Reposted & edited for new site: Alternative Thai News Network (ATNN).
Tony Cartalucci
ATNN -
LD
October 28, 2012
For an extreme in-depth look at Thailand's "Sufficiency Economy" and "New Theory" economics, please see, "Wisdom from the Orient: Self-Sufficiency."
ฝันร้ายของนายทุนข้ามชาติ: เศรษฐกิจพอเพียงคือคำตอบปัญหาการเมืองทั่วโลก (ภาษาไทย)
Introduction
When
thinking about "solutions" many are quick to cite organizing a protest
and taking to the streets. Let's for a moment consider the mechanics of a
protest, what it might accomplish, and what it may leave to be desired.
Take Glenn Beck's disingenuous 2010 "
Restoring Honor"
event in Washington D.C. It drew thousands of honest, well-intentioned
people from all over the United States. Indeed, thousands of people
filled up their Fortune 500 made cars with gas from Fortune 500 oil
companies, drove countless miles, stopping along the way at Fortune 500
fast food restaurants, stayed at Fortune 500 run hotels, and stocked up
on supplies purchased at Fortune 500 Walmart. They slaked their thirst
under the hot August sun with cans of Fortune 500 Pepsi and Coke, and at
the end of the day, they drove home, paid their Fortune 500 cable
subscriptions to watch their Fortune 500 media reports, most likely on
News Corporation's Fox News,
a Council on Foreign Relations corporate member.
At best, all a protest will lead to, while we are so
hopelessly dependent on this system, is a round of musical chairs inside
the political arena, with perhaps superficial concessions made to the
people. The vector sum however, will still be decidedly in favor of the
global corporate-financier oligarchy.
If we understand that the
fundamental problem facing not only America, but the entire world,
is a global corporate-financier oligarchy that has criminally consolidated
their wealth by "liberalizing" their own activities while strangling
ours through regulations, taxes, and laws, we should then understand why
events like Beck's "Restoring Honor" are not only fruitless, but in
fact, counterproductive. We should also realize that any activity we
commit ourselves to must be directed at this corporate-financier
oligarchy rather than the governments they have co-opted and positioned
as buffers between themselves and the masses.
While people
understand something is wrong and recognize the necessity to do
"something," figuring out what that "something" should be becomes
incredibly difficult when so few understand how power really works and
how to strip it away from the oligarchs that have criminally
consolidated it.
Understanding Globalization
As
of late, the expansion of this global oligarchical empire has taken a
more extreme, perhaps desperate form involving
staged revolutions as seen in Egypt and Tunisia, and in Libya's case, armed rebellion and foreign military intervention. However, worldwide coup d'etats have occurred before - for example, in the late 1990's
under the guise of a "financial collapse" and IMF "restructuring."
Many
nations fell beholden to the IMF and its regiment of "reforms" which
amounted to neo-colonialism packaged under the euphemism of "economic
liberalization." To illustrate how this works, it may help to
understand what real colonialism looked like.
Image: Thailand's geopolitical surroundings 1800-1900. Thailand was the only Southeast Asian country to avoid European colonization.
....
Thailand
in the 1800's, then the Kingdom of Siam, was surrounded on all sides by
colonized nations and in turn was made to concede to
the British 1855 Bowring Treaty. See how many of these "gunboat policy" imposed concessions sound like today's "economic liberalization:"
1. Siam granted extraterritoriality to British subjects.
2. British could trade freely in all seaports and reside permanently in Bangkok.
3. British could buy and rent property in Bangkok.
4. British subjects could travel freely in the interior with passes provided by the consul.
5. Import and export duties were capped at 3%, except the duty-free opium and bullion.
6. British merchants were to be allowed to buy and sell directly with individual Siamese.
A more contemporary example for comparison would be the outright military conquest of Iraq and Paul Bremer's (
CFR) economic reformation. The
Economist gleefully enumerates
the neo-colonial "economic liberalization" of Iraq in a piece titled
"Let's all go to the yard sale: If it all works out, Iraq will be a
capitalist's dream:"
1. 100% ownership of Iraqi assets.
2. Full repatriation of profits.
3. Equal legal standing with local firms.
4. Foreign banks allowed to operate or buy into local banks.
5. Income and corporate taxes capped at 15%.
6. Universal tariffs slashed to 5%.
Read more:
Egypt Today, Thailand Tomorrow
And
few could argue that the IMF's rehabilitation regiments being forced
upon nations all over the world after the late 90's financial crash are
any different than economic colonialism both past and present. In fact,
the
IMF itself publishes reports at great length concerning the "necessity" of economic liberalization.
To
be sure, the governments that come to power in the wake of the current
Middle East destabilizations will be more servile and will undoubtedly
be committed to similar economic liberalization.
Brookings Institute's Kenneth Pollack
already made it quite clear that "The struggle in the new Middle East
must be defined as one between nations that are moving in the right
direction and nations that are not; between those that are embracing
economic liberalization, educational reform, democracy, the rule of law
and civil liberties, and those that are not."
Siam eventually
rolled back the terms of the 1855 Bowring Treaty as the British Empire
waned, but as of 1997, Thailand was once again faced with similar terms,
dictated this time by the bankers of the IMF.
Thailand's Answer to Globalization
Thailand's
answer to the IMF, and globalization in general was profound in both
implications as well as in its understanding of globalization's end
game. Fiercely independent and nationalistic, and being the only nation
in Southeast Asia to avoid colonization, Thailand's sovereignty has been
protected for over 800 years by its revered monarchy. The current
dynasty, the House of Chakri, has reigned nearly as long as America has
existed as a nation and the current king is regarded as the equivalent
of a living "Founding Father." And just as it has for 800 years, the
Thai Monarchy today provides the most provocative and meaningful answer
to the threats facing the Kingdom.
The answer of course is
self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency as a nation, as a province, as a
community and as a household. This concept is enshrined in the Thai
King's "
New Theory" or "self-sufficiency economy" and mirrors
similar efforts
found throughout the world to break the back of the oppression and
exploitation that results from dependence on an interdependent globalized system.
Image: A vision of self-sufficiency in Thailand. Agrarian values and the self-reliance they engender are the hallmarks of real freedom.
....
The
foundation of the self-sufficiency economy is simply growing your own
garden and providing yourself with your own food. This is portrayed on
the back right-hand side of every 1,000 baht Thai banknote as a picture
of a woman tending her garden. The next step is producing surplus that
can be traded for income, which in turn can be used
to purchase technology to further enhance your ability to sustain yourself and
improve your life-style.
Image: The Thai 1000 baht banknote. Left is one of the many dams controlling floods and producing electricity throughout the Kingdom. Center is the current King of Thailand. Right is a depiction of a local garden providing food in a self-sufficient manner.
....
The
New Theory aims at preserving traditional agrarian values in the hands
of the people. It also aims at preventing a migration from the
countryside into the cities. Preventing such migrations would prevent
big agricultural cartels from moving in, swallowing up farming land,
corrupting and even jeopardizing entire national food supplies (see
Monsanto). Those familiar with the UN's
Agenda 21, and the more recent UN "
Climate Change Program,"
may understand the deeper implications and
dangers of such a migration and why it needs to be stopped.
By
moving to the city, people give up private property, cease pursuing
productive occupations, and end up being folded into a consumerist
paradigm. Within such a paradigm, problems like overpopulation,
pollution, crime, and economic crises can only be handled by a
centralized government and generally yield political solutions such as
quotas, taxes, micromanagement, and regulations rather than meaningful
technical solutions.
Also, such problems inevitably lead to a
centralized government increasing its own power, always at the expense
of the people and their freedom. The effects of economic catastrophe are
also greater in a centralized, interdependent society, where everyone
is subject to the overall health of the economy for even simple
necessities like food, water, and electricity.
Image: A slide presenting the "New Theory" depicting a manifestation of greed leading the people from their rural private property and into a "city of extravagance." If Agenda 21 had an illustrated cover, this could be it.
....
Image: The goal of the "New Theory" is to have people return to the countryside from the cities and develop their communities in a self-reliant manner. It is, in other words, Agenda 21 in reverse.
....
Under
the "New Theory," demonstration stations all across Thailand have been
created promoting education in matters of agriculture and
self-sufficient living. The program is competing against the
contemporary globalization system, which as of now, is mired in many parts
of the world with economic meltdown. The relatively self-sufficient
nature of Thais in general has weathered this economic chaos fairly
well. In 10 years, a plate of food still costs the same amount of money,
as do many everyday commodities. This only further vindicates the value
of being self-sufficient and now more than ever, in both Thailand, and
abroad, it is a good time to get involved and get self-sufficient.
The West Strikes Back
Of
course the head-of-state of a nation almost 70 million strong promoting
a lifestyle that cuts the legs out from under the Western corporate-financier agenda does
not sit well with the oligarchical establishment. Their response to
this, as it has been with all of Thailand's habitual displays of
defiance is something to behold.
Perhaps the most vocal Western corporate-financier critic of Thailand is the
Economist. It openly criticizes the King's self-sufficiency economy in an article titled "
Rebranding Thaksinomics."
It states that the economic plan is "a partial retreat from Thailand's
hitherto liberal economic stance." The Economist muddles the debate by
side-stepping the self-sufficient aspects of the"self-sufficiency
economy." It claims that socialist handouts under deposed Prime Minister
and
documented Western proxy Thaksin Shinawatra somehow accomplished
the exact same goals. The Economist also claims the concept of
self-sufficiency is merely a "rebranding" of such socialist handouts.
The
Economist article then breaks down into a pro-Thaksin rant, decrying
his ousting from power and continued claims that somehow encouraging
people to grow their own food is a theft of Thaksin's socialist/populist
policies.
It should be noted
that permanent socialism is not
self-sufficiency. It is complete dependency on the state and on people
who pay their ever increasing taxes. Socialism is not about growing your
own garden, using technology to enhance your independence or solving
your problems with your own resources. It is about taking from the
collective storehouses of the state, and when you are again hungry,
taking again. Socialism could only be very useful as a stop-gap measure
between current problems and the active pursuit of permanent technical solutions.
However, the goal of globalization is to create interdependency between
states, and total dependency on global institutions, therefore,
perpetuating problems, not solving them becomes the equation.
Another
Western pro-corporate-financier point-of-view comes from Australia's National University's
"New Mandala" blog written by academic wonk Andrew Walker. The blog
itself is a clearinghouse for corporate subsidized talking points regarding
Southeast Asia and is tied to the
corporate-financier funded Lowy Institute. Some "
contributing writers" even include Thaksin Shinawatra's hired lobbyist,
Robert Amsterdam.
Walker's
entire perception of Thailand seems to be derived from his time spent
in a single village in Northern Thailand. From his myopic point-of-view
in the minute village of "Baan Tian," he condemns entirely Thailand's
self-sufficiency economy in his article "
Royal misrepresentation of rural livelihoods." He suggests that "the sufficiency economy prescriptions for rural development are inappropriate and disempowering."
As
with the Economist, the article breaks down into a pro-Thaksin rant
claiming the entire plan is meant to keep the rural population of
Thailand in their place, out of the cities, and thus out of the debate
of national issues.
Of course, becoming self-sufficient is one
step on the road to real empowerment. Academic wonks like Andrew Walker
presume the height of empowerment is feeding a paper voting stub into a
box, on your way home from a service sector job, and then relaxing
behind the glow of a new plasma screen TV bought on credit. A more
likely argument would be that sustaining your own existence, wrought
from the land beneath your feet, and the ability to shape the world
around you with an understanding of science and the mastery of multiple
trades is the height of empowerment and the truest form of human
freedom.
The hand wringing within the writings of the Economist
and ANU's Andrew Walker is not the full extent of the West's
reaction to Thailand and its wandering from foreign dominion. A full
fledged "
red" color revolution has been brewing within the Kingdom since
at least 2009. Reading the "Red Siam Manifesto" penned by "red shirt"
intelligentsia Giles Ungpakorn makes it quite clear how they view
"self-sufficiency" and the need to "reform" Thailand as a "socialist
welfare state."
Ungpakorn's childish and ranting manifesto can be found on "
Socialist Worker Online" here. A complete selection of the "red shirt" propaganda used within Thailand
can be found here.
It should be noted that the leader of the "red shirt" protest is deposed ex-PM Thaksin Shinawatra. Long before Thaksin Shinwatra would become prime minister in Thailand,
he was already working his way up the Wall Street-London ladder of
opportunity, while simultaneously working his way up in Thai politics.
He was
appointed by the Carlyle Group as an adviser,
while holding public office, and attempted to use his connections to
boost his political image. Thanong Khanthong of Thailand's English
newspaper "the Nation,"
wrote in 2001:
"In April 1998, while Thailand was still mired in a deep economic morass,
Thaksin tried to use his American connections to boost his political image
just as he was forming his Thai Rak Thai Party. He invited Bush senior
to visit Bangkok and his home, saying his own mission was to act as a
"national matchmaker" between the US equity fund and Thai businesses.
In March, he also played host to James Baker III, the US secretary of
state in the senior Bush administration, on his sojourn in Thailand."
Upon becoming prime minister in 2001, Thaksin would begin paying back
the support he received from his Western sponsors. In 2003, he would
commit Thai troops to the US invasion of Iraq, despite widespread protests from both the Thai military and the public. Thaksin would also
allow the CIA to use Thailand for its abhorrent rendition program.
In 2004, Thaksin attempted to ramrod through a
US-Thailand Free-Trade Agreement (FTA) without parliamentary approval, backed by the
US-ASEAN Business Council
who just before last year's 2011elections that saw Thaksin's sister
Yingluck Shinawatra brought into power, hosted the leaders of
Thaksin’s "red shirt" personality cult.
Image: The
US-ASEAN Business Council,
a who’s-who of corporate fascism in the US, had been approached by
leaders of Thaksin Shinwatra's "red shirt" street mobs. (click image to
enlarge)
….
The
council in 2004 included 3M, war profiteering Bechtel, Boeing, Cargill, Citigroup, General Electric, IBM, the notorious Monsanto,
and currently also includes banking houses Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, Lockheed
Martin, Raytheon, Chevron, Exxon, BP, Glaxo Smith Kline, Merck,
Northrop Grumman, Monsanto’s GMO doppelganger Syngenta, as well as
Phillip Morris.
Photo: Deposed autocrat, Thaksin Shinawatra
before the CFR on the even of the 2006 military coup that
would oust him from power. Since 2006 he has had the full, unflinching
support of Washington, Wall Street and their immense propaganda
machine in his bid to seize back power.
….
Thaksin would remain in office from 2001 until September of 2006. On the
eve of the military coup that ousted him from power, Thaksin was
literally standing before the
Fortune 500-funded Council on Foreign Relations
giving a progress report in New York City.
Since the 2006 coup that toppled his regime, Thaksin has been
represented by US corporate-financier elites via their lobbying firms
including,
Kenneth Adelman of the
Edelman PR firm (
Freedom House,
International Crisis Group,
PNAC), James Baker of
Baker Botts (
CFR),
Robert Blackwill of
Barbour Griffith & Rogers (
CFR),
Kobre & Kim, and currently
Robert Amsterdam of
Amsterdam & Peroff (
Chatham House).
To say that Thaksin Shinawatra and his "red shirts" have foreign backing would be a profound understatement.
Thaksin's proxy political party maintains the "red shirt" mobs which in turn are supported by several NGOs including the
National Endowment for Democracy funded "
Prachatai,"
an "independent media organization" that coordinates the "red shirt"
propaganda efforts. Prachatai was recently nominated for the
Deutsche Welle Blog Awards by the
"Neo-Con" infested Freedom House, upon which former Thaksin lobbyist
Kenneth Adelman sits as a member on the board of directors.
Image: US Neo-Conservative, corporate-financier run Freedom House "tweets" their March 11, 2011 nomination of NEDfunded "red shirt" propaganda clearinghouse, Prachatai.com.
....
Western corporate-financier interests know what's going on already and they are moving against it
while the majority of humanity still sleeps in ignorance and apathy.
Thailand is but one nation of many, in
China's "String of Pearls"
that is targeted for destabilization and US State Department
sponsored "liberation."
The key to stopping these foreign interests dead in
their tracks is seizing back from them the mechanisms of civilization -
and we have done that already in terms of the alternative media. Such
success is necessary in all aspects of our life, and as the King in
Thailand suggests, it can start with something as simple as growing
your own garden.
Today and Into the Future
Of
course in Thailand, agricultural self-sufficiency is coupled with
technology to enhance efficiency and improve the quality of life. Even
in the city, small independent businesses are adopting the latest
technology to improve their production, increase their profits, and even
out-compete larger corporations. Computer controlled machining
equipment can be found in small workshops crammed into old shop-houses,
automatic embroidering machines allow a single woman to fulfill orders
for name tags on new school uniforms - rather than both businesses
sending off orders to factories owned by a handful of wealthy investors.
A multitude of examples can be seen walking around any city block in
Thailand's capital of Bangkok.
Image: MIT's Dr. Neil Gershenfeld inside his "Fab Lab," arguably the birthplace of the personal fabrication revolution.
....
Bringing
this sort of technology to rural people, even enabling people to create
their own technology rather than just employ it, is not just science
fiction but is a reality of today. MIT Professor Dr. Neil Gershenfeld
has developed the "fabrication laboratory" or "Fab Lab." The Fab Lab is a
microfactory that can "make almost anything." His Fab Lab has since
been replicated all over the world in what he calls the personal
fabrication revolution. It aims at turning a world of dependent
consumers into independent designers and producers.
Video: Dr. Neil Gershenfeld presents his Fab Lab at TED.
....
Dr.
Gershenfeld in his own words articulates the problem of finding support
amongst institutions and governments, stating that individuals are
very enthusiastic about this revolution "but it breaks their
organizational boundaries. In fact it is illegal for them, in many
cases, to equip ordinary people to create rather than consume
technology."
This indeed not only encapsulates Dr. Gershenfeld's
dilemma, but describes to a "t" the mentality of oligarchs and the fears
they harbor about empowering the people, a fear reflected in the
"organizational boundaries" of their corporations and governmental
institutions. This is a feature of oligarchy described as early as 300
B.C. in ancient Greece in "
The Athenian Constitution."
In it, a character referred to as "the Old Oligarch" describes his
contempt for the social mobility the technology of the Athenian navy
affords the lower echelons of Athenian society.
Dr. Gershenfeld
goes on to encapsulate the true potential of his Fab Labs by stating,
"the other 5 billion people on the planet aren't just technical "sinks,"
they are "sources." The real opportunity is to harness the inventive
power of the world to locally design and produce solutions to local
problems." Dr. Gershenfeld concludes by conceding he thought such a
possibility was 20 years off, but "it's where we are today," noting the
success his Fab Labs are already having around the world.
Image: The interior of a "Fab Lab" in Amsterdam, featuring a array of personal manufacturing technology.
....
Dr.
Gershenfeld's message resonates with the current culture of Thailand
and the ambitions of the "self-sufficiency economy." In many ways,
Thailand's patchwork of micro-businesses, already successfully
by-passing capital intensive centralized production, vindicates the work
and optimism of Dr. Gershenfeld. It also, however, resonates strongly
with the self-reliant traditions that had made America great. The
technical possibility for this to change the world is already a reality,
but Dr. Gershenfeld himself concedes that the biggest obstacle is
overcoming social engineering - in other words - creating a paradigm
shift in the minds of the population to meet the technical paradigm
shift that has already taken place.
Self-sufficiency and the
harnessing of technology in the hands of the people are the greatest
fears of the corporate-financier oligarchy - fears that oligarchs throughout the
centuries have harbored. Simply boycotting multinational corporations
and replacing them with local solutions is something everyone can afford
to do starting today. And by simply looking into Dr. Neil Gershenfeld's
"Fab Lab," similar ideas such as "
hackerspaces," raising awareness of the personal fabrication revolution,
and even in the smallest way participating can help overcome the
obstacle of social-engineering and spur a profound paradigm shift. We
have begun to seize back the media, now it is time to seize back the
other levers of power. Now is the time to recognize true freedom as
being self-sufficient as a nation, as a community, and as a household,
and start living it everyday.
