Since the head of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) announced some six months ago that he would use the sufficiency economy (SE) as the guiding light for governing the country, I again have seen discussions equating SE with self-sufficiency. It's not.
When SE was first advanced by His Majesty the King as the cure for economic and social ills after their symptoms appeared in the form of the 1997 financial crisis, it was understandable that many people did not know what SE meant and thus — wrongly — thought that he advocated self-sufficiency.
Since then, SE has been explained thoroughly; yet some people seem not to have understood the basic idea. Worse, some seem to intentionally mislead by equating SE with self-sufficiency to undermine or belittle not only this excellent idea but also its chief advocate.
SE is a set of five groups of principles that can be applied in many areas, from one's daily life to economic management. They are a strong moral foundation, in-depth knowledge, logical thinking, good risk management and adherence to moderation.
Among these, all should be well understood except perhaps adherence to moderation. A strong moral foundation and in-depth knowledge are also the pillars of the idea. Only risk management can perhaps be linked to self-sufficiency, but only remotely if at all.
A weak moral foundation is the chief cause of many ills in this country. In the past couple of weeks, one cannot avoid the news about corruption led by a senior police officer. Sadly, however, this sensational story is but one of the unending tales of corruption, and it seems to have drowned out reports about important research conducted by Prof Pasuk Phongpaichit, who found that corruption in the form of demand for bribes in the police department, as rampant as it might be, was not the highest among government agencies. That honour belongs to the land registry department.
One can hardly get away from corruption. In my case, I have lived outside the country most of the past five decades and yet I cannot escape corruption here. A recent example involves a fund of 2.7 million baht donated to help needy students at Thepsatri Rajabhat University. Not long after I began adding to the fund in 1998, most of the 2.7 million baht mysteriously disappeared.
A temporary employee was charged with taking the money, and the case went all the way to the highest court, which handed down its decision a few weeks ago, saying that it did not believe the accused employee took the money. The question remains: Who among the university officials did?
Pursuit of knowledge can be undertaken through formal education as well as through informal life-long learning. For Thailand, this SE pillar is also weak. In basic education, intense discussions on another round of reform have been under way long before the NCPO came on the scene, as all involved agree that despite receiving the largest share of government funding, education achievement has lagged far behind other countries.
The last round of reform has miserably failed. The next round is unlikely to do better, unless the mindset of the people involved change for the better. My involvement in the education sector has convinced me that the first question most, if not all, officials ask of schools has to do with them — instead of the children — in everything they do, from routine school work to the reform agenda.
In university education, a fundamental flaw remains: Anyone wishing to obtain a degree is practically guaranteed one — as long as he or she pays.
Informal education is perhaps in worse shape because few Thais pursue life-long learning. A leading indicator comes from a number of surveys that conclude most Thais read very little. Even teachers do not read much, and many become deadwood very quickly after they start teaching.
The principle of moderation should be familiar to Thais because most are Buddhists who have been taught the middle-path concept. Applying this principle to economic management at the country level as well as at the global level has become more urgent but has not been widely discussed. Urgent because world resources have continued to dwindle while the population continues to rise. Most people have been indoctrinated to consume ever more so that economic growth continues.
These conflicting trends cannot last unless some miracle technology can be found that can, say, turn something like a grain of rice into meals enough to feed a few million people for a week. To tackle this issue, I have proposed a new tax system of progressive consumption taxes, but so far no one appears to have listened.
I have made many proposals. The oldest one I created with a mentor almost 50 years ago about lowering risks. It involved relocating central government offices to the Saraburi/Nakhon Nayok area. The Thaksin administration picked up the idea, but it was never implemented.
If, by using sufficiency economy as a guiding light, the head of the NCPO meant that he would seriously tackle corruption, launch effective education and tax reforms, and initiate the relocation of government offices to a new town. With these reforms, he would have tackled the most important risks to the country.
But none of the efforts would have anything to do with self-sufficiency. For those who should know better, therefore, stop talking nonsense by equating the sufficiency economy with self-sufficiency.
Sawai Boonma has worked as a development economist for more than two decades. He can be reached at sboonma@msn.com.