1

“The Emergence of NGO Movement in Thailand & the Sarit Regime” 1

by Assoc. Prof. Dr Kasian Tejapira

Faculty of Political Science

Thammasat University

Outline

Although by the late 1950s a number of social welfare NGOs had already existed

in Thailand, the so-called “development NGO movement”, which have become gradually

and cumulatively active and well-known in the country during the following four

decades, actually emerged under the Sarit Regime, which spanned the government of

Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat (1959-1963) and his successor Field Marshal Thanom

Kittikachorn (1963-1973). In essence, the NGO movement was an autonomous and

organized response of Thai civil society to the dramatic and massive socio-economic

changes and imbalance caused by the state-planned and promoted rapid development of

the Thai capitalist economy. This economic development, in turn, was made possible by

a confluence of three key factors, namely 1) the military absolutist dictatorship of Sarit

and Thanom, 2) the establishment of state technocratic institution and centralized

economic planning authority to pursue a U.S.-derived “unbalanced growth” strategy, and

3) the overwhelming influence and massive support of the United States in its efforts to

build Thailand up as its staunch ally and the front-line state against the advance of

communism in Southeast Asia. Together, these factors and the socio-economic and

1
This paper is prepared as part of “The NGO in Thailand: Its Development and
Challenges” Research Program, funded by the Institute of Developing Economies,
JETRO, 2004.
 2

political consequences of their confluence constituted the development problematic to

which the NGO movement presented itself as a radical alternative and solution, based on

the principles of people’s rights and freedom, national independence and autonomy, and

sustainable usage and development of natural resources and local cultures and

communities, especially those in the countryside.

Hence, the division of the contents of this paper into four parts as follows: -

1) The Sarit Regime: Military Absolutist Dictatorship

2) American Imperialism: Thailand as ally and regional anti-communist front-line

state

3) Technocracy: Unbalanced Growth Strategy

4) Socio-Economic Malaise: Growing Socio-Economic Imbalance

The Sarit Regime: Military Absolutist Dictatorship

Two years after coming to power in a bloodless coup on October 20th, 1958, the

government of Prime Minister Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat had ordered two seemingly

trivial but symbolically very portentous things. First, the Sarit Government had

appointed a committee chaired by Prince Narathipphongpraphan (alias Mom Chao Wan

Waithayakon Worawan), a veteran diplomat and minister under many constitutional

governments as well as a prominent state intellectual who served at that time as a Deputy

Prime Minister, to review the official designation of June 24 th, the anniversary of the

Constitutional Revolution against the Absolute Monarchy made by the People’s Party in

1932, as the National Day since 1938. Following the said committee’s recommendations,

on May 21st, 1960, the Sarit Government formally resolved to overturn a Prime
 3

Minister’s Office’s Decree of the General Phraya Phahonphonphayuhasena Government

dated July 18th, 1938, which had declared June 24th the National Day, and henceforth hold

December 5th, the anniversary of the current monarch’s birthday, as the day for national

celebrations instead. Justifying the resolution, the new Prime Minister’s Office’s Decree

explained that the change was made “in observance of the tradition of those countries

with the monarchs as heads of state” and also “in order to unite all persons in the nation

spiritually” (cited in Somsak, “24 mithuna”).

In addition, Prime Minister Sarit also had the metal commemorative plaque which

had been affixed by the People’s Party to a spot on the Rajdamnoen Avenue in front of

the Anandasamakhom Throne Hall dug out and removed. The spot was actually where

Colonel Phraya Phahon, as head of the People’s Party, had stood and read out the Party’s

first proclamation declaring the overthrow of the absolute monarchy at dawn on June 24th,

1932. The symbolic significance of this removal can be gauged from the inscription on

the commemorative plaque itself which reads: “June 24th, 1932, here at dawn the

People’s Party gives birth to the Constitution for the sake of national progress” (Prajuab

Amphasawet, Phlik phaendin). 2

Both symbolic acts of the Sarit Regime carried a potent and far-reaching political

import. In effect, it was deliberately marking itself off from the previous post-1932

Revolution constitutional regime by trying to undo the historical legacy of that

Revolution both politically and symbolically as though it had never taken place. If the

2
Fortunately, the then Secretary to the National Assembly, Mr Prasert Pathamasukhon,
exercised his authority to keep the removed commemorative plaque at Parliament for fear
that it would be destroyed. Following Sarit’s demise, Prasert then asked the Bangkok
Metropolitan Administration to return the historic plaque to its original place where it lies
till now.
 4

official designation of June 24th as the National Day and the installation of the June 24 th

commemorative plaque on the Rajdamnoen Avenue by the People’s Party regime

symbolized the abolition of absolutism and its replacement by constitutionalism (i.e.

absolutism  constitutionalism), then the revocation of the National Day, the adoption of

the anniversary of the King’s birthday in its place, and the removal of the

commemorative plaque altogether signified the Sarit Regime’s attempt to reverse the

process, abolish constitutionalism and restore absolutism in Thai politics (i.e.

constitutionalism  absolutism). However, what was restored was emphatically not the

absolute monarchy per se but an absolutist rule by the military strongman, with neither

the rule of law nor a properly functioning constitution to speak of, and with Prime

Minister Field Marshal Sarit himself as the absolute ruler a la Shogun (Anderson,

“Studies of the Thai State” & “Withdrawal Symptoms”, pp. 145-46, 164-66).

This was plainly evident in the so-called “Revolutionary Power” of the Sarit

Regime. All the decrees and orders issued by Sarit as head of the military Revolutionary

Group, which staged the October 1958 coup, had the same binding legal effect as a

proper piece of legislation duly passed by an elected representative parliament even

though he couldn’t legitimately claim to represent anyone but himself. 3

Thus, for

example: -

-The Proclamations of the Revolutionary Group No. 12 stipulated that all those

people charged with breaking the Anti-Communist Activities Act of 1952, both before
3
This was according to Article 3 of the 1959 Act granting a blanket amnesty to all those
who staged the October 20th, 1958 coup. This principle, which in effect retroactively
legitimizes the illegal overthrow of a constitutional government by force and legalizes all
diktats of the power usurper as a legitimate part of the rule of law subsequently, has been
adopted, observed and practiced continually and unconscientiously by the Thai judiciary
ever since.
 5

and after the issuing of this proclamation, would be tried by court-martial (i.e. with

neither defense counsel, nor the right to appeal) and could be detained as long as

necessary for the investigation of their cases, that is indefinitely in practice (Khana

Ratthamontri, Prawat sarit, pp. 79-80).

-The Proclamations of the Revolutionary Group No. 8 & 13 banned all political

parties and forbade any political gathering of five or more people (Khana Ratthamontri,

Prawat sarit, pp. 74).

-The Proclamation of the Revolutionary Group No. 16 imposed a draconian and

all-inclusive censorship regime on the press. Forbidden was any published statement

deemed lese-majesty against the King, the Queen and the Crown Prince; defaming,

satirizing or insulting the government or any government ministry and agency;

propagandizing communist doctrine; inciting unrest; making predictions that induced

public anxiety over national fortune, etc.

Hence, on the morrow of the Revolutionary Group’s coup, the Santibal or Special

Branch police rounded up hundreds of radical leftist and/or opposition politicians,

writers, journalists, teachers, intellectuals, merchants, peasants, workers and union

leaders, and closed down a dozen or so newspapers and printing houses. These “Ladyao

Communists”, so called after the name of the penitentiary where they were jailed, were

generally detained by the police without trial for three to five years and then released, or

were court-martialled and later acquitted, usually after Sarit’s death in 1963. All in all,

1,082 people were arrested and detained by the “Revolutionary Power” of the Sarit

Government from 1958 to 1962.4 Besides, five other arson suspects were summarily
4
Of this number, 420 were actually brought to trial, 186 were simply released, 286 had th
eir cases investigated by the police and subsequently closed, four passed away in detentio
n, four were executed, three managed to escape, and six were referred to the Immigration
 6

executed by order of Sarit himself within three months under his “Revolutionary Power”

rule (Thak, Thailand, pp. 209-20; Khana Ratthamontri, Prawat sarit, pp. 27-31).

If Sarit initially justified his absolute “Revolutionary Power” over the life, liberty

and possesions of all Thai citizens in the immediate aftermath of the coup on grounds of

abnormal emergency situation, what happened afterwards amounts to a normalization and

institutionalization of his absolutism, that is turning his absolutist rule into part of the

normal day-to-day workings of the Thai legal and political system. Sarit achieved this by

promulgating a new constitution on January 28th, 1959, acting on his own authority as

head of the Revolutionary Group. Reputedly drafted by Luang Wijitwathakan, a long-

time careerist state ideologue of authoritarian ethnic nationalism who adaptively managed

to serve both the former Prime Minister Field Marshal Plaek Phibunsongkhram and Sarit,

Plaek’s ouster-cum-successor, the 1959 Constitution notoriously contained Article 17,

which granted absolute power to the Prime Minister, at the request of Sarit himself. The

Article reads: -

Article 17: During the enforcement of the present Constitution, whenever the

Prime Minister deems it appropriate for the purpose of repressing or suppressing

actions whether of internal or external origin which jeopardize the national

security or the Throne or subvert or threaten law and order, the Prime Minister,

by resolution of the Council of Ministers, is empowered to issue orders or take

steps accordingly. Such orders or steps shall be considered legal.

Department for further action (Thak, Thailand, p. 219n115).

 7

All orders issued and steps taken by the Prime Minister in accordance with the

provisions of the foregoing paragraph shall be made known to the National

Assembly. (quoted from Thak, Thailand, p. 200)

Providing in effect for the concentration of executive, legislative and judicial

powers in the hands of the Prime Minister, the 1959 Constitution contained no

constitutional check and balance of power, violated the rule of law, dispensed with the

principles of constitutionalism altogether, and actually granted constitutional sanction and

cover for absolute power.

Armed with the above-mentioned Article 17 of the Constitution, Prime Minister

Sarit further ordered the summary execution of six more communist, millenarian uprising

and heroin production suspects while in office. Together with the five arson suspects

killed earlier by his “Revolutionary Power”, the official death toll of Sarit’s military

absolutist dictatorship reached eleven in five years.5

The absolute ruler died of cirrhosis of the liver on December 8 th, 1963. The

ensuing scandalous legal dispute and court case among his family members over the

division of his huge fortune shockingly revealed to the public that whereas the late Field

Marshal had had personal assets and cash worth only about 10 million Baht upon

assuming absolute power on October 20th, 1958, he left total assets of at least 2,874
5
They were 1) Lim Song, 2) Chin Jamnong, 3) Chin Sewyin, 4) Chin Honsin, and 5) Ung
Sinlapangam, all in the arson suspect category. The rest comprised 6) Sila Wongsin,
leader of a millenarian peasant uprising in the Northeast, 7) Thongphan Sutthimat, a
communist teacher, 8) Khrong Jandawong, a communist teacher-cum-former MP, 9) Lao
Liangho, a heroin producer, 10) Ruam Wongphan, a politbureau member of the
Communist Party of Thailand, and 11) Suphachai Srisati, a labour leader (Khana
Ratthamontri, Prawat sarit, pp. 27-31, 38-47, 66-69; Thak, Thailand, pp. 200-05). All of
them were males.
 8

million Baht upon his death. This means that during the 1,874 days or so in power, Sarit

must have made approximately 1.5 million Baht per day at the minimum (!), a super rate

of earnings for a Prime Minister unthinkable within the bounds of law. To placate the

public’s anger at the scandal, the succeeding government of Prime Minister Field

Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn finally decided to invoke the absolute power under Article

17 of the Constitution to seize his late mentor-cum-predecessor’s assets pending an

investigation by a government committee into the extent of Sarit’s corruption.

Eventually, based on the investigation’s findings, part of these assets worth

604,551,276.62 Baht was expropriated (Thak, Thailand, pp. 335-38; Prajuab, Phlik

phanedin).

Although its founder and namesake was gone and part of his financial legacy

confiscated, the Sarit Regime itself remained and continued to hold absolute sway over

the life, liberty and possessions of all Thais for another decade as a testament to his

political legacy until it was finally overthrown by a student-led popular uprising in

October 1973 (Thak, Thailand, pp. 338-50).

American Imperialism: Thailand as ally and regional anti-communist front-line

state

David A. Wilson, a conservative American scholar who published a study of Thai

politics during the post-war decade (1946-1957), had described the conditions of

Thailand at that time in the following words: -

 9

The society of Thailand today is, as it was a century ago, predominantly pre-

industiral – almost pre-commercial – economically; more or less neolithic

technologically; and residually feudal socially. (quoted from Wilson, Politics in

Thailand)

In the same vein, James C. Ingram, writing of the state of the Thai economy in the

year 1955 in his important study of Thai economic development, had pointed out the

same phenomena as follows: -

The Thai population has largely remained in agriculture and has neither

improved techniques nor increased the proportion of capital to labour.

Moreover, most changes in the economy as a whole have been in volume rather

than kind. New methods have not been used, new products have not been

developed. No product of any importance (besides rubber) is exported today

which was not exported in 1850. (quoted from Ingram, Economic Change in

Thailand)

Thus we have it, in the good words of both Mr. Wilson and Mr. Ingram, a

testimony to the effect that, for a full century after the conclusion of the Bowring Treaty

between Great Britain and Siam in 1855 which had opened the Siamese economy to the

world market, Thailand had been in a relative socio-economic stasis while the world was

being completely transformed. Any changes that had taken place in the direction of

market economy and commodity production were rather quantitative in nature and
 10

mainly limited to the rice growing areas in the central plains near Bangkok. However,

that was prior to the rise of the Sarit Regime, which would shortly radically transformed

the Thai economy and society in the following two decades.

Absolute as its power might have been, the Sarit Regime alone couldn’t have so

rapidly changed Thailand but for American massive financial aid and direct investment as

well as huge military spending and presence in the country during the Indochinese War.

As one of the two nuclear superpowers to have emerged out of WWII, the U.S. had

moved in to strategically replace the old European colonial powers in post-war Southeast

Asia, used Thailand as the geopolitical pillar and main base of its expansionist policies in

the region, and waged a bloody, costly, intensive war against the communist-led national

liberation movements in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia from the mid-1960s to 1975.

Thailand, being America’s most secure and conveniently accessible ally in mainland

Southeast Asia as well as closest to the Indochinese theatre, was thus deeply and directly

involved in the war as the front-line station for American expeditionary forces and the

most active and important “gigantic immobile aircraft carrier” for American bomber

and fighter planes, with 80% of all American bombs dropped in Indochina throughout the

war being flown there from Thai soil. The number of American soldiers stationed in

Thailand during the war used to reach almost 50,000 (Anderson, “Withdrawal

Symptoms,” p. 146). As of the year 1973, there were 12 U.S. military bases and 550 U.S.

war planes in the country (Prajak, “Kon ja theung 14 tula”).

In return, the U.S. government showered Thailand with all kinds of military,

economic, technical and academic aid and assistance as well as encouraged large-scale

American and Japanese private investment in the country. John L. S. Girling, in his book
 11

Thailand: Society and Politics, has helpfully compiled and summarized relevant data in

this regard as follows: -

Altogether, from 1950 to 1975, the United States provided some $650 million for

its economic development program in Thailand…The total U.S. “regular military

assistance” to the Thai armed forces from 1951 to 1971 amounted to $935.9

million. This was the equivalent of 59 percent of the total Thai military budget for

the same period ($1,366.7 million). In addition, the United States provided a

further $760 million in “operating costs,” for acquisition of military equipment,

and in payment for the Thai division in Vietnam ($200 million over four years).

U.S. base construction – the Sattahip navy facilities – amounted to a further $205

million. Finally, expenditure by U.S. military personnel in Thailand (around

50,000 at their peak in 1968-69) for rest and recreation, and other items, added a

further $850 million or so. (quoted from Girling, Thailand, pp. 235, 236)

Thus, excluding foreign private investment and tourism earnings, the continual

flow of American dollars from U.S. government sources into the country reached at least

$3.49 billion in a period of 20 years or so. It was this massive injection of financial

resources from outside that helped create a war-related economic boom and jump-start

the overall transformation of the Thai economy and social structure.

Having firmly and fatefully committed Thailand to the U.S.-led Cold War and

Indochinese War in the region, the Sarit Regime, in its turn, made full use of American

aid, assistance and resources to build up a nationwide network of socio-economic

 12

infrastructure, modernize and strengthen the state security apparatus, and thereby extend

the reach of its military absolutist government throughout the country. With the Army as

the mainstay of its power and the Prime Minister’s Office, modelled after the U.S.

presidential administration, as its command center, the Thai state had penetrated so far

and so deep into Thai society and the countryside as never before. It was with this strong

state and the absolute power in its hands that the Sarit Regime launched and carried out

its planned wholesale development of the Thai economy against all odds and opposition.

Technocracy: Unbalanced Growth Strategy

Instrumental to Sarit’s founding of the developmentalist planning regime was the

Proclamation of the Revolutionary Group No. 11, dated October 22 nd, 1958, by which a

firm political and constitutional principle was laid down for the Thai state’s long-term

commitment to, and continuation of, free-market capitalist economic development

(Khana Ratthamontri, Prawat sarit, pp. 77-79). Issued only two days after the coup, the

Proclamation pointed to both the priority given to the matter by Sarit and his advisers, as

well as the careful preparations made for it. Essentially, the document made the

following three main points: -

1) The coup and the economic plan

For the fist time since the fierce controversy over Pridi Banomyong’s radical

socialistic Economic Plan and its eventual sour defeat at the hands of the conservative

royalists in the aftermath of the 1932 Constitutional Revolution, a group of successful

coup-makers was not content with the mere seizure of state power but also seriously

pursued a grand economic reform plan.

 13

2) Technocracy, the government and the economic plan

It announced the Revolutionary Group’s design for a technocratic institution

named “the National Economic Planning Board”, entrusted with drawing “a permanent

plan” for both short-term and long-term purposes so that subsequent governments would

be bound to follow and implement the plan regardless of the whim of the government of

the day. Consequently, instead of being subject to the sovereign power of the

government as was normally the case, the technocrats’ economic development plan

would henceforth set the parameters within which the government was supposed to work.

3) The constitution and the economic plan

So as to bind future governments to the continual implementation of the

permanent economic plan, the Proclamation insisted on a close linkage between the

constitution and the economic plan i.e. relevant economic principles must be incorporated

into the constitution as far as possible. In effect, the idea was to integrate the economic

plan with the “social contract” and thereby with the raison d’etre of the Thai state itself.

Actually, the impetus for economic development planning originated from the

result of an economic survey of Thailand conducted by a World Bank commission of

seven Western experts from July 1957 to June 1958, at the request of the former Plaek

Phibunsongkhram Government in November 1955 (Samnakngan Sapha Phatthanakan

Setthakij, Khrongkan phatthanakan, pp. ko-cho). Having carried out the survey in co-

operation with a group of leading Thai economists and government officials assigned by

the Phibun Cabinet, the World Bank commission subsequently produced a report entitled

“A Public Development Program for Thailand”, which, among other things,

recommended the Thai government: -

 14

1) to establish a politically independent, central development planning and

economic monitoring agency, responsible to a cabinet-level national development board

which was to be chaired by the Prime Minister himself;

2) to withdraw from new, risky industries and provide adequate and effective

incentives and services for the private sector to enter those industries instead;

3) to overhaul, streamline, rationalize and tighten controls on the budgetary

process so that the budget would serve the national economic development plan and

accord with its priorities (Samnakngan Sapha Phatthanakan Setthakij, Khrongkan

phatthanakan, pp. 35-41, Chapter 8).

The survey having begun just two months prior to the fall of Phibun and

concluded only four months before the coming to power of Sarit, the resultant World

Bank program thus acted as a catalyst that conjoined the new political regime and a new

development direction for Thailand, activating a combined force of Sarit’s absolutist

power, American imperialist wherewithal, and the technocratic strategic planning and

technical know-how in the momentous transformation of Thai economy and society.

The dynamics and tendency of this socio-economic transformation was in fact

already portended by the strategic thinking and presuppositions behind the economic

planning of a relatively young, post-war generation of Thai technocrats, a key figure

among whom was Dr Amnuay Wirawan, a fresh doctoral graduate in economics from the

U.S. Dubbed a “supertechnocrat”, Amnuay soon became the star economic adviser to

Sarit as head of the Revolutionary Group, before rising to the position of Secretary of the

Board of Investment, and later to that of Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance.

Deeply influenced by the “unbalanced growth” theory of Professor M.O. Hirschman, an

 15

American economist, in his book The Strategy of Economic Development (1958),

Amnuay, in a 1972 article entitled “Konlayut haeng kanphatthana setthakij” (i.e. “The

Strategy of Economic Development”), revealed the logic behind the economic

development planning in which he must have played an influential part as follows: -

“…The real process of development consists of an advance or an imbalance in

one sector of the economy or an industry or a company, an imbalance caused by

the fact that an economic sector or an industry or a company advances faster than

others. Then other sectors will try to catch up to redress this imbalance. It means

that an advance in one sector of the economy will expand to other sectors. Hence

the unevenness of the development process which consists of various imbalances

and the consequential attempts to redress them…

“…The imbalance or disproportion that has occurred will help generate a market

force (in other words providing an opportunity for private entrepreneurs to make

profit) and in turn lead to the rise of a non-market force (public opinion or

political pressure). The market force will encourage and promote private

entrepreneurs to initiate and expand economic activities while the non-market

force will encourage and pressure government officials into taking measures to

redress the said imbalance.” (quoted in Saneh, Kanmeuang thai, pp. 304-05)

In short, the logic of the “unbalanced growth” strategy of economic development

that had been put into practice by Amnuay and his colleagues, through Sarit’s absolutism
 16

and with the help of American imperialism, presupposed a series of economic and

political chain reaction that could be simply set off by [1] the government’s opening and

promotion of investment and profit-making opportunities for the private sector. This

policy will then in and of itself led inexorably to  [2] the growth of market forces, 

[3] economic imbalance,  [4] public political pressure by non-market forces,  [5]

economic redistribution by the government, and finally  [6. economic balance], then

back to the beginning [1] all over again ad infinitum.

However, this was not to be and had not been the case in reality. The Sarit

Government and its successors did [1] open and promote private investment and profit

making alright, with all kinds of incentives and services amply and generously provided

for both Thai and foreign private entrepreneurs. It did lead to [2] the spectacular growth

of market forces and [3] the resultant stark economic imbalance. And yet, at that crucial

juncture in the logical chain of events, something intervened and consequently [4], [5],

[6] did not and never happened in the way that was envisioned in theory.

The reason was simple for this was Thailand under Sarit’s military absolutist

dictatorship, not the United States of America under a democracy where civil rights and

freedom were respected and guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Here

even a political gathering of five or more people was outlawed. No worker could

organize a union;6 no peasant could stage a mass protest; no politician could set up a

party and expect to be left alone in peace by the police and the military. The veteran,

experienced leaders, activists and intellectuals of the banned radical people’s movements

of yesteryear were either summarily executed or languishing in jail without trial, or went

6
Denounced by Sarit as a communist front and an obstacle to economic development, all
labour unions were banned under the Proclamation of the Revolutionary Group No. 19.
 17

into hiding or exile, or opted out of politics and led a quiet, unassuming, private life.

Thus, undoubtedly and understandably, under the Sarit Regime there was hardly any

public political pressure by non-market forces [4], little by way of an earnest economic

redistribution policy by the government [5], and therefore no economic balance to speak

of [6]. In fact, economic imbalance was aggravating day by day. And with the private

sector legally allowed and encouraged to organize into pressure groups by the military

government under the Business Association Act of 1966, leading to the founding of the

“three associations”, namely the Thai Chamber of Commerce, the Thai Bankers’

Association, and the Federation of Thai Industries, which formally represented the Thai

private sector as a whole, there arose also an officially-sanctioned structural asymmetry

of political power between the market forces and the non-market forces. Hence, poltical

imbalance grew in tandem with economic imbalance, doubly widening the gap between

the private sector and the people sector (Saneh, Kanmeuang thai, pp. 305ff, 326).

Socio-Economic Malaise: Growing Socio-Economic Imbalance

The upshot of the “unbalanced growth” development strategy was clear and

incontrovertible. Rapid, impressive economic growth did occur but in a starkly and

emphatically unbalanced manner, creating deep and persistent structural disparities

between the increasingly rich and prosperous city and the poor and impoverished

countryside; between the more affluent, better serviced and educated Bangkok plus

central Thailand and the less fortunate, more ignorant and rather neglected rest of the

country; between the more invested and developed modern industry and service sectors

of the economy and the dwindling, resource-depleted, largely unviable rural agriculture.
 18

Thus, for example, from 1960 to 1965, Gross National Income grew at an annual

rate of 7.5% while Gross Domestic Investment did so at 14.4%. And from 1959 to 1969,

Gross National Product increased annually by 8.6%. Meanwhile, as vast tracts of rural

land was turned by the government’s infrastructure development projects into a hot

commodity and a hoarded object for speculative investment, there arose a new class of

rural landlords alongside a growing number of landless peasants. Millions of the latter

then migrated from the countryside to the city in search of job and educational

opportunities, higher income and a better life. With little or no skill, education and

resource, most of them joined a large mass of unemployed or underemployed lumpen

proletarians, or became members of a sprouting new petty bourgeoisie. A concurrent

shift in the employment structure occurred, with the growth rate of employment in the

industry and service sectors many times outpacing that in agriculture. Bangkok became a

primate city, with its population jumping at an accelerating rate. Urban slums sprang up

and traffic congestion turned into a daily woo of Bangkokians. (Anderson, “Withdrawal

Symptoms,” pp. 143-44n15, 146n25, 148-50).

Writing in 2002, Associate Professor Pranee Tinakorn of the Faculty of

Economics, Thammasat University, has made a retrospective scrutiny of the record of

national economic development in the past four decades (1961-2001) and come up with a

depressing balance sheet (Pranee, “Khwamleuamlam khong kankrajai raidai”). On the

one hand, it is true that Thai economic growth has been impressively continual and above

the world average (i.e. the average annual rate of Thai economic growth during the said

period was 6.7% while that of the world was 4%). This has translated into higher per
 19

capita income for people at all levels and a remarkable reduction in the absolute poverty

rate from 57% of the population in the year 1962/63 to 11.2% in 1996.

However, the distribution of that higher and growing national income has been

increasingly unequal. For example, in the year 1975/76, the poorest 20% of the

population used to receive 6% of the gross national income while the richest 20% got

49.2% of the same. In 2000, the poorest 20%’s share of the gross national income has

dwindled to 3.9% while that of the richest 20% has grown to 57.8%. That means the

ratio of the income of the richest 20% of the population to that of the poorest 20% has

almost doubled from 8.1:1 in 1975/76 to 14.9:1 in 2000. However, if we focus only on

the top and bottom 10% of the income groups among the population, the ratio of the two

groups’ income rises to 27:1 as of the year 2000. In short, the rule of Thai economic

development turns out to be “the bigger the cake, the more unequal the shares.” So much

so that, according to Professor Pasuk Phongpaichit of the Faculty of Economics,

Chulalongkorn University, Thailand is at present one of those countries with the most

unequal income distribution in the world, the situation here being worse than that in 18

other Asian countries, including Japan, India, the U.S.A., and Great Britain (Pasuk, “Jak

jon theung ruai”).

Analysing the causes of these growing inequalities, Pranee points to the fact that

every national development plan so far (with the exception of the Eighth Plan) has given

priority first of all to “economic growth”, and secondly to “economic stability”. None of

them has ever set “fair income distribution” as its main objective. Lacking have been

those public policies and measures geared towards income and wealth redistribution such

as land reform, property tax, inheritance tax, etc. On the contrary, tax and investment
 20

privileges for the capitalist entrepreneurs abound. Besides, the government has not taken

regional economic disparities into account in allocating its budget. For example, in 1997,

43.7% of public capital spending was concentrated in Bangkok and its environs where

only 12.2% of the population resided. In general, per capita government spending in a

certain region tends to increase as per capita income of the population there rises (Pranee,

“Khwamleuamlam khong kankrajai raidai”; and also Pasuk, “Jak jon theung ruai”).

The consequential critical socio-economic malaise, caused by the above-described

unbalanced, unequal, unfair and unsustainable state-planned and promoted national

economic development, thus posed an immense and unprecedented challenge that the

Thai development NGO movement has risen to meet.

 21

References

Anderson, Benedict. “Chapter 7 Withdrawal Symptoms.” The Spectre of Comparisons:

Nationalism, Southeast Asia, and the World. London and New York: Verso, 1998.
Pp. 139-73.
Anderson, Benedict R.O ’G. “Studies of the Thai State: The State of Thai Studies.” in
The Study of Thailand: Analysis of Knowledge, Approaches, and Prospects in
Anthropology, Art History, Economics, History and Political Science, edited by
Eliezer B.Ayal. Athens, Ohio: Center for International Studies, Ohio
University,1979. Pp. 193-247.
Girling, John L. S. Thailand: Society and Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985.
Ingram, James C. Economic Change in Thailand, 1850-1970. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford
University Press, 1971.
Khana Ratthamontri. Prawat lae pholngan khong jomphol sarit thanarat [The Life and
Work of Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat]. Cremation volume of Field Marshal Sarit
Thanarat. Thepsirintharawas Temple, Bangkok, 1964.
Pasuk Phongpaichit. “Jak jon theung ruai thammai hang kan leua koen?” [Why such a
gap between the poor and the rich?], Matichon Raiwan, 9 July 2003, p. 6.
Prajak Kongkirati. “Kon ja theung 14 tula: khwam khleuanwai thang kanmeuang
watthanatham khong nakseuksa lae panyachon phai tai rabob phadejkan thahan
(pho. so. 2506-2516)” [Prior to the 14 October Uprising: The cultural political
movement of students and intellectuals under military dictatorship, 1963-1973].
Master’s Thesis, Thammasat University, 2002.
Prajuab Amphasawet. Phlik phaendin: prawat kanmeuang thai 24 mithunayon 2475 – 14
tulakhom 2516 [Revolution: A History of Thai Politics from 24 June 1932 – 14
October 1973]. Bangkok: Sukkhaphap Jai Publishing House, 2000.
Pranee Tinakorn. “Khwamleuamlam khong kankrajai raidai nai chuang si thossawas
khong kanphatthana prathet: 2504-2544” [The Inequalities of Income
Distribution in Four Decades of National Development, 1961-2001]. Paper
presented in the 2002 Annual Academic Conference of the Faculty of Economics,
Thammasat University, at Thammasat University, 12 June 2002.
 22

Saneh Chamarik. Kanmeuang thai kab phatthanakan ratthathammanoon [Thai Politics

and Constitutional Development]. Bangkok: Thai Khadi Research Institute,
Thammasat University & the Foundation for the Promotion of Social Sciences
and Humanities Textbooks Project, 1986.
Samnakngan Sapha Phatthanakan Setthakij Haeng Chat. Khrongkan phatthanakan khong
rat samrab prathet thai (kham plae) raingan khong khana samruaj setthakij
khong thanakhan rawang prathet pheua kanboorana lae wiwatthanakan [A
Public Development Program for Thailand (Translation): Report of the World
Bank Economic Survey Commission]. Bangkok: Office of the National Economic
Development Board, 1960.
Somsak Jeamteerasakul. “24 mithuna khoey pen lae loek pen wan chat dai yang rai?”
[How June 24th had once become and no longer was the National Day?], Matichon
Daily, 2 September 2003, p. 6.
Thak Chaloemtiarana. Thailand: The Politics of Despotic Paternalism. Bangkok: Social
Science Association of Thailand and the Thai Khadi Research Institute,
Thammasat University, 1979.
Wilson, David A. Politics in Thailand. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962.