Real Inequality In The Thai Society

[christiaan]

The real unequality is not in the money.

Becoming rich is a side effect of being in a better position as other people and have the quality to take advantage of this.

The real unequality is in the valuation of people.

When all Thai would have the same right on education, the same right on healthcare, would be treated the same in law, at the end many of the problems would change.

The valuation of people is a moral quality.

It is a strong observation that in Thailand many people, realy many people, have a low moral code with regard to this.

I think one of the reasons for this is the education, It is not only school edcation but also education at home.

When this will not change not much will change in Thailand.

And who would change this?

Then there is the world economic situation.

The world we live in is a material world and the God of this world is money.

The most worshipped God in the world today is Money.

Educated cultures handle this 'religion' in a more or less intelligent way, an aware way, becos of the system of education in their cultures.

They have more awareness.

But let us not forget the world crises in economy now is to blame on bankers and shareholders and other moneypower people in the west.

In general we have to realise The Thai 'personality' does not have the working intelligence or the present awareness to handle the material problem, the money problem.

This does not mean the Thai are destinated to to stay in this situation.

I strongly believe also Thailand has the potency to become a prosperious modern country.

If they just would choose that road.

[Deeral]

and I think not.

i think you'll find lots of MPs with dubious quals...To be honest, I don't think it is worth checking as true or not, it shows how ridiculous some parliamentary concepts can be taken quite seriously if it keeps the hoi-poloi out of govt

[Deeral]

"Many countries have even wider gaps between rich and poor, USA is a good example. You really don't want a totally flat country, that is impossible and will only result in misery."

just to reiterate - the first part is patently untrue and no-one is advocating "a totally flat country".

[Deeral]

"The real unequality is not in the money." - nobody said it was!

"In general we have to realise The Thai 'personality' does not have the working intelligence or the present awareness to handle the material problem" - and this is simply nonsense.

Edited July 29, 2010 by Deeral

[jayjay0]

The real unequality is not in the money.

Becoming rich is a side effect of being in a better position as other people and have the quality to take advantage of this.

The real unequality is in the valuation of people.

When all Thai would have the same right on education, the same right on healthcare, would be treated the same in law, at the end many of the problems would change.

The valuation of people is a moral quality.

It is a strong observation that in Thailand many people, realy many people, have a low moral code with regard to this.

I think one of the reasons for this is the education, It is not only school edcation but also education at home.

When this will not change not much will change in Thailand.

And who would change this?

Then there is the world economic situation.

The world we live in is a material world and the God of this world is money.

The most worshipped God in the world today is Money.

Educated cultures handle this 'religion' in a more or less intelligent way, an aware way, becos of the system of education in their cultures.

They have more awareness.

But let us not forget the world crises in economy now is to blame on bankers and shareholders and other moneypower people in the west.

In general we have to realise The Thai 'personality' does not have the working intelligence or the present awareness to handle the material problem, the money problem.

This does not mean the Thai are destinated to to stay in this situation.

I strongly believe also Thailand has the potency to become a prosperious modern country.

If they just would choose that road.

I cherry picked the following from your post.

When all Thai would have the same right on education, the same right on healthcare, would be treated the same in law, at the end many of the problems would change.

The valuation of people is a moral quality.

I know It runs against the commonly held belief that the rich should give all there money away so that the have nots will have.

But I believe you have hit the nail on the head with that statement. I am sure that the bars are full of people saying they should have the money the rich people have.

[RedNIvar]

"Many countries have even wider gaps between rich and poor, USA is a good example. You really don't want a totally flat country, that is impossible and will only result in misery."

just to reiterate - the first part is patently untrue and no-one is advocating "a totally flat country".

Ideally 2/3 of the population has to fit in the middle class bucket. The rest make up the other two extremes. The problem with Thailand is that the middle class bucket is a little too light.

[peacefulwarrior]

Politicians: The minion class of the ones who really are in power. Usually in the west, the really rich elite tries to stay out of parliament and the newspapers. Some learned from the French revolution obviously. But in some countries the fraud is so darn obvious it hurts. Look at Singapore for example, being ruled by a family clan in the third generation, a truly open exploitation. Then look at the Philippines etc. - suns and daughters of corrupt politicians beloved by the masses get into power all the time. These guys study connology, I don't know...

But one thing in Thailand is for sure, the division of the ruling class, which in my sense is not Thai by ethnicity and has understood the world as their play-field does not care about anyone, not if they are Thai, Bangladeshi, Indian, Burmese or whatever. They see how much is produced, in which time, at what cost and at what profit. How about US, the consumer starting to change the flow of that revenue. Buy locally, try to avoid the mega-stores and cut the crappy western fast-food that is there to poison us all anyways. We are on a global scale being sleep-walked into communitarian-ism, a controlled society (via food and vaccines). Now we also have the war of terror in Thailand and more and more bothersome legislation is passed, fines for this and fines for that. You want a police state with some puppets showing you a red vs. yellow stage play or you want to wake up in a free and independent society. It's the little choices everyday. Street kitchen or McDonalds. Coke or fresh juices. Crap horror movie or documentary. You have choices, make them and you will see the old power structure crumble, piece by piece.

[Gonsalviz]

Something like what is being done in the west at this time could be suggested , billionairs have been asked to give half of thier wealth to agencies for the poor , billions of dollars have poured forth to aid the poor since the requests started and it seems more is to follow . Who needs that much money any way ?

One problem with that is, if you give something to someone, they tend to not respect it and squander it because it was free and there will be more.

If the 'agencies' would set up programs to assist it would be better. Raising price barriers on the farm products so the poor farmer can get a better profit, would be one thing. It would be that he actually earned the money, not just given a handout.

Everything must be gradual or it will upset the economy.

My wife and I can eat for around ฿100. This is too cheap.

[Gonsalviz]

Inequality isn't just measured in land owned or wealth .

One of the worst examples I see in Thailand is how a person's contribution to society is valued.

For instance someone who builds a house for others rarely seems to earn enough for a house of the same quality for themselves.

Similarly those who produce the food or catch the fish often live in terrible conditions with little hope of ever seeing any improvement to those conditions.

Most of the people at the bottom I am sure don't want a hand out just a fair return for what they do and the respect that their skills deserve.

There is also the aspect that no matter how much some people get they will never be able to do anything but squander it.

A great example is the Mrs's sisters husband who has a good job but spends all his money on gambling and drinking, very rarely takes any of his money home, is around 300kB in debt has pawned his wifes gold and emptied the kids money boxes and today I hear that yesterday he pawned the family car for 100k and gave the money to a friend.

The car isn't yet paid off (8000B per month) and now they haven't got the use of it, any money given to him and his ilk would be wasted immediately.

Thailand has a 'caste' society. It cannot change a lot until that goes away. India is a prime example.

[elcent]

REDBULL!! bigger than Singha..... Thailand was the syrup producer and Austrian was the marketer, people get this wrong all the time.

That's wrong too. Red Bull in Austria and KhratDingDeng (means Red Bull) or so was a Thai entity originally was never used Red Bull as a brandname, both completly different. The merged together to avoid brandname lawsuits. The taste is also very different. It has proven that it was better to go this way than to have lengthy nerveracking law suits.

[way2muchcoffee]

There are laws against equality in Thailand. You can't become a member of parliament without a university degree, you can't become a judge without a degree from abroad, and so on.

Both statements are not true. You do not need a degree to be an MP. You do need one to be the PM or in the cabinet. You do not need a degree from abroad to be a judge. Where did you get your information?

[Piengrudee]

There is no Real Inequality In The Thai Society . If there is, Thai court will sort it out.

[otherstuff1957]

There are laws against equality in Thailand. You can't become a member of parliament without a university degree, you can't become a judge without a degree from abroad, and so on.

Both statements are not true. You do not need a degree to be an MP. You do need one to be the PM or in the cabinet. You do not need a degree from abroad to be a judge. Where did you get your information?

The Degree requirement for MP's was written into the '97 constitution, but was not included in the 'coup constitution'. If the Reds succeed in their goal of returning to the '97 constitution, some MPs will have to leave Parliament.

There's been a lot of argument in this thread about how much inequality there is in Thailand. In terms of economic inequality, most people will refer to the 'Gini Coefficient'. Here is a map showing the Gini Coefficient of most of the world's countries:

As you can see, Thailand is less equal than most of Europe, Australia/NZ, Canada and central Asia. It's on par with Cambodia, the Philippines, Russia, Turkey and Iran, and has more equal income distribution than the US, most of South America, China, Malaysia and South Africa.

While lack of equality is certainly a real concern, it is rather simplistic to think that it is the only problem that Thailand faces or that Thailand suffers from gross economic inequality compared with most of the rest of the world.

[Piengrudee]

Thanks for the colourful map.

[Pakboong]

This is kind of a bad expose' with little meaning - as the likelihood of any 'poor' individual gaining access to a parliamentary seat is nil. So stating the obvious does nothing. What it usually comes down to is education. Over 90% of the world's billionaires had little or only basic education. It is not something the Thai populace likes but as already stated 1 vote 1 person but voting is not compulsory.

As an aside - I would think the country would be far better run is business people formed a board and had members of banks and business, and they were accountable by law and not able to obtain 'parliamentary privileges'. Make the Board accountable and held to book with monthly reports subject to audit on all transactions with the auditing firms changed annually. Printing of the decisions and the results should be mandatory in every six months and then let the population gauge the result by the numbers. Open and transparent accounting of all business affecting Thailand would slow (but not stop) the corruption to a greater extent than present. It would be a start!

And whilst some will quip but Toxin was a businessman, yes, he was a corrupt one thus if a board was audited and unable to alter points of law to cover their corrupt activities, then these issues would be negated. LOL wishful thinking to be sure.

What those billionaires probably have in common was they were right a very high percentage of the time. Something that I have to point out to the GF, as we argue a particular point, is that people who are right often are generally not poor.

[apetley]

There is no Real Inequality In The Thai Society . If there is, Thai court will sort it out.

First rule of 'Trolling'.

At the very least include something that is believable. You failed on both counts.

[JohanV]

I would say there is another underlying problem that needs to be solved before it is even possible to discuss wealth redistribution...

namely the simple fact that it is utterly useless to spread wealth to people totally unable to handle it.

- before you start ranting - I am NOT saying that anyone is stupid or that the poor are useless.. NO,

I am saying that true wealth is created by ideas, entrepreneurs, and people who can build structures from means of current wealth to assure future wealth. And, as long as people here are simply trying to - at best - become "the perfect employee" instead of creating something new, there isn't much more they can do with the money than go shopping with them.. ..which will only transfer the doe right back to the multinational companies anyway..

The people of Thailand don't need "shopping power", they need a new culture that values individual thinking, new ideas, inventions and audacity.

Only to people possessing those properties has a transfer of wealth any lasting effect.

So, perhaps changing the mindset of the young generation, education etc. prior to redistributing wealth would do the trick ??

Just my five cents..

Seems you are serious with your stance on this topic, my guess is you are referring to people as indigenious and inventive as Bill Gates, Trump, Murdock, Sultan of Brunei, Emir Hamad bin Khalifa ath-Thani of Quatar, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahayan of the UAE, or T.Shinawatra, maybe Pablo Escobar, Adnan Kashoggi, Mohamed Al Fayed, Paul Lir Alexander, Rick Ross, not to mention some of the "Superstars" from sports and entertainment who are pushed into dreamworlds of stardom and unfathomable wealth and riches and the likes....?

Sorry, but there is some hard core colonial-capitalist "poor are poor because they are not as clever as..." attitude radiating out of your post, it's in many, many cases not holding the water, my son!

Dear Samuian, you must have totally misread my message. Maybe I was not clear enough;

I talk about empowering the "poor" ( which I do believe have a huge potential ) by enabling them to use ingenuity and creative skills to become entrepreneurs

and inventors - and thus create wealth. I DO believe there as loads of clever people out there who never gets a chance because

1) the educational system doesn't provide the tools they need

but even more;

2) because they are thought NOT to think, NOT to question things, NOT to be investigative, curious and - most important - NOT to be different than others.

Only by changing that can the "poor" achieve any wealth other than "shopping power" ( which is equal to being used by hard-core colonial capitalists )

and instead, build businesses of their own.

And..

my list would possibly include Bill Gates and Richard Branson, yes, but instead of the list you provide of businessmen, my list would rather be;

Henry Ford, Tesla, LM Ericsson, Archimedes, Da Vinci, the Wright brothers, Timothy Berners-Lee, Niels Bohr, Goodyear, Louis Pasteur, Marie Curie

Volta, TA Edison, George Lucas, Les Paul and many other similar creators, inventors and entrepreneurs.

Each of the above mentioned have created foundations for what I would call "true wealth" based on new, original thinking, stubbornness, curiosity

and an urge to investigate and think outside of the box.

And - each of these people has through periods of their lives had to go "against the wind" = be different, "socially unfitting" to a point.

Which - unfortunately - the current Thai society does not support, especially not if you are poor.

So, when I say I am convinced that there are many potential geniuses, inventors, creators and entrepreneurs in the "poor" part of the Thai population..

..where do I say I think they are stupid ??? I most certainly don't.

Also note that I do not count getting rich on the stock-exchange as creating any "true wealth" at all. That is - IMHO - rather just to shuffle around existing wealth. T. Shinawatra and the other businessmen you mention haven't really created any value, have they ??

Please don't accuse me of hard-core colonial capitalism, you have no idea of how wrong you are..

Cheers.

Edited July 29, 2010 by JohanV

[sleepyjohn]

Imagine your country were just coming into existence for the first time and were going to start from scratch next week. Imagine that for some reason you decreed in advance that 2% of the people would have 50% of the wealth or 10% would have 90%.

Everyone would quite rightly be out on the streets with torches and pickaxes.

The fact we're not is a complete confirmation of Dan Gilbert and others' observation that we get used to just about anything in 3 months. We've had all the time since the agricultural revolution, when private property really started, to get used to slowly but surely being ripped off. Yes, being stolen from, and in a highly premeditated manner.

That's exactly what it is.

An "elite" gradually gets formed and before you know where you are they're making the laws which perpetuate them as a class and makes their lives even better (or as they see it anyway) at the clear expense, the sweat and pain and insecurity and poverty, of others.

A awful example is the way the right to hunt in the forest, for food to put on the table as they always had done, was so appallingly denied in England. Denied by law in favour of the winners in the sperm race having the right to hunt just for fun. It wasn't enforced just with a fine either but by truly gross and brutal punishments.

If you drew a graph plotting equality against per capita wealth for the lower 90% the fact is TOO much economic equality....evening out income completely by taxation for example.....doesn't produce the best result for anyone. But there is certainly a happy medium at the high point in the graph and I'll bet we're not even near there here and now.

Our tribal, or extended family roots, were examples of sharing everything for the common good. Anything the least antisocial was dangerous for the group and for the individual could even mean the ultimate punishment, banishment (= death). The restructuring of society since we started owning land means we don't know the others in our new grossly enlarged national groups intimately like we used to. This means the natural inhibiting factor of shame at antisocial behaviour no longer exists (or at least has weakened enormously though interestingly it lingers). Which may be the pivotal reason for the failure of communism.

It's just so easy....even for those on a modestly "easy street" like most of us.....to just accept that the majority of those living around us should live on such a lower level. We're not terrible people to not let this affect us. We're just, literally, thoughtless. We don't use our brains. We just get conditioned like everyone else.

That doesn't mean it's anything but grossly unfair and shouldn't be changed.

Edited July 29, 2010 by sleepyjohn

[rich54321]

Its a staus symbol - those who have money have "FACE" and the poor look up. Its the sub- serveant attitude that has been going on for hundreds of years - never mind the ridiculous 1 vote per person - as we have seen if you are paid you will vote!

[bedu]

Inequality? No way.

The rich and poor in Thailand both have equal rights. Both have only 1 vote.

So says the poster with a Thai name and a photo of a young white Chinese, oops I mean Thai girl, whose idea of a serious issue would be to debate whether she should go to Siam Paragon or whether to go to Emporium.

Of course everyone in Thailand has a vote, but once they've voted for a bloke or another, the corrupt politician who is the winner, rubs his hands together and says 'business as usual' and then dicks on the folks in the North East, as does anyone who is a business owner, and pays crappy wages.

[TackyToo]

Inequality? No way.

The rich and poor in Thailand both have equal rights. Both have only 1 vote.

How smart you are! ...and how many votes could you buy if you have 2 million Baht to cater your needs? Try to think before you type, even if this is not Thai style!

[chainarong]

The only way to get the poor standards up is though education but the Thai rulling class like to keep the sable boy in the stable.

LiveSteam

Never a truer word said ,I would also include most of Thailands near neighbours as well.

[swerver]

Something like what is being done in the west at this time could be suggested , billionairs have been asked to give half of thier wealth to agencies for the poor , billions of dollars have poured forth to aid the poor since the requests started and it seems more is to follow . Who needs that much money any way ?

Wow.

There must be lots of people who like to know the part of the WEST you are referring to.

I do a lot of research about true socialism but have not seen anything you mention.

So, please do not keep this valuable information to you self, be a true socialist democrat.

Edited July 29, 2010 by swerver

[mccw]

In responce to a couple of others;

there is a large middle class in Thailand, no 'hole' in the distrabution curve as claimed; just look at all the moo baans of ranging values and indeed the diversity of property available.

Also social mobility is entirely possable if peoples priorities are right. Those that study hard, work hard and save , rather than shop, spend and dream, can move up the socio economic ladder just as much as in any western country.

The problem Thailand faces is the lies being spread by the some politicians that wealth is a right achievable by pledging allegience to a patron rather than a result of hard work ie earnt, maybe not even realised by yourself but through your childrens education and future success. Nothing is instantanious appart from winning the lottery.

Sure schools in the sticks could be better and corruption needs to be addressed in the police, but fundamentaly the problem lies with individuals, famillies and how they chose to live their lives. Listen Buddha and king will get you far; listen politics of jelliousy, gossip and advertising and no good will come of it.

[Deeral]

"One problem with that is, if you give something to someone, they tend to not respect it and squander it because it was free and there will be more. "

..I'd love to hear one iota of sound theory that backs up that glib little "soundbite".

I guess if you say it often enough people will believe it - the poster obviously does.

[way2muchcoffee]

Lots of complaining about the Thai education system. It is true that there is definite room for improvement, but no matter how good the education system is, the kids will reap little benefit from it without proper parenting.

Education starts at home. I am appalled at the parenting I see going on around me. Some will point to the different value systems as the cause and will defend the style of parenting and that is fine. They make valid points. But it is precisely these value systems that cause the education system fail, no matter how good the teacher.

Edited July 29, 2010 by way2muchcoffee

[Heng]

"One problem with that is, if you give something to someone, they tend to not respect it and squander it because it was free and there will be more. "

..I'd love to hear one iota of sound theory that backs up that glib little "soundbite".

I guess if you say it often enough people will believe it - the poster obviously does.

How about any of the 'invest only what you can lose...' crowd chiming in on that one?

Edited July 29, 2010 by Heng

[philw]

"One problem with that is, if you give something to someone, they tend to not respect it and squander it because it was free and there will be more. "

..I'd love to hear one iota of sound theory that backs up that glib little "soundbite".

I guess if you say it often enough people will believe it - the poster obviously does.

Nice point, well said

ph

[charmonman]

THe element certainly exists in all countries but it is extreme in THailand; Thailand is a wealthy country - and one of the reasons that people keep calling it (wrongly) third world, is that they see everywhere people living on the poverty line - whether it's beggars, security guards or labourers in the fields - they are in fact a symptom of a huge underclass resulting from some of the worst distribution of national wealth in S.E. asia.

Of course this massive pool of poor people helps keep the wealthy were they are and gives the foreigners a false impression of "customer service"- it's just a vast pool of people who are prepared to do incredibly menial, servile tasks simply to stay alive.

Do you really think the sex trade would appeal if the differentiation between a farm girl's life in Issan and the money she an ear in places like Bangkok and Pattaya wasn't so great?

The wealthy elite also control the media and the ruling elements, in principal the army and these are used to maintain their privileged position.

I've always wondered how Thailand ranked compared to other countries in terms of income inequality and decided to do a bit of googling, suspecting the issue was being somewhat exaggerated. I came up with this https://www.cia.gov/...r/2172rank.html

According to this objective measure of inequality, Thailand is not particularly high on the scale. It is apparently more equal than many in the region such as Cambodia, Philippines, and surprisingly Malaysia and Singapore. Not surprisingly it is more equal than the USA. It is more unequal than its "communist" (near) neighbours Vietnam, Laos and China.

I understand the desire to complain about the so-called "elites" exploiting the poor in Thailand and they have undoubtedly done so, as have their counterparts in most other countries. But the facts seem to say that they have not been particularly egregious in doing so compared to elsewhere in the region or internationally despite all the invective being hurled around recently.

Rational and non-insulting responses are appreciated.

[yesdavy]

THe element certainly exists in all countries but it is extreme in THailand; Thailand is a wealthy country - and one of the reasons that people keep calling it (wrongly) third world, is that they see everywhere people living on the poverty line - whether it's beggars, security guards or labourers in the fields - they are in fact a symptom of a huge underclass resulting from some of the worst distribution of national wealth in S.E. asia.

Of course this massive pool of poor people helps keep the wealthy were they are and gives the foreigners a false impression of "customer service"- it's just a vast pool of people who are prepared to do incredibly menial, servile tasks simply to stay alive.

Do you really think the sex trade would appeal if the differentiation between a farm girl's life in Issan and the money she an ear in places like Bangkok and Pattaya wasn't so great?

The wealthy elite also control the media and the ruling elements, in principal the army and these are used to maintain their privileged position.

How could you make so much sense and in the same post believe Thailand is not third world? Of course, it all depends on where you are from.