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Commentators in Thailand often like to assert that rural people are not overly worried about corruption. In my experience this is far from the truth. I have found that discussions of corruption, in both its mundane and more spectacular forms, are part and parcel of local political culture in rural Thailand. What is confusing for commentators, I suspect, is that local evaluations of corruption are subtle. In my 2008 article on the “rural constitution”, I addressed this issue in the following terms:
One of the most damaging aspects of corruption is that it can undermine the electorally important image of personal sacrifice for the common good. But this is a subtle moral economy. Sacrifice in the form of diversion of resources from the private to the collective domain is a highly valued electoral asset. But, at the same time, it is broadly accepted that many of those who are active in the collective sphere will also gain some private benefit for themselves or for their family, kin and close friends. As such, it is regarded as quite normal that political representatives will derive some private benefit from public office. The key is to maintain this benefit at a level that is appropriate. What is appropriate is difficult to judge, and it is in this grey area of exchange between collective and private benefit that conflict often erupts and allegations of corruption are made. These allegations are likely to be electorally potent if there is a perception that collective resources are used for private benefit in a way that directly disadvantages others. For example, in Baan Tiam an early contender in the village headman election was ruled out on the basis of allegations that he had used his position on various village committees to divert communal funds to support his private money lending business. The fact that communal funds were being used to extract punitive rates of interest from fellow villagers was, for many residents, a blatant breach of the moral economy of exchange between the collective and private spheres. It was corrupt.
I would like to immodestly suggest that this subtle moral economy of corruption goes a long way towards explaining the debate about the seizure of a large share of Thaksin’s assets. The court’s decision was informed by the view that deriving any private benefit from public office is inappropriate. But among Thaksin’s supporters, this view will carry little weight. This is not because they don’t care about corruption, but because they assess it using a different framework. For them, any private benefit that Thaksin derived was not inappropriate because it did not disadvantage others. You only have to look at a graph of the SET index to see how compelling this argument can be (click for a larger image)
As Daniel Ten Kate and Anuchit Nguyen writing for Bloomberg point out:
Shin shares gained 121 percent from when Thaksin took office on Feb. 9, 2001, to when his family sold the company on Jan. 23, 2006, compared with a 128 percent gain in the benchmark SET index, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Siam Cement Pcl, Thailand’s fourth-biggest company, which is controlled by the monarchy’s investment arm, gained 717 percent in that time. “Whether Thaksin used his influence to benefit his companies is for the courts to decide,” said Vikas Kawatra, head of institutional broking at Kim Eng Securities (Thailand) Pcl, the nation’s biggest brokerage by trading volume. “We analyze the stocks on fundamentals and price movements and based on past performance versus the SET it appears his companies performed no better than others in the benchmark.”
Of course, as the Bloomberg article hints, Thaksin is not the only person to whom an alternative moral economy of corruption is applied. There is no doubt that members of the royal family have derived enormous private benefit from holding public office. But, in public discussion at least, this is not regarded as inappropriate or corrupt because it was not derived at the expense of others. This perception owes a lot to the powerful imagery of personal sacrifice and public service that has been built up around the monarchy.
Thaksin’s public relations machine was formidable. But in shaping perceptions about the balance between private benefit and public interest, it came nowhere near matching that of the palace.
So Andrew, I take it the arguments are going to be about, not whether there was corruption, but double standards and even the wrong amount being taken. It was always going to take considerable inventiveness to argue in favour of Thaksin once the cat was out of the bag. Unless you believe two wrongs do make a right, it’s a bit pointless bringing others into the argument or showing graphs of the SET index.
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The right and wrong implied in the discourse of corruption is always going to be selective and relative. It really does not matter whether or to what quantitative extent Thaksin was ‘corrupt’ if you want to understand the viewpoints of his supporters without writing them of as ‘ignorant’ precisely because practices that can be selectively branded as corrupt are commonplace elements characterizing the political landscape even, or perhaps especially, among those doing the branding. It is condescending to then brand Thaksin supporters as ignorant and it is the fuel of the great divisions emerging in Thai society and the militancy and mayhem that is promised by people who feel like they are not only ‘not’ being listened to, but removed from a system of benefits that is acceptable for the detractors of their leader but not for them.
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I genuinely hope the military and the palace listen to the Red grievances. I find the Red Movement so fascinating, the grassroot people is enlightening! The Thai military and the Red have the same intention to see the country progress. Unfortunately, there were no opportunity or channel that the Red, the palace and the military could come face to face to talk to each other. As a result, the third group (the opportunists) benefits from the situation. When I look back to what I had written thus far, I realize that I wrote in support of all sides: Thaksin, Giles Ji, Prem, Jakrapob, and Sirinthorn. I see elements of goodness in these people. I hope they can come face to face and find a solution, the Thai way…easy happy going.
Having Chinese blood, I would like to see Thaksin be pardoned, and the judgment of his assets be carried out without political interference. To take his money the day he became prime minister till the coup date, in my opinion, is simply unfair. The current crisis could easily be solved if each side look at the positive characteristics of each other.
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I totally agree with Andrew Walker’s assessment, namely that “…it is regarded as quite normal that political representatives will derive some private benefit from public office. The key is to maintain this benefit at a level that is appropriate.”
The “cow eats grass” analogy by one of the Supreme Court judges struck me as totally falacious. If the public official uses public funds to plant grass, and his cow eats the grass (along with other people’s cows) this is not evidence per se of corruption. In Thailand the grass, at least that which grows along the roadway, is free for any to take.
The verdict seems one sided and vindictive to me. There would have been some appreciation in value of Shin Corp shares regardless of whatever action Thaksin took as PM, illegal or otherwise.
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Less Abbey – former US Presieent Richard Nixon once said :
“if two wrongs don’t make a right – try a third”.
From my experience, this tends to be how it works in Thailand.
Perhaps you should be less abacious .
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Re Double Standards and Plausible Denial
As I recall, Thaksin quickly gained a well-earned reputation as a shifty, second-rate political operator pretty much as soon as he first entered politics. As a failed businessman who finally gained success through the “ugly crony capitalism” which became both his business and political hallmark (along with galloping hubris and world-class chutzpah) he became the newest big fish in the pond.
So what about double-standards and other big fish? Well, let’s take three other veteran political operators. On the one hand, as Barnharn’s nickname, ‘the eel’, suggests, he’s been too slippery to get caught at anything too big – to at least plausibly deny anyway – and bankrupting the country as PM certainly shortened his opportunities. The plausible denial line of course applies to both Gen. Chavalit and Gen. Sanan as well – although a temple stint obviously helped restore “Chao Por” Chavalit’s influence after the deaths of protesters on his Ministerial watch recently, and of course Sanan lost his position as Sec. Gen. of the Democrat Party for good reason. Then of course, there’s the best of them all, the late, great Montri Pongpanich, the Master, who couldn’t cheat death, but used death to cheat justice: a brilliant career move.
In contrast to these career political operators, Thaksin always seemed to be far better at greasing the wheels and sucking the life out of opponents and benefactors alike and greasing the wheels, and far less adept at politics as the art of compromise, and hence became a bigger and bigger political target. Of course, the tsunami created a sense of national tragedy and, coming as it did in the middle of his first election campaign as PM, had the effect (like Sept. 11 in the U.S.) of silencing all but a few of his growing legion of academic and intellectual critics – many of them disillusioned former supporters. And so it was that an accident was largely responsible for Thaksin’s “landslide victory” over opponents who had raised a concerted effort to (from memory) prevent Thaksin winning a majority big enough to make him personally invulnerable to censure in parliament and thereby almost unaccountable to it.
And so it was that Thaksin passed all the exits that could have avoided his downfall, notably by not entrusting anyone to run the show while he took a back seat for a while (Thaksin’s “biggest mistake” according to ex-Deputy PM Chaturon) and by his blindness to the amount of animosity his forceful and unabated push to monopolize state power had aroused. Ironically, Thaksin was calling for “revolution” against the state just hours after the Supreme Court verdict last Friday and, Monday morning on cue, one of my rabid red-shirt colleagues (at work) was cheering the weekend’s bomb blasts downtown.
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The title of this thread is an oxymoron: “The moral economy of corruption”. Jeez, these left-leaning liberals never cease to amaze!
Any type of corruption is immoral. I thought that is what they thought at grade school.
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