By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, Jan 17 2007 (IPS)

A development theory being advanced by Thailand’s military-appointed government may provoke questions about academic freedom and the right to free expression in a country that is under the grip of harsh lese majesty laws.

For, the author of the ‘’sufficiency economy” theory is no less than the country’s monarch, Bhumibol Adulyadej, who enjoys god-like status in this country. Those who sully the monarchy by word or deed or even suggest that the royal family is fallible, can end up facing a 15-year jail term.

The political turmoil that shook Thailand last year, resulting in the twice-elected prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra being ousted from power by the military in a Sept. 19 coup, saw just how useful lese majesty laws can be in silencing critics. Sondhi Limthongkul, an outspoken adversary of Thaksin, was served with 37 lese majesty charges.

The temptation by governments to invoke lese majesty law has always dogged this country’s political culture and the past two decades have seen regular instances of lese majesty charges filed every year – with the exception of 2002 and 1993 – against Thais and, occasionally, foreigners.

Yet a hint of a debate about the ‘’sufficiency economy” has been unfolding over the past week, as supporters of the theory are coming to its defence in the wake of criticism by champions of free-market economics. The critics, largely Western media outlets like ‘The Economist,’ ‘International Herald Tribune’ and ‘The Asian Wall Street Journal,’ are railing against this alternative development model, accusing it of being a return to ‘’nationalism” and a ‘’partial retreat” from the country’s ‘’liberal economic stance”.

‘’The Learning Centre of King Bhumibol’s Philosophy of Economic Sufficiency says the concept focuses on living a moderate, self-dependent life without greed or overexploitation of, for example, natural resources,” Wednesday’s edition of ‘The Nation,’ an English-language daily, said in a commentary. ‘’The three main features of the economic-sufficiency philosophy are moderation, reasonable actions and mental strength, and the two conditions are knowledge and morality.”

‘’Sufficiency economy is putting morality into capitalism,” he added. ‘’It is a market economy with a conscience.”

But such pronouncements are not enough, say academics and civil society groups, arguing that the ideas must be tested for its viability through a broad and open debate within this South-east Asian nation. ‘’We have to create the space for a debate. Nobody is going to give it to you. You have to go out there and fight for it,” Chanida Chanyapate, deputy director of Focus on the Global South, a Bangkok-based think tank, told IPS.

‘’Sufficiency economy has never been debated properly, although it is accepted by people who are looking for development alternatives,” she added. ‘’It is a philosophy, but we need to know what kinds of policies are needed. You need practical criteria to implement it.”

Such discussions will have to address fundamental questions of economics, Giles Ungpakorn, a political scientist at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University, noted in an interview. ‘’Different economic theories have debates about the role of the state in implementing it, how production will be planned and how much welfare there should be. You can’t get around them.”

But the likelihood of critical responses from local academics remains open to speculation, given the precedents set in the late 1980s and early 1990s when university dons specialising in water management chose to remain silent when King Bhumibol backed the construction of dams in the country.

‘’It might make an academic think twice before even picking up this issue to look at,” David Streckfuss, a United States academic specialising in Thai political culture, told IPS. ‘’There is a subtle dissuasion for people to look at it (sufficiency economy) and voice critical views.”

Bhumibol introduced the idea of an economic model that promotes a moderate, middle path during his annual birthday speech in December 1997, the year that Thailand’s economy crashed after years of heady growth fuelled by the neo-liberal model, which celebrated the excesses of capitalism.

”The important thing for us is to have a sufficient economy. A sufficient economy means to have enough to support ourselves,” the king told a nation reeling from debts, a spike in unemployment and in the throes of uncertainty. ‘’Those who like modern economics may not appreciate this. But we have to take a careful step backwards.”

But few governments since then embraced the king’s vision to transform the Thai economy guided by his model for moderation till the military launched the country’s 18th coup last year. In breaking new ground, the ruling junta, which has received Bhumibol’s blessings from the inception, is determined to ensure that the monarch’s vision gets its due, finally.

On Jan. 9, moreover, the king’s ideas received a fillip with the launch of the 2007 report for Thailand by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which praised this economic model as ‘’central to alleviating poverty and reducing the economic vulnerability of the poor.”

‘’The sufficiency economy is a means towards community empowerment and the strengthening of communities as foundations of the local economy,” argued the 130-page report. ‘’The sufficiency economy takes corporate responsibility to a new level by raising the strength of commitment to practices conducive to long-term profitability in a competitive environment.”

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