Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs Rhoden, T. F. (2015), Oligarchy in Thailand?, in: Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 34, 1, 3–25. URN: http://nbn-resolving.org/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:gbv:18-4-8396 ISSN: 1868-4882 (online), ISSN: 1868-1034 (print) The online version of this article can be found at: <www.CurrentSoutheastAsianAffairs.org> Published by GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Institute of Asian Studies and Hamburg University Press. The Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs is an Open Access publication. It may be read, copied and distributed free of charge according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. To subscribe to the print edition: <[email protected]> For an e-mail alert please register at: <www.CurrentSoutheastAsianAffairs.org> The Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs is part of the GIGA Journal Family, which also includes Africa Spectrum, Journal of Current Chinese Affairs and Journal of Politics in Latin America: <www.giga-journal-family.org>. (cid:2)(cid:2)(cid:2) Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs 1/2015: 3–25 (cid:2)(cid:2)(cid:2) Oligarchy in Thailand? T. F. Rhoden Abstract: A modern conception of oligarchy, which can be housed un- der an authoritarian regime as easily as it can under a liberal democratic one, can affect our understanding of the potential national political re- percussions of extreme inequalities of wealth. This article has two goals: (1) to conceptually analyse the meaning of oligarchy; and (2) to make a descriptive case for its use in the Thai context. The test case of contempo- rary Thailand shows what exactly an oligarch or oligarchy means under a military regime and the potential effects for national politics of an oligar- chy based on material wealth. Utilizing Jeffrey A. Winters’ Aristotelian- grounded conception of oligarchy for the contemporary world, this arti- cle argues that some political outcomes in Thailand are inexplicable without recourse to a modern variant of oligarchic theory and analysis. (cid:2) Manuscript received 30 October 2014; accepted 13 April 2015 Keywords: Thailand, oligarchy, monarchy, military regime, Thai oligar- chy T. F. Rhoden is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Sci- ence at Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois, USA. His research focuses on democratisation, comparative regime analysis, refugee and migration studies, and business and social entrepreneurship in Southeast Asia. E-mail: <[email protected]> (cid:2)(cid:2)(cid:2) 4 T. F. Rhoden (cid:2)(cid:2)(cid:2) Introduction This article1 argues that Winters’ concept of oligarchy can be extended to politics at the national level in Thailand. The coup d’état on 22 May 2014 by military forces led by General Prayuth Chan-ocha, Commander of the Thai Royal Army, may offer evidence against the argument that Thailand has an oligarchy. A year earlier, the representative democracy in Thailand – despite it being “low” on liberalism (Rhoden 2013) – may have also opposed such a classification. Thailand with its unique form of constitu- tional monarchy, sometimes termed a “network monarchy” (McCargo 2005), also appears to argue against oligarchy. Additionally, a review of Riggs’ (1966) now-classic concept of “bureaucratic polity” or Chai-anan’s (1991) concept of “three-dimensional Thai state”2 also seems to chal- lenge any notion of national-level oligarchy. The present paper argues that while Thailand is not an oligarchy, it does very much have an oligarchy. This is not a play on words. To under- stand why the above claim is empirically true, one must revisit the con- cept of oligarchy and allow for misconceptions to change. Three specific elements need to change. Firstly, the theory of oligarchy, as originally understood by Aristotle, is not a regime, but a very powerful, hard-to- eradicate, and not always coherent element of almost every state and society since Aristotle posited his mixed regime, including contemporary Thailand. Secondly, the theory of oligarchy is a materialist theory of power. Thirdly, the theory of oligarchy can be applied to Thailand and, by doing so, researchers of social science gain a new perspective of re- cent turmoil in Thai national politics. Every theory, method or approach provides insight. For some stu- dents of Thai politics and society, recognising that Thailand has an oli- garchy may induce something of a modest epiphany. For others, this recognition will be more like an intellectual homecoming. There are many ways to describe Thailand’s national politics, including the concept of oligarchy, regardless if one likes or dislikes the word. This article is about theory and classification and how it applies to one national state in 1 The author would like to thank Danny Unger, Michael Buehler, and Patrick Jory, as well as commentators at the 12th International Conference on Thai Studies at the University of Sydney and the Southeast Asian Studies Student Conference at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at NIU, for reading earli- er drafts of the manuscript. 2 Translations from Thai or German into English are the author’s. Trai laksana rath thai ((cid:2)(cid:3)(cid:4)(cid:5)(cid:7)(cid:6) (cid:8)(cid:9)(cid:4)(cid:6)(cid:10)(cid:2)(cid:11)(cid:12)): this regime concept is very much at odds with outsider, non-Thai classifications. (cid:2)(cid:2)(cid:2) Oligarchy in Thailand? 5 (cid:2)(cid:2)(cid:2) Southeast Asia. I agree that a causal argument may be more powerful than a descriptive argument in the social sciences. However, because there is still so much confusion over the term oligarchy and its applicability outside of Hellenistic Greece, I make a simpler argument of reviewed classification and exampled application. Oligarchy as diction can be more than a facile epithet. Oligarchy is, in fact, a vital force in Thailand’s polit- ical society. Oligarchs versus Elites People who have the power to effect change that average citizens or subjects cannot are called elites. However, the word elite is often over- used. In discussions about a particular divergence from an elite, like an “oligarch”, people often miss the analytical value in that difference. When we discuss the elites at the top of a state or society, we should be ready to question where the power base of those elites lies. Just as not all power resources are the same, not all elites are the same either. This is a simple observation to make, but a crucial one. Much of the blame for eliding the difference between an elite and an oligarch must lie with scholars such as Robert Michels (1911) and his oft-cited “iron law of oligarchy”. There are at least six sources of power for elites: (1) formal political right, (2) official position, (3) coercion, (4) mobilisation, (5) ideology, and – most importantly for the present study – (6) material resource (Winters 2011: 11–20). Power regarding political rights (in democracies at least) is the most diluted power resource, since universal suffrage is, by definition, an equalization of this power resource. Power from official positions is normally what we think of when we imagine elites: heads of governmen- tal institutions, corporations, and other secular or religious organisations. As a power resource, when one is in office, the “power to” can be high. Once out of office, however, access to that power disappears immediate- ly. Coercive power – the ability to harness violence or threaten to do so – is as old as time and, in modern national states, becomes the legal pre- rogative of the state over a given territory. Mobilisation power is an indi- vidual’s ability to sway or inspire others to realise their latent political powers in larger groups. Occasionally, mobilisation can trump other powers in exigencies (for example, Mao Zedong, Gandhi, Ho Chi Minh), but because of the problem of sustained collective action, as argued by Olson (1965), this can be fleeting during “the politics of the ordinary” (Winters 2011: 19). Ideological power may seem the most transient be- cause it is best articulated when added to these other power resources. (cid:2)(cid:2)(cid:2) 6 T. F. Rhoden (cid:2)(cid:2)(cid:2) This leaves the remaining question of power based on material resources, which is at the heart of modern oligarchic theory. Material power is power based on wealth.3 An elite is any individual who sits at the top of state and society due to one of the initial five re- sources of power above, whilst an oligarch is any individual whose pri- mary source of power comes from a material wealth that is magnitudes greater than that of the majority.4 Since Michels’ theory of organisations within democracies is about power based on group and party dynamics, it would have made more sense if he had called his “law” the iron law of elites. When one speak of oligarchs contra elites, the discussion is not about one’s political rights, official position, personal coercive ability, skill at mobilisation, or ideology, but instead about how a great inequality of wealth is utilised as political power. Oligarchy’s Non-Marxist Lineage Not all materialist traditions lead back to classical Marxism. Whilst both Marxism and modern oligarchy focus on material resources, Marxist analysis tends to focus on how wealth is built up as opposed to how it is defended. For oligarchic theory, these particular upstream concerns on the modes of production or surplus extraction are superfluous for down- stream analyses on how a wealthy individual defends one’s property and income. What is of interest here is not how material resources are used economically to create socio-political effects, but how material resources are used politically to create economic effects that benefit an oligarch in their wealth defence of either property or income or both (Winters 2011: 9). Modern oligarchic theory is not a rehashing of classical Marxism. Unlike any notion of herrschenden Klassen – of directly ruling classes (Marx 1867: 261) – modern oligarchic theory states explicitly that oligarchs do 3 Wealth does not have to mean how much money one has in the bank, but instead depends on historical circumstances. The extreme wealth of a feudal lord is not counted in the same way as Bill Gates’ estimated USD 76 billion (Dolan and Kroll 2014). However, both individuals are able to effect political change, if they wish, on a scale and kind that is unavailable to the majority be- cause of that wealth, as is exampled by the Koch Brothers in America (Sargent 2014). 4 Winters (2011: 9) noted that it is not unusual for oligarchs to “have elite forms of power stacked on top of or blended with their defining material foundation. This would make them simultaneously oligarchs and elites. But no elite can be an oligarch in the absence of holding and personally deploying massive material power.” (cid:2)(cid:2)(cid:2) Oligarchy in Thailand? 7 (cid:2)(cid:2)(cid:2) not have to rule in order to defend their wealth. An oligarchy is not a class like the bourgeoisie. The utility of modern oligarchic theory is that it allows researchers to analyse the socio-political world from a material- ist perspective without falling into the tired structural constraints of Marx and Engels. Oligarchy stresses agency over structure. This is not to argue against classical Marxism per se, which is impossible in a short article, but to acknowledge that the oligarchic tradition of material power has a deeper lineage in political theory.5 Part of the reason why Piketty’s (2014) recent near-700-page tome reached number one on the New York Times bestseller’s list for nonfiction is because both scholars and the lay public alike are hungry for a way to understand the influence that ex- treme wealth and money has on national politics in materialist terms beyond those of Marxism. Modern oligarchic theory is one such ap- proach that may also be useful in these types of analyses. For the sake of analytical clarity and brevity, the differences between oligarchy and Marxism are summarised in Table 1 below. Table 1: Points of Differentiation in Two Materialists Theories of Socio- political Power Key Points Modern Oligarchy Classical Marxism State - independent - borne from conflict between - always open to influence by classes material wealth - someday state ceases to exist in future Regime - oligarchy not a regime type - depends on epoch in mode of - oligarchs often apathetic production and material exploi- about overarching form tation - oligarchs can rule via regime, - wealthy classes rule society but prefer not to directly in contemporary era Society - oligarchs often do not get - wealthy classes work together along - depends on type of oligarchy Economics - not set - capitalism as most efficient - allow for tax dense when form of exploitation to date capitalist - high financialisation pre- ferred 5 Unlike Marxism, this is simply a clarification of oligarchy’s pre-industrial lineage. There are many worthy post-Marxist analyses that could be cited here. For ex- ample, a recent article that analyses another Southeast Asian country under the rubric of the “Murdoch School” is Jones (2014). (cid:2)(cid:2)(cid:2) 8 T. F. Rhoden (cid:2)(cid:2)(cid:2) Key Points Modern Oligarchy Classical Marxism Goals - sustained defence of material - continued generation of new wealth wealth - defence is first, exploitation - exploitation is first, defence is is second an after-thought Wealth - unimportant - depends on mode of produc- Source - not how oligarch gets wealth, tion but how one protects it - exploitation of proletariat a given Political - “politics of the ordinary” - revolutionary Climate Methodology - agential/voluntarist explana- - structural explanation is more tion is more common common Teleology - oligarchic perpetuity is the - capitalism continues to ex- default pand until overthrow of - nearly impossible to do away wealthy classes and “dictator- with oligarchy in majority of ship of proletariat” societies - eventual pure communism with no state-society divide Note: For the sake of simplicity, “classical” Marxism here avoids later arguments by acolytes. The table is in direct opposition to Robison and Hadiz’s (2004) oli- garchy, which is another variant of Marxism. Source: See Hobsbawn’s (2012: 48–63) summary of Marx and Engels’ original pre- 1848 theory. Winters has done well to reorient the concept of oligarchy away from Marxism toward the original Aristotelian concept. Despite the etymology of oligarkhía, where olígos (the few) and arkho (to rule) seem to suggest a regime type, Aristotle’s use of oligarchy is more complicated. Though it would be a reductionist interpretation of Aristotle’s use of the word oligarchy to mean only “the rich”, it would be even more incorrect to think that an oligarch can be an oligarch without access to power based on material wealth. Aristotle (1985: 96–97; 350s BCE) challenged those of his own time who wished to conflate any small klatch in power with oligarchy within that regime: If a well-off majority has authority, and similarly in the other case, if it somewhere happened that the poor were a minority with re- spect to the well off but were superior and had authority in the re- gime, although when a small number has authority it is called oli- garchy, this definition of the regimes would not be held to be a fine one. The reason this definition of oligarchy “would not be held to be a fine one” for Aristotle is because it elides the very real differences in power resources that persist between an oligarch and an elite. A small group can (cid:2)(cid:2)(cid:2) Oligarchy in Thailand? 9 (cid:2)(cid:2)(cid:2) rule a nation, as in the current military regime in Thailand, but to call them an oligarchy would be a misuse of the term since their power re- sides in coercion and not in their wealth.6 As will be shown below in the case of Thailand, oligarchy can persist in spite of the regime type, surviv- ing not just governmental change but regime change. Thus, even within liberal democracy, which strives for political equality but not material equality, an oligarchy can persist. Whether they actually rule or not may tell us about the type or form of oligarchy housed within that particular regime, but it will not stop one from claiming that there is an oligarchy present and that those oligarchs use their wealth politically to effect legis- lation that further protects their property and income. Oligarchy is not a regime type. In short, oligarchy “refers to the politics of wealth defense by materially endowed actors” (Winters 2011: 7). Measuring Oligarchy in Thailand How can we measure oligarchy? Consider an oligarch by the name of former-PM Thaksin Shinawatra who wishes to stage a public protest that lasts for months in a plush, urban shopping district in city of over ten million people. Then ask how much more powerful this Thaksin is than the average Thai citizen. There are things to count everywhere. One can count how much it costs to feed x number of protesters for x number of days, as well as transportation costs, costs for stage equipment and speakers, costs for blankets and tents, costs to pay off some portion of police and/or military to allow the protest to last longer, costs for media at the event, for the nation, and for international consumption, costs to buy off other politicians to stay the course, costs to provide cash assis- tance to families who lose loved ones in the protests, costs to pay off protesters when they return home to vote again, costs to forward legisla- tion to convict politicians who went against the oligarch and grant am- nesty to all those involved, costs to afford a palatial lifestyle in a foreign country whilst the oligarch waits until the dust has settled around the protests and returns home, and so on. A specific number can be attached and then compared to determine exactly how much more powerful an oligarch is than an average citizen. A key point when measuring oligar- 6 If a regime has an oligarchy within it and that oligarchy rules the regime, the term plutocracy (ploutokratía) might seem like a good fit. However, plutocracy is not a word from political philosophy but a modern creation with first-known use in 1652 (“Plutocracy”). For different types of oligarchy, some of which do rule, see Winters (2011). “Plutocracy”, see Merriam-Webster Dictionary, online: <www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plutocracy> (20 April 2015). (cid:2)(cid:2)(cid:2) 10 T. F. Rhoden (cid:2)(cid:2)(cid:2) chies is that oligarchs do not have infinite powers. Unlike other power resources, the measurement for oligarchic power in a contemporary state and society will always be finite, which means that material power is limited only by the amount of wealth at hand. In this sense, Material power is unique in that it allows oligarchs to purchase sustained engagement of others who require no personal com- mitment to the goals of the oligarchs they serve (Winters 2011: 18). That said, not all measurements of oligarchic power are the same and some ways of counting will effect an unnecessary distortion of reality. One option is to consider wealth in “quintile groups”; in this case, the entire population of Thailand divided into five groups from poorest to richest. As a person moves from Group 1 (the lowest income) to Group 5 (the highest income), the share of the total national income increases at every tier: Group 1 has less than 1 per cent of the wealth in Thailand; Group 2 has 3 per cent; Group 3 has 9 per cent; Group 4 has 18 per cent; and Group 5 has 69 per cent, as represented in Figure 1 below (Kiati- pong, Sinswat, and Chutchotitham 2008: 14). However, the challenge for an oligarchic analysis that attempts to uncover whether or not Thailand has a oligarchic component in its current military regime, is that when one talks about the top 20 per cent, this is much too large a segment of the population to be either considered “a few” or to have the access to the requisite individual material power necessary for the urban street pro- tests described above. Not every member of the top 20 per cent can afford to bill political street carnival that led up to the coup in May 2014. Despite what Figure 1 shows regarding wealth distribution in Thai society, oligarchic analysis is better served by highlighting the top 1 per cent of society rather than the top 20. One might think that this infor- mation is difficult to obtain and question why a wealthy oligarch would voluntarily provide data on how much more materially powerful he or she is than the average citizen. In 2010, Satit Rungkasiri, director-general of the Fiscal Policy Office, estimated that only 2.3 million out of 9 mil- lion filed income tax returns actually paid anything, out of a total popula- tion of approximately 64 million Thais (Bangkok Post 2010). In a country where only 14 per cent of the population file income tax, is data available for analysis? Thankfully, the vanity of the rich is an aide for the research- er. Since 2006, the online edition of Forbes magazine has published a regular segment entitled “Thailand’s Top 40” (now “Top 50”) of the wealthiest individuals in the country. If one has an estimate of the net worth of the average Thai adult in any given year, then a Material Power Index (MPI) can be constructed to indicate exactly how many more (cid:2)(cid:2)(cid:2) Oligarchy in Thailand? 11 (cid:2)(cid:2)(cid:2) times materially powerful an ultra-wealthy Thai oligarch is than the aver- age Thai subject. Figure 1: Thai Household Wealth by Quintiles (2006) Source: Kiatipong, Sinswat, and Chutchotitham 2008. And unlike power sources of ideology, official position, coerciveness, mobilization, or suffrage, an MPI is unnervingly exact as a measurement of the “power to” use, or not use, this material wealth. A comparative perspective is helpful when understanding the MPI strength of Thai oligarchs as it shows whether Thai society is an average contemporary case or an outlier in some particular way. Table 2 below ranks all coun- tries in East and Southeast Asia (for which there is data) to show in MPI terms, which is the most oligarchic state in this part of the world. Table 2 shows that, as the net worth of the average adult in any one of these states increases, the more the relational material power of those few oligarchs decreases. In other words, the more egalitarian a society is in material terms, the weaker the power of an oligarch. This illustrates that even if most oligarchs in Southeast Asia deposit their wealth in Sin- gaporean banks, their material power in relation to the normal Singapo- rean citizen drops by a factor of ten to a hundred as soon as they leave their own countries.