Published on October 27, 2005

What’s the main cause of Thailand’s worsening social malaise? Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra posed the question in a recent radio address. He then went on to provide an answer: “excessive capitalism”.

Who’s to blame? He thought he hit the nail on the head by pointing to capitalism. But if he took the issue seriously enough, he would discover that the real answer is closer to home. The growing number of broken families – which is closely linked to the increase in the number of juvenile delinquents – stems from his basic policy to get the populace to borrow, spend and trust that the capitalist system will provide for their future.

“Thai children now get depressed easily, but they seem to have trouble finding happiness,” the premier said. He wasn’t citing his own research into the country’s latest youth culture. I am afraid he was simply trying to impress upon us that he was now finally addressing the weakest link in his election pledge: the social platform.

But then he immediately hurled himself into a self-inflicted dilemma: his populist economic policy, predicated on raw capitalism, has effectively sapped the very foundation of his social platform.

This government has gone all out to encourage citizens to embrace capitalism in all its shady forms. The people have been taught by the powers that be that being in debt is glorious because that’s the path to success (the CEO has cited his own experience to drum that concept into the mind of the average Thai).

In pursuit of its economic package, the government has turned what used to be socially frowned upon into perfectly legitimate activities. Lotteries were once mostly associated with the underground world and crime. Now, it’s a government-sponsored social addiction among middle-class citizens.

At one point, the premier even ordered a plan drawn up for establishing casinos in Thailand.

It was only after a large number of civil-society groups came out to reject the idea that he reluctantly withdrew the controversial scheme. It’s still somewhere in the pipeline, awaiting a politically opportune time to be revived.

Does the prime minister realise that his very own brand of capitalism has brought about his what he describes as “worsening social illness”? Apparently not. The glaring contradictions between the government’s economic and social policies continue to undermine the country’s social fabric. Political populism remains the government’s main thrust. To the powers that be, promoting social stability is only an afterthought.

Corruption is a classic case in point. Political expediency dictates that the premier occasionally deliver some hard-hitting speeches on the issue. But politicians and bureaucrats have routinely, almost habitually, acted in such a way as to suggest that corruption is in fact a socially tolerable, if not an acceptable, practice.

In other words, promises made to gain political advantage have no practical chance of being kept.

If Prime Minister Thaksin at times doesn’t seem to appreciate the contradiction there, don’t assume that it was because of a lack of coordination between Cabinet members who deal with matters of economic policy and those ministers dealing with social issues.

This, in effect, represents another aspect of his famous “dual-track” system for public policy. The only problem is that these two tracks don’t run in parallel. They serve inherently different purposes.

And economic strategies that translate into votes on election day always take precedence over socially important issues.

It should come as no surprise, therefore, that in any crossfire between divergent political and economic interests, it is this government’s social policies that will inevitably suffer the heaviest casualties.

Suthichai Yoon

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