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Abstract
This article provides a critique of the Thailand 4.0 strategy to push the country out of the middle-income trap through innovation-driven, inclusive and sustainable growth. First, it argues that the policies have insufficiently analysed the persistence of structural hierarchy and uneven development in the global political economy, which will constrain Thailand’s catch-up success in the future. Second, based on writings about progressive mission-led industrial strategies, it is argued that Thailand 4.0 ought to embed a progressive social and environmental agenda more clearly in its industrial strategy. Third, it is argued that Thailand 4.0 neglects to address the high concentration of political and economic power in the country, and also continues to allow unequal access to the policymaking process that has led to socio-environmental problems. Overall, this article argues that Thailand 4.0 will increasingly aggravate the two-tier fragmented nature of the political economic system of Thailand, where few can reap the biggest shares of the surplus and participate in more advanced sectors of the economy. It also calls for a more progressive industrial strategy and an alternative developmental path.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank four anonymous reviewers for their useful comments.
Notes
Notes
1 Jitsuchon, “Thailand in a Middle-Income Trap,” 15–6.
2 Doner, Politics of Uneven Development, 9, 276.
3 Ibid., 14–6, 275–8.
4 Ministry of Industry, Strategy to Develop Thai Industry, 3–5.
5 Ibid., 4; Government Spokesman Bureau, “Prime Minister Affirms”; and Bunchanon, “Analysis: Thailand 4.0.”
6 Ministry of Industry, Strategy to Develop Thai Industry, 1–2; and speech by the Governor of the Bank of Thailand on 7 February 2017, quoted in “Veerathai Santiprabhob.”
7 Thailand 4.0 is supposed to address middle-income, inequality, and imbalanced development traps. Ministry of Industry, Strategy to Develop Thai Industry, 4–5.
8 Ibid., 5–6.
9 Mungkang, “Guideline for Defence Industrial Development,” 7–17; and Pensute, “Thailand 4.0 Economics and Political Context,” 79.
10 Jitsuchon, “Thailand in a Middle-Income Trap,” 17; and “Veerathai Santiprabhob.”
11 Ministry of Industry, Strategy to Develop Thai Industry, 3–6.
12 OCSC, Thailand 4.0 under the Thai Constitution, 14.
13 Government Spokesman Bureau, “Prime Minister Affirms.”
14 Ministry of Industry, Strategy to Develop Thai Industry, 7–15.
15 BOI, Annual Report 2016, 30–1.
16 Srimalee, “Investors Ready to Pour into EEC.” One baht is around 0.032 US dollars.
17 “Meet the World Giants in EEC.”
18 “Alibaba Group Discusses with Somkid.”
19 Srimalee, “Investors Ready to Pour into EEC.”
20 Interview with Secretary General of the EEC Office Kanit Sangsubhan, in “EEC to Spearhead Thailand 4.0.”
21 Ministry of Industry, Strategy to Develop Thai Industry, 4.
22 Ibid., 4.
23 Government Spokesman Bureau, “Prime Minister Affirms.”
24 Suvit Maesincee, Minister at The Prime Minister’s Office, interviewed in Bunchanon, “Analysis: Thailand 4.0.”
25 Fischer, “The End of Peripheries?,” 704. Also see Kiely, “Spatial Hierarchy and/or Contemporary Geopolitics,” 240; and Bieler and Morton, “Uneven and Combined Development,” 38.
26 Fischer, “The End of Peripheries?,” 701.
27 Arrighi, Silver, and Brewer, “Industrial Convergence, Globalization,” 15.
28 Mandel, Late Capitalism, 66, 359, 368 quoted in Bieler and Morton, “Uneven and Combined Development,” 41.
29 Wade, “Failing States and Cumulative Causation,” 27.
30 Bieler and Morton, “Uneven and Combined Development,” 41; and Saad-filho, “Rise of the South,” 582.
31 Fischer, “The End of Peripheries?,” 715–6.
32 Arrighi, Silver, and Brewer, “Industrial Convergence, Globalization,” 18.
33 Ibid., 18; and Wade, “Failing States and Cumulative Causation,” 23.
34 Schrank, “Ready-to-Wear Development?,” quoted in Wade, “Failing States and Cumulative Causation,” 27.
35 Saad-filho, “Rise of the South,” 582.
36 Wade, “Failing States and Cumulative Causation,” 29; and Fischer, “The End of Peripheries?,” 714.
37 Kiely, “Spatial Hierarchy and/or Contemporary Geopolitics,” 242.
38 Wade, “Failing States and Cumulative Causation,” 29; Bieler and Morton, “Uneven and Combined Development,” 42; and Fischer, “The End of Peripheries?,” 714.
39 Fu, Pietrobelli, and Soete, “Role of Foreign Technology and Indigenous Innovation,” 1206; and Fischer, “The End of Peripheries?,” 711 and 712.
40 Fischer, “The End of Peripheries?,” 713.
41 See the section written by Cimoli, Dosi, and Stiglitz in Mazzucato et al., “Which Industrial Policy Does Europe Need,” 130.
42 Arrighi, Silver, and Brewer, “Industrial Convergence, Globalization,” 18; and Wade, “Failing States and Cumulative Causation,” 25.
43 BioThai, “Stop Article 44.”
44 For example, see “FTA-Watch Sends a Message”; and Focus on the Global South, “Statement of Civil Society in Thailand.”
45 See the section written by Cimoli, Dosi, and Stiglitz in Mazzucato et al., “Which Industrial Policy Does Europe Need,” 132.
46 Fu, Pietrobelli, and Soete, “Role of Foreign Technology and Indigenous Innovation,” 1204 and 1210.
47 UNCTAD, World Investment Report 2017, 2.
48 Ibid., 10–2.
49 Fichtner, “Anglo-America’s True Structural Power,” 3. Anglo-America is understood as English-speaking countries and territories with similar political and socio-economic roots.
50 Ibid., 25.
51 Ibid., 25.
52 See Wade, “Failing States and Cumulative Causation,” 28; and Kiely, “Spatial Hierarchy and/or Contemporary Geopolitics,” 242.
53 Prayut Chan-o-cha’s speech quoted in Government Spokesman Bureau, “Prime Minister Affirms.”
54 NESDB, Analysis on the State of Poverty and Inequality, 2.
55 Ibid., 3–4; and NESDB, First Year Progress Report, 6.
56 NESDB, Analysis on the State of Poverty and Inequality, 3–4.
57 Ibid., 2.
58 Freeman, “Income Inequality in Changing Techno-Economic Paradigms,” 250–1.
59 Wade, “Failing States and Cumulative Causation,” 28.
60 Freeman, “Income Inequality in Changing Techno-Economic Paradigms,” 252.
61 Ibid., 251–3.
62 Table 2.3, Total labour force (age 15 and above) classified according to educational level (2001–2016), National Statistical Office Database, Accessed 8 August 2017, http://web.nso.go.th.
63 NESDB, Analysis on the State of Poverty and Inequality, 5.
64 Table 4.4, Number of people per one medical human resource according to regions (2004–2015), National Statistical Office Database, Accessed 8 August 2017, http://web.nso.go.th.
65 Selwyn, “Historical Materialist Appraisal,” 162.
66 Burkett and Hart-Landsberg, “Critique of ‘Catch-Up,’” 148, 156–7, quoted in Selwyn, “Historical Materialist Appraisal,” 170.
67 NESDB, First Year Progress Report, 10.
68 BOI, Annual Report 2016, 35.
69 “Two New BOI Laws 2017.”
70 BOI, Annual Report 2016, 38.
71 A source from the Ministry of Finance, interviewed in “Reform BOI Strategy.”
72 Ananarpibutr, Tax Reform for Thai Society, k.
73 NESDB, First Year Progress Report, 1, 6–8.
74 NESDB, Analysis on the State of Poverty and Inequality, 6.
75 “Welfare Card Scheme.”
76 NESDB, First Year Progress Report, 6–7.
77 Chang, Andreoni, and Kuan, International Industrial Policy Experiences, 9.
78 Ibid., 9; Weiss, “Industrial Policy: Back on the Agenda,” 138–9.
79 See a discussion in Weiss, “Industrial Policy: Back on the Agenda,” 136 and 140.
80 European Union’s (EU) member states cannot pursue vertical industrial policies due to article 107 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU. UNCTAD, Trade and Development Report, 2014, 96.
81 Salazar-Xirinachs, Nübler, and Kozul-Wright, “Industrial Policy, Productive Transformation,” 4.
82 Ibid., 5.
83 Warwick, Beyond Industrial Policy, 14–6.
84 Jacobs et al., “Industrial Strategy: Steering Structural Change,” 2.
85 Mazzucato, Value of Everything, 19.
86 Ibid., 13, 225–6, 277–9.
87 Gurría, “Smart Industrial Policies for Development.”
88 These ideas were from Pianta, Lucchese, and Nascia, “What Is to Be Produced?,” 7–9.
89 Jacobs et al., “Industrial Strategy: Steering Structural Change,” 5.
90 Ibid., 3.
91 Labour Party (UK), Richer Britain Richer Lives, 16–7.
92 For examples of contradictions between sustainable and industrial development policies in South Korea and Singapore, see Dent, “East Asia’s New Developmentalism,” 1202–4.
93 Rodrik, “Industrial Policy,” 19–23.
94 Government Public Relations Department, “Special Issue on Uniting ‘Pracharat’ Forces,” 1.
95 Ibid., 2.
96 OCSC, Thailand 4.0 under the Thai Constitution, 13–4.
97 Kertphoka, “28 Persons.”
98 Ministry of Industry, Strategy to Develop Thai Industry, 18.
99 Lianchamroon et al., “Monitoring Sustainable Development.”
100 “Government Changing Environmental Laws.”
101 Rujiwanarom, “We Will Be Great Again – EEC.”
102 “Rushing to Make EEC a Reality.”
103 EARTH, “Laem Chabang Contaminated with Pollution”; and Sae-tang and Muksuwan, Evaluation of Health Effects, 102–3.
104 EARTH, “Laem Chabang Contaminated with Pollution.”
105 “Rushing to Make EEC a Reality”; and “Land Prices Rise.”
106 “Community and Environmental Problems.”
107 Government Public Relations Department, “Special Issue on Uniting ‘Pracharat’ Forces,” 2 and 6; “Pracharat Company Earned only 3.6”; and “Revealing the Perspective.”
108 Rukhamate, Development of the Evaluative Model, 58.
109 “Pracharat Company Earned only 3.6.”
110 Lianchamroon et al., “Monitoring Sustainable Development.”
111 Reported in “Fifty Thai Millionaires.”
112 Rukhamate, Development of the Evaluative Model, 98, 101–2, 121.
113 “Yasothon and Amnat Charoen Locals.”
114 Somchai Jitsuchon of TDRI, interviewed in Bunchanon, “Analysis: Thailand 4.0.”
115 OSMEP, SME 4.0, 2.
116 Ibid., 3.
117 Ibid., 3, 18, 23.
118 Ibid., 18, 37, 46.
119 Ibid., 50–1.
120 Ministry of Industry, Strategy to Develop Thai Industry, 30–1.
121 Ibid., 3–6.
122 Selwyn, “Historical Materialist Appraisal,” 174; and Saad-filho, “Rise of the South,” 590.
123 Selwyn, “Historical Materialist Appraisal,” 174–5.
Additional information
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Prapimphan Chiengkul
Prapimphan Chiengkul received her PhD from the University of Warwick, UK, in 2015 and is currently a full time lecturer at Thammasat University in Thailand. Her research interests include the international political economy of development, progressive and green politics, and transnational social movements. She is the author of The Political Economy of the Agri-Food System in Thailand: Hegemony, Counter-Hegemony, and Co-Optation of Oppositions (Routledge, 2017).