The Process of Primitive Accumulation of Capital in Thailand - Cambodia Border of Eastern Coastal Provinces

Abstract

The research aimed to study the context, mechanism and process of primitive accumulation of capital in Thailand-Cambodia border of Eastern coastal provinces. The results of the study were as follows; 1) The important context of the primitive accumulation of capital in the Eastern coastal area was the globalization trend after the downfall of the Soviet Union during 1989–1991. This context made the development process of capitalism widespread all over the world. Thai Government led by Prime Minister General Chartchai Choonhavan initiated Converting a Battlefield to a Market Place Policy in 1990. This caused the progress in the primitive accumulation of capital process in the border area in the Trat and Koh Kong Province. 2) Important mechanisms in the primitive accumulation of capital included Thai state mechanism both border trade as an economic mechanism and various forms of immigration checkpoints as a political one. Moreover, mechanism of Cambodian Government which developed after national government had already taken control the whole area of the country. National governments in both countries, Thailand and Cambodia, had promoted the process of capital accumulation at both the provinces and the country level. The transformation process from the primitive accumulation of capital to capitalist accumulation showed that there were main dynamism in the primitive accumulation of capital. The capital accumulation in the black business changed into grey business and into white business in the present. The attempt to transform the primitive accumulation of capital into capitalist accumulation could be clearly seen from the large-scale but nondynamic farming. The research found that none of Marxist theories of the primitive accumulation of capital were perfect in themselves in explaining the primitive accumulation of capital in Thai border area. This was because that the basic idea of David Harvey and Karl Marx are based on the past context in the case of Karl Marx and the present context in Globalization Era and Neoliberalism in the case of David Harvey. Hence, the application of those ideas might be adapted to the changing global environment.