One of the strategies put in place by the Thaksin government in its early days was to unleash the political and economic forces of rural folk and to create a new space for the marginalised and disadvantaged large portion of Thailand's population of 65 million. And it is that awakened population that is now coming onto the political landscape and finding it wanting.
In an outburst of middle-class outrage against a government they believe is corrupt, a member of a network of engineers, architects, scientists and ICT experts marches from Ratchaprasong to Pathumwan to call for political reform before elections are held. PATIPAT JANTHONG
The challenge now is to accommodate their newly found political and economic potency and to manage well the strong reaction from the urban '"middle class" who are also feeling increasingly uncomfortable with the prevailing political norms and institutions that are open to an unprecedented level of political corruption and abuse of power for narrow clique and familial interests.
The political-economic phenomenon that Thailand is facing could be described by the Marxian concept of "social contradictions" that have been created by the fast changing forces of the market. When a new paradigm of growth leads a society to a higher level of development, many people would experience a sense of disorientation and a feeling of insecurity.
The average Thai, according to Pasuk Phongpaichit, an internationally well-known Thai political economist, is now enjoying wealth three times more than their parents. In other words, in one short generation, the productive forces in Thai society have created a high level of wealth unexpected and unseen in our long history.
That expanding middle class, in all urban areas of the country, with their rising purchasing power, is asking for a larger space and a bigger say in the way in which the country and its affairs are being managed. Political and social institutions are experiencing increasing pressure to become more transparent, with higher degrees of participation and a measurable level of accountability. We are incapable of managing the resultant ''contradictions'' that we have ourselves created over the past four to five decades.
At this juncture, a paradigm of "creative destruction," advanced by the Austrian-American Joseph Schumpeter back in 1942 in his book Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy may apply.
When wealth is accumulated and distributed across society, that society will have to be transformed; mutated from its own traditional mode into something new and more appropriate in order to move on to the next level of development.
The process is both creative and destructive. It is a self-renewal dynamic that would leave the traditional structure of power and wealth and at the same time creative by instituting a new social and political framework for a new set of social relations that have emerged out of the transformative process.
We still recall Thaksin Shinawatra, in one of his famous weekly radio programmes, admonishing Thais to "get into debt like me. You will never get rich unless you get into debt. Look at me". We also recall well the adage of the late Deng Xiaoping of China which says: "To get rich is glorious!" Both of them reflect a quintessential populist strategy to its core. For what is more populist than encouraging people, all people, to get rich quick and get rich gloriously?
Well, the nature of the newly rich people, or we can call them middle class, is that they want a level playing field, equitable opportunity in the creation and accumulation of wealth, a high measure of transparency and effective participation in the affairs of the state, and a set of social and political norms that would not allow nepotism in public offices and cronyism in the economic and commercial enterprises.
China for a few decades after Deng Xiaoping had to contend with the same set of problems and the younger generation of leadership has been forced to confront the issues with full political commitment. Old norms, old values and old practices, however widespread, have to be "destroyed" and a new body of norms are being created in the glare of public scrutiny.
What Thailand is facing now is no less than a process of "creative destruction" in our political transformation. What Prof Pasuk calls "a social transformation" out of some "short-sighted" policies of the ruling party that had led to "too much pride in the majority that they won" and "oblivious to and arrogant against the sentiments of the people who no longer tolerate some of the disastrous policies like the rice-pledging scheme, the amnesty bill and the problem of widespread corruption".
For the opposition, Prof Pasuk reserves some very harsh words of advice too. "The main opposition needs to reform itself first. People have changed. The expectation of the people from political parties has already changed."
This is a time for a major political restructuring by all concerned parties. We must recognise the old mode of political interaction has become obsolete. A new power structure must be created. The old way must yield to the new power relations. Neither side will be able to resist the changes that have taken place, some as consequences of their own making and policies suitable for the time past.
If the protagonists in the current political turmoil insist on absolute victory for their outmoded way of thinking and doing things, the transformation will be more destructive for ourselves, and less creative for the sake of our future generations.
Thailand now needs a new political order, leaving behind the old and dangerously flawed system. Much like a colourful butterfly emerges from a dead caterpillar, a new Thailand must be able to ascend again from the ashes of her own unworkable factionalised politics.
As Mr Schumpeter admonishes us, every society is mandated to live and evolve within the "perennial gale of creative destruction; it cannot be understood irrespective of it or, in fact, on the hypothesis that there is a perennial lull "
Thai society is no exception. We will be condemned to self-destruction if we refuse to change and transform with the dynamics of the "perennial gale" that we ourselves have set in motion in our own recent past.
Surin Pitsuwan is concurrently Professor Emeritus, Thammasat University, a Visiting Professor at the Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (Grips) in Tokyo, and a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Islamic Studies, Oxford University, UK. Opinion expressed here is his own.