsed. Is Thailand going to collapse too?”
Because for Thai people, “our loss is our gain. We have enough, enough to live. We don’t want to be a very advanced country. If we become a very advanced country, then we can only go backwards. Countries such as this, they have advanced industry, are just going backwards. However, if we have a ‘poor man’ style of administrative system, that is, not too attached to dogmatic theory, but which has unity and mutual kindness, then we can survive forever.”
I wont tell you who made these comments… I’m sure you can guess.
3 Vichai N // Oct 4, 2006 at 11:32 pm
So Anon - - what is your point? I have read, I can guess who wrote it . . and I still cannot divine anything in the message that I should be alarmed about.
4 Anon // Oct 5, 2006 at 6:16 am
Maybe some additional comments might be insightful:
“To become a tiger (economy) is not important. The important thing for us is to have a self-supporting economy. A self-supporting economy meant to have enough to survive. Each village or district must have relative self-sufficiency. Things that are produced in surplus can be sold, but should be sold in the same region.”
“Placing too much emphasis on the production of industrial goods will not succeed, as the local market has declined because the people now have lower purchasing power. Other countries also have their own difficulties and will not by our products. If there are industrial products and there are no buyers, the efforts will be of no avail. A careful step backwards must be taken. A return to less sophisticated methods.”
The solution? “If the situation can change back to an economy that is self-sufficient – it doesn’t have to be 100%, or even 50%, but perhaps only 25% – it will be bearable. The remedy will take time; it wont be easy. Usually one is impatient because one suffers, but if it is done from this moment on, the recovery is possible.”
Do you really see no similarity to what you, Vichai N, call an ethically wrong, economically unsound and absurdly divisive policy?
5 Naphat Kijsamrej // Oct 5, 2006 at 7:53 am
I’m not sure about this statement here: “the rights of rural people should only be fully respected provided they are willing to pursue livelihoods that make modest claims on natural resources and government budgets.”
How has any model of sufficient economy, as elitist and top-down a policy as they can be, been contingent of people giving up certain rights? I thought some models, like the one articulated in the UNDP Human Development Report is all about the empowerment of rural communities and about asserting political rights (rights to manage community forests, etc.)
6 Ant // Oct 5, 2006 at 9:52 am
Andrew, the idea of the “sufficiency economy” , if it were actually being implemented (or possible to implement) as opposed to being merely ideological rhetoric, could be accused of being a mechanism of exclusion of the peasantry from “the market”. The idea that the coup is a replication of the same sentiment (in practice), but in the political arena, is quite a long bow at this stage of the game. The dust hasn’t settled on this coup and the power base of the rural population that you so clearly see the previous regime as having been based on have in the past resisted certain regimes and regime changes so why wouldn’t they now, if they really were being disaffected from the political process, as you claim. It would appear that in your analysis you would be in tacit agreement with certain world system models that you critique in your book. Is this your intent here or are you just expressing frustration at the audacity of the urban capital for having more of a voice in the games of political “patty cake” (such as the other two posters above)?
Speaking of which can anyone actually decipher what Anon and Vichai are talking (debating?) about here? All I can get from the not so subtle innuendos and English language affectations that so cleverly veil what they are actually trying to say is that they buy into wholesale, some rather dated ideas about “Thai people” and their special needs due to an imagined difference to the rest of the world, along with some of the old Phibun rhetoric also.
Regardless, I think all of you are a bit out of touch with the rural population that you all claim to speak on behalf of (in varying degrees) and your dependency on “elite” sources and views for your discussion, with very little or no feel for what is happening in the rural areas is patently clear. The two posts above epitomise this perspective and no where do any of you recognise just how this kind of ideological rubbish is negotiated by the “poor folk” of Thailand.
For example and representing an icon of what the “self sufficiency” ideology is aimed at controlling / excluding (I say unsuccessfully) is the entrepreneurial spirit of so many of Thailand’s rural “poor”, the women (and some men) who are through now, sheer numbers, and incredible skill bringing to the northeast tens of millions of dollars a year through working in the sex industry, marrying etc. Far more effective in bringing wealth to the area, at village levels, than the last three decades of NGO development attempts and “glum Mae bahn and Glum liang wua” type govt initiatives. For those of you who might like to dispute this claim I refer you to many of the northeast’s provincial governor’s “Farang Son in Law” “Mia Farang” days that are being held annually in recognition of the contribution of these couplings to the local economies. So come on people lets move beyond the rhetoric of nationalist pride and cultural conservatism and inject a bit of reality into the discussion. Tiger economies and unique Thai needs, or the needs for paternalistic government etc are dated notions that proved to be fallacious in their hey day, in South Korea, Inodnesia and Thailand, let them go, and have a look at what IS happening.
7 Vichai N // Oct 5, 2006 at 12:03 pm
I can guess who feeds you all this crap. I am angry that you continue on with your nonsense interpretation of HMK’s sufficiency economy but I immediately sense your malice. But you will go on I am sure with this misinformation campaign out of desperation or spite or both.
For the benefit of whoever by chance was drawn to this website/forum, I will post the Bank of Thailand’s official release on Thailand’s Sufficiency Economy below:
———————
SUFFICIENCY MODEL
‘Economic policies can coexist ‘
Pridiyathorn, right: Sufficiency and market liberalisation are a good combination.
BOT chief: Expand within our means
MR Pridiyathorn Devakula, the head of the economic team for the new interim government, said an economic policy of sufficiency could be implemented suitably along with market liberalisation by boosting growth from existing resources.
He insisted gross domestic product (GDP) growth next year would not be lower than this year’s economic growth, expected to be 4.5-4.6 per cent. He said that next year’s GDP growth was anticipated at 4-5.3 per cent.
The new government headed by General Surayud Chulanont recently announced a key economic policy of sufficiency, focusing not only on GDP growth, but also on income distribution.
Pridiyathorn, also governor of the Bank of Thailand (BOT), yesterday defined an economic policy of sufficiency amid Thailand’s current market liberalisation.
He said a sufficiency economy and market liberalisation were a good combination.
“If we had market liberalisation without a policy of sufficiency, growth would be boosted too fast beyond our limits,” he said. “And this could lead to a crisis similar to what happened in 1997, when we grew too fast with insufficient savings. We needed to depend on foreign capital of more than US$100 billion [Bt3.76 trillion]. Then we fell down.”
Pridiyathorn said a sufficiency economy could get along well with market liberalisation if the economy did not grow to exceed its capacity; otherwise, excess growth would produce inflation and bring about capital outflows.
“As announced by the CNS [Council for National Security], Thailand is still a liberalised market, with the private sector as the key driver boosting the economy,” he said.
He said a sufficiency economy began with the individual, the smallest unit of society, who would not spend more than his income, while businesses must not expand their operations to exceed their capital limitations.
In addition, Thailand’s economy should grow within the limitations of existing resources, he said. In other words, the country will have to boost resources to support economic growth.
“Economic growth must not exceed existing savings, which would cause problems,” said Pridiyathorn. Moreover, the country must restrain the economy from expanding to a degree that creates a negative impact on the environment and finally affects people’s “balance of life”. If the environment were damaged, tourism would consequently be affected.
“How much GDP growth there should be is uncertain. It depends on how the growth would help distribute incomes. How much growth there should be depends on the environment and resources. Our economy depends on the global economy, as well. But for now, economic growth does not exceed our capacity,” he said.
The head of the new economic team said earlier-than-expected government spending and private-investment recovery, as well as higher-than-expected exports, would boost economic growth for the rest of this year and next year.
He said the government’s 2007 fiscal spending would be only three months late, rather than the nine months expected earlier.
In addition, with a clearer political situation and stable oil prices, private investment is likely to accelerate from this year’s fourth quarter rather than early next year as expected earlier.
BOT assistant governor Atchana Waiquamdee said yesterday exports were likely to grow higher than previously expected in the second half, because export growth in the first two months of the second half was higher than had been predicted. Thus, exports will be the key economic driver for the rest of this year.
Pridiyathorn also said the new government would implement only those mass-transit projects that really benefited the public. For example, the government will select and build a key electric-train route before building the next route to be connected to the first.
He added that the three earlier electric-train routes planned by the former government might be reviewed.
Atchana said the economy was still decelerating in the second half and that original forecasts of fourth-quarter results had not changed.
But there will be clear reasons for growth in next year’s first quarter as a result of declining oil prices and government budget disbursement.
She said that so far, the economy had not suffered a psychological effect from the coup. Instead, the problem is that economic growth is not broad-based, but rather based only in the export sector. This means domestic vendors do not feel good, because they do not benefit from high exports.
She added that in terms of income distribution, big companies were benefiting, but small ones were not.
Prakit Shinamornpong, deputy chairman of the Thai Hotels Association, said tourist cancellations reached 20 per cent during the coup, but now bookings have begun returning to normal. Next year, the tourism sector should improve, driven by the new Suvarnabhumi Airport and its boom effect on Pattaya. He hoped a target of 15 million tourists would be reachable.
Real-estate expert Manop Pongsawat said he predicted that by the end of this year, there would be a price war among condominiums, especially those located close to the Skytrain, because many condos were being launched simultaneously. The political factor has had only a short-term effect on the property sector. In the long term, real-estate developers fear high interest rates.
Fiscal Policy Office director Ekniti Nitithanprapas said that next year, Thai exports might face a risk from a slowdown in economic growth, which would affect the automotive and electronics sectors.
Anoma Srisukkasem, The Nation Oct-04/06
8 Vichai N // Oct 5, 2006 at 5:07 pm
Hello everyone - - what happened to my posts.
I have got you pegged everyone earlier on . . . this is no FORUM. This is another vehicle for Thaksin’s paid legions to begin their malicious slander on Thailand’s monarchy, is it not?
All your high-falutin ridiculous posters will not be able to deceive people. Jeez people . . I got you pegged the first time I walked in.
Pathethic SOBs you all are.
9 New Mandala » Exhibition: The King - “Father of Thai Innovation” // Oct 5, 2006 at 9:09 pm
[...] I assume the exhibition is open to the public. In light of recent debates here at New Mandala that have focussed on self-sufficiency and royal ideas, readers in Bangkok may be keen to see the exhibition for themselves. [...]
10 Anon // Oct 7, 2006 at 8:49 pm
My sources for that ideological rubbish were direct quotes from speeches by the King. And yes, I agree that it is intellectual rubbish. But that’s why I’m posting under “Anon.”
Since he wished to step down from his pedestal and lead this coup, then he should be ready to face the criticism of the people.
11 Nganadeeleg // Oct 8, 2006 at 2:22 pm
Most people seem to over analyse what the King is on about.
I think the ‘having enough to live on and to live for’ clarification shows where his motivation is.
Basically it is an anti greed philosophy … very idealistic, but if it was practiced throughtout the world I’m sure the world would be a better place.
12 Vichai N // Oct 8, 2006 at 7:22 pm
Anon - You aspire to be ‘Kingly’ like Thaksin who was from the gutter bred. Check where your heart is before you question Thailand’s King’s motivations. Don’t overpresume on anything you do not comprehend. Pass on the same message to Andrew Walker who is NOT a writer nor a columnist, but a blovatiating rumor-monger.
13 hammer // Oct 13, 2006 at 7:46 pm
Anon is frustrated because he wanted to be a leader of his nation (wherever it is) but can’t seem to be able to become a leader because of his short-sighted vision (that is why he is posting his views here because he finds there are some people who can agree with his negative vision). Now, tell me what is the difference between “self-sufficient economy”, “self-sufficiency economy” and “sufficiency economy”? Don’t say they are the same because they are not. Give the definition correctly and then, Anon, you just might one day become a great intellectual donkey yourself one day (so you won’t have to hide behind that awful mask). I’ll wait for your answer then I will tell you the rest.
14 New Mandala » Virtuous sufficiency // Oct 29, 2006 at 5:48 pm
[...] Second, there is the now familiar references to “sufficiency economy”. It is interesting that this is taking such a central place in the regime’s policy, when it is a concept that still has to be clarified. (”The government is expected to clarify the sufficiency economy philosophy…”) I see little in this policy statement to make me change my mind that sufficiency economy is primarily a regulatory concept aimed at managing the aspirations of rural people (in particular) who see an economic and political future for themselves rather different to the harmonious and virtuous future envisaged for them by the benevolent rulers in Bangkok. Surayud and his advisors seem concerned that foreign investors may interpret “sufficiency economy” as an inward looking economic approach. How could investors get such a silly idea? Just look at this positively cosmopolitan vision from a key book about the “new (?) theory” on sufficiency economy: [...]
15 New Mandala » Thai style democracy – sufficiency democracy or “Asian values” reborn? // Oct 30, 2006 at 2:17 pm
[...] I wonder if Thai style democracy is the sufficiency democracy I wrote about earlier? [...]
16 New Mandala » Prawase Wasi’s sufficiency democracy // Nov 29, 2006 at 11:32 am
[...] Thanks, again, to Patiwat, for drawing our attention to a key political statement, this time from “respected intellectual” Prawase Wasi. The Nation carries a summary of Prawase’s manifesto for what I like to call “sufficiency democracy“: The new constitution should reduce the power and number of MPs and help bureaucrats be independent from politicians, respected intellectual Dr Prawase Wasi suggested yesterday. Prawase said society had to admit that politicians - who are elected to represent the people - create problems.”They neither have the knowledge nor the competency. They are only interested in making connections in order to get into the House. It is more suitable to call them election winners,’’ he said. MPs or politicians should not be empowered to be executives. “Their role should be limited to writing policies.” [...]
17 Frustrated // Dec 3, 2006 at 4:16 pm
To khun Vichai N,
Could you please go and read this post and tell me if you know anything about these or if they are true or not? http://www.tmctoday.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=580
Thank you,
18 Vichai N. // Dec 3, 2006 at 10:15 pm
I have read it so what? Some stupid forum (more likely those spiteful pro-Thaksins) bad-mouthing the junta. Nothing new . . what junta termed ‘undercurrents’ but what I term malicious and without credibility.
19 New Mandala » Sufficiency democracy - you read it here first! // Dec 26, 2006 at 10:52 am
[...] Some time ago I wrote about the post-coup emergence of “sufficiency democracy” thinking. Some readers were, quite rightly, skeptical. But I am pleased to say that the idea has now been taken up by the Election Commission of Thailand. [...]
20 Teth // Nov 10, 2007 at 8:59 am
To summarize Vichai N.: “YOU LOT ARE ACADEMIC-SOUNDING THAKSIN LACKEYS! F-OFF!!!!!1111”
I laugh at his ability to be wound up protecting the dignity of one man whom he does not know, has probably not met, and has done nothing for him except make him feel good before he watches a movie.
Continue getting wound up and make a fool of yourself. It is the most mature and erudite case you have made in support of HMK!
21 Time to go home // Jul 7, 2008 at 9:25 am
[...] bring the elected government down. Their agenda is to campaign for a perverted form of democracy-“sufficiency democracy”-in which representation is achieved by appointment. Their agenda is to impose a minority [...]
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