Chang Noi
Goodbye globalisation
12 December 1997
Remember globalisation? A few years ago, it was the fad. Academics expounded it. Comedians joked about it. Businessmen believed it was the route to riches.
As the economy dives, this enthusiasm is being re-evaluated. The word globalisation has quietly disappeared from the vocabulary. The society is turning inwards to its core and back towards its roots for some strength to carry it through the crisis.
This is happening at all levels - from academic debate to popular entertainment.
The political scientist, Chai-Anan Samudavanija, was once the high priest of the globalisation cult. He invented the first Thai translation for the concept. He discussed the consequences of globalisation in books and academic papers. He wrote a regular column on the theme it in the Manager weekly.
Now his career path maps the reaction against this fad. He moved from the Manager group with its globalist ambitions to become principal of Vajiravudh College, the traditionalist school founded by Rama VI. Intellectually he has followed the same route, with a call for Thailand to refocus on its cultural assets.
Chai-Anan builds this argument around an idea of "culture as capital". Every society inherits a stock of culture accumulated in the past. This stock functions rather like a stock of money capital. It is a factor, like technology, in the creation of many products.
Thailand is lucky to have a very large stock. Surveys show that tourists rate Thailand very highly as a destination because of its historic places, festivals, food and hospitality. All of these are products which have a large cultural element. For sun and hills and beaches, which are natural products available in many different countries, Thailand has no advantage. For hotels and other industrial products, Thailand is often rated rather low. What makes Thailand amazing is all cultural.
Thailand doesn’t have much of its own technology, but it has a lot of culture. Thailand does not have much international advantage in products which depend on technology, but it has big advantages in products which have an element of culture.
For Chai-Anan, "culture as capital" is a source not only of economic value but of social value also. Thai society has developed many concepts and practices which help people to live together in harmony - respect for elders, tolerance, compassion, gratitude to parents, family ties, mutual assistance.
In hard times like the present, Chai-Anan says, financial and industrial capital lets us down. The society falls back on its stock of cultural capital. Over the last decade, the economy has been boosted by borrowing capital and technology from abroad and by mobilising cheap labour. But the cheap labour here is no different from the cheap labour somewhere else. The borrowed money and technology skips on to new locations in China, Vietnam and India. But the culture stays put. As the economy shrinks, Thailand finds itself relying much more on the agriculture and tourism which draw value from the nation’s stock of cultural capital. Society will also have to draw on the inheritance of tolerance and compassion to survive the social strains.
Like other forms of capital, Chai-Anan points out, culture as capital has to be accumulated through investment and careful management. Much of today’s stock of capital is the result of deliberate investments by past rulers. Chai-Anan highlights the contributions of the Fifth and Sixth Reigns. Today, he argues, the government needs to invest in cultural capital for the future. But in keeping with the trend to democracy and decentralisation, these investments should be decentralised and de-officialised.
Chai-Anan’s essay highlights how much Thailand over the past decade had become mesmerised by economics, by growth, by everything modern and globalised. The society wanted to change and seemed to neglect what makes Thailand special. Now that the bubble has burst, people are being forced to think again about what kind of society they want Thailand to become.
The thought has touched a chord among other intellectuals. Chatthip Nartsupha welcomed the concept of culture as capital but wants recognition for the contribution of ordinary people, not just rulers, in building up Thailand’s stock. The strength of Thai society, he suggests, lies in the community habits and practices of the village heritage. Nidhi Aeuisriwong has pointed out how cultural capital, like other forms of capital, can easily be depleted if the reinvestment rate is too low. He cites the example of villager who spends so long driving a taxi in Bangkok that he loses the links back to a village base.
Other intellectuals express a similar reaction against the globalisation fad. After some years away from the public gaze, Sulak Sivaraks has re-emerged, inveighing against the "new religion" of consumerism and calling for more appreciation of the Buddhist values at the core of Thai culture. Saneh Jamarik’s critique of western models of development now gets more airtime than during the boom.This same trend is reflected in popular culture. Local music is enjoying a boom. One radio channel recently shifted to 24-hour broadcast of luk thung music, and immediately became the most popular in the city. Luk thung shows also draw a large TV audience. Tapes have outsold those of international-style Thai pop. In an extraordinary TV ad, a man stands in a field, dressed in a local shirt and up to his waist in ripening rice, extolling luk thing as a last bastion of local culture under threat from foreign imports (the presenter just became a minister of the government).
Some of this is just fashion. Luk thung has been catching on gradually over the last 6-7 years. But some reflects a real shift of popular mood.
The luk thung songs which have become mega-hits, selling millions of cassettes in a few weeks, have a very strong and clear message. Their appeal lies in the words not the tunes. Songs like Ploen Phromdaen’s "Floating Baht" laugh gently and ruefully at the economic crisis, at the chaos in the sophisticated world of finance, and at the collapse of urban pretensions. They point out that only a few really profited from the boom, but everyone is going to have to pay for the bust.
The Floating Baht
The baht was floated not long ago,
Everything is suddenly more expensive
Big things or small things,
The prices are floating away
Floating up and up.
No sign of floating down.
- Thai money flows out, but foreign money doesn’t flow in. We urban people like to go abroad, to and fro, spending money for fun.
- So what? You have the money.
- But it’s Thai money. If we spend too much, liquidity disappears. No money for investment.
- How do you know?
- Well, its on the news every day and every night.
- I never listen to the news. I watch only big football matches and Thai boxing. That’s more fun!
- You should be more concerned about the fate of your own nation.
- I am! I’m afraid Thai boxers will lose to foreign boxers, that’s why I have to watch. I’m very concerned. How can you say I’m not concerned.
- You’re too playful. Our country has amassed so much external debt, both long and short term. It’s huge.
- If it’s so huge, only the gods can help. Why should I worry?
- Stupid! If you borrow money you have to pay it back.
- Eh? Surely those who did the borrowing have to pay it back. Not us.
- But you have to help because we are all part of the same family.
Sorry. I don’t live around here and I haven’t got a family yet.
- Don’t be stupid!
- I’d be stupid if I helped pay the debt...
For the last decade, popular culture has glorified everything modern and international. By implication, anything traditional and local belonged in the dustbin of history. These songs turn this proposition on its head.
These reactions against the enthusiasm for the modern and globalised are natural in the circumstances of crisis. But the mood is more reflective than angry. The trend is nationalistic but not anti-foreigner. The direction is inward-looking without being parochial.
Chai-Anan wants Thais to be both Thais and citizens of the world. But he suggests Thais need to be more secure about themselves first. If the country opens up and is swamped by multinational companies and by global pop culture, then much of value will be lost to Thailand and to the world.
Similarly the songs are not vengeful. The criticism is turned inwards. They say: maybe Thailand just was not ready. Maybe the country just got carried away, forgot what is valuable back home, allowed social divisions to widen, and junked old social values in favour of new fantasies.
Maybe Thailand should be more careful next time.
Mehr vom „Kleinen Elefanten“ und seinen Kommentaren in „The Nation“ findet sich hier. HBZ