Welfare State, Welfare Society, or Populism; A Three Crossroads for Public Choice in Thailand

Abstract

On August 6, 2010, The Ex Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva stated that in the next six years. Thailand would be a welfare state which would move away from populist ideology. This statement has given rise to a controversial debate in the context of both agree and disagree. One of the Deputy Prime Minister from his own party argued that Thailand could not be a welfare state but a welfare society. Until today the Thai people have the opportunity to recognize and benefit from social welfare and populist policies in different ways. Especially after Thai Rak Thai party won elections in 2001 and ran government for the full term. Its innovative populist policies have won the hearts of the grassroots widely.

The political phenomenon that the Thais have faced are that almost all Thai political parties have proposed various innovative populist policies in order to win the election. This is why many Thai people face a crossroads. This is therefore a rationale of this study which aims to analyze and synthesize the findings that which path is appropriate and feasible for the country. The study uses hermeneutics as a method of analysis and comes up with the following five findings of wishes and opinions.

The first group dreams of a full Welfare state as Sweden without regard to the basis of facts. Even though they realizes that level of economic and political development of Thailand cannot be compared with Sweden. The second group believes that the full welfare state in going to be in feasible for Thailand in the short run, based on various measurements such as a proportion of revenue per GDP. The third group proposes that social welfare society would be appropriate to the country. Due to constraints on the revenue, the government should use the existing

mechanisms such as “village fund” of the Thaksin government to develop a social welfare. This group believes that from of welfare society would create awareness of Thai people to mutually think and mutually do without waiting for help from the government. The fourth group is a group trying to seek the meaning of populist policies of Pheu Thai party. The group has severety criticized the populist policies of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra that they would cause Thailand a collapse in the same way asArgentina. But when the election on July 3 this year appeared that Pheu Thai party experienced a landslide victory, the group held a seminar to find out that populist policies of the victorious Party would provide what rights to Thai society.
Eventually the last group is a group that strongly supports populist policies. The group has tried to present empirical data to prove the success of the populist policies of Thaksin government since 2001. A beautiful example is a one million baht Village Fund. Joined with the group are scholars sympathetic to the grassroots masses. They argue that the populist policies of Thaksin government can be both populist as a political strategy and social welfare as an economic strategy. In fact several populist policies of the Thaksin government have been already institutionalized with success for a decade.
In conclusion, the above five finding can be summarized that Thailand is in a state of the crossroads for public choice among welfare state, welfare society, and populism. Thailand is at present not able to choose any one particular road, provided that any political party between Pheu Thai party and Democrat party be able to dominate the political power long enough to institutionalize the policies. However, whichever road Thailand would be moved to, she still needs to carry out several important measures such as reform of taxation, legislation to collect property and inheritance taxes, prevention and suppression of corruption, and so on, in order to make the Thai government in the future to play a role as a state where justice, non-discrimination, single standard treatment, and mercy are realized. Then, the Thai state is able to play a role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens, as well as creation of equality of opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and responsibility for those unable to avail themselves of the minimal provision for a good life. This is a true welfare state.