A Siamese Tragedy: Development and Disintegration in Modern Thailand

A Siamese Tragedy argues that, even before the collapse, the Thai economy had feet of clay. Walden Bello and his co-authors show how vested interests, local and international, propelled the Thai people down a particular path which is unsustainable in terms of human exploitation, social disruption, ecological damage, and economic fragility. Thailand, like the rest of the world, needs to rethink the fundamentals of its economic model.

"This powerful book is about a nation that fell victim to a rapacious cult called the Market. It is a timely response to those who still insist, against all the disastrous evidence, that 'there is no alternative.' There is, of course, and there has to be."
--John Pilger, author, Hidden Agendas

"This book is essential reading for all those who still cling to the idea that Thailand offers low-income countries a model for development and who see the recent economic troubles as a temporary glitch. The authors provide a vibrant and penetrating analysis of the social, environmental, and economic pitfalls of 'fast track' capitalism."
--Philip Hirsch, University of Sydney (Australia)

"An indispensable tool for thinking through the lessons of the crisis."
Larry Lohman, co-author, Pulping the South

Table of Contents

Foreword

Chapter One: Introduction: Survey of an Economic Debacle

A Second Ayuthaya?
High Flyers Laid Low
The Effect on the Real Economy
Twilight Zone
The Culture of Conspicuous Consumption
The Thai Path to Development
Globalization of the Thai Economy
Creating the Credit Economy
Royal Doubts

Chapter Two: Back to the Third World

The Political Economy of NIChood
Import Substitution Industrialization
Export-oriented Industrialization
The Private Sector and the State
The Japanese Tsunami
Attracting Portfolio Investment and Bank Capital
The Deluge
Financiers and Realtors: Bonnie and Clyde in Bangkok
The Real Estate Bust
Playing Pretend
Finance One: The Crisis in Microcosm
Botched Rescue
The Panic
The Financial Crisis and the Structural Crisis

Chapter Three: Thailand under the IMF

A Cozy Relationship
The Chaovalit Government Hesitates
Chuan in the Breach
Critique of the Stabilization Program
Why Engineer a Recession?
The 'Moral Hazard' Issue
Advancing the US Agenda
Reform or Collapse?

Chapter Four: The Failure of Industrial Deepening

The Education Bottleneck
The R & D Fiasco
Foreign Investment and Technology Transfer: Electronics
Foreign Investment and Technology Transfer: The Car Industry
Thailand as Japan's Technological Dependency
The Financial Crisis and Foreign Investment Trends
Conclusion

Chapter Five: Labor and Capital

Emergence of the Industrial Working Class
Organizing Labor
Labor in the Boom Years
Working Women
Hazards at Work
Squeezing Labor for International Competitiveness
Child Labor and Migrant Labor
Losing Strategy
Economic Collapse and Class Conflict

Chapter Six: Bangkok: Vicissitudes of a Megalopolis

Prime Among Primates
Los Angelizing the 'City of the Angels'
Disneyland East: The Mass Transit Chaos
Citizens versus Mass Transit
Land Management: Unleashing the Private Sector
Klong Toey: Rallying Point for the Urban Poor

Chapter Seven: Pollution Haven

Foreign Investment and Pollution
Forms of Pollution
Crisis of Regulation

Chapter Eight: The Erosion of Agriculture

The Two Faces of the Thai Countryside
Subordinating the Countryside to the City
Commercialization and Agrarian Crisis Up to the 1970s
Social Struggle, Reform, and Peasant Defeat
Containing the Countryside After 1976
Aborted 'NAICdom': Thai Agriculture in the Late 1980s
Down the Road of NIC Agriculture?
Thai Agriculture in the Eye of the Storm

Chapter Nine: The Dynamics of Deforestation

Deforesting the North
The Battle for the Highlands
Ecological Crisis in the Northeast
Disaster in the South
Government: Part of the Problem?
Conflicting Property Systems
Lack of Political Will
The Forest Village and STK Program
Reforestation and Resettlement
The Thai Forestry Sector Master Plan
The Forest Conservation Development Project
The Community Forest Bill

Chapter Ten: Damming the Countryside

EGAT Begets Resistance
The Problem with Dams
The Pak Mun Face-off
Reginalization of Thailand's Environmental Crisis
The Financial Crisis and the Environment

Chapter Eleven: The AIDS Crisis

AIDS in Asia
AIDS in Thailand
Poverty, Labor Migration, and AIDS
AIDS and the Sex Industry
The Economic Impact of AIDS
Battling AIDS: The Scorecard
Conclusion

Chapter Twelve: Conclusion: Revisioning the Future

Emergence and Dynamics of the NGO Movement
Critique of the system
Fleshing out the alternative

Selected Readings