The Journal of the Siam Society Vol. LXIV, Part 1-2, 1976 - Khamkoo

248 Laurence D. Stifel
The division of the total turnover rate into a warranted rate and
involuntary rate is a very crude device. The rationale for this conceptual
distinction is to emphasize that the total turnover rate does not
necessarily imply the severe rural distress which it may suggest on first
inspection. One reasonable explanation for the major component of the
turnover is the normal, inter-generational transfer of land; the residual,
the rate of involuntary turnover, has not been high for sustained periods
nor the trend worsening. The economy had the strength and resilience
to recover from the severe, external shocks of the depression and the
Second World War.
Trends in Equality
According to the conventional wisdom, powerful forces operative in
the Central Plain are increasingly concentrating economic power and
widening the inequality between social classes. This study focuses upon
one significant dimension of economic power, the control of rice land.
The evidence discussed in the following paragraphs indicates that
ownership shares reflect a persistent stability which is quite inconsistent
with the conclusions of the Burmo-Malthusian model.
Equality will be considered first in terms of each individual's total
landholdings, which consist of title deeds held exclusively in his
name or his share (assumed proportional to the number of owners) in
title deeds registered in more than one name. Since there was no means of
knowing family relationships from the data, the analysis necessarily
concerns individual rather than family holdings, although family landawnings
would have been a better measure of social welfare in the village.
There is no a priori means of knowing whether, if it were feasible, the
shifting from an individual to a family basis for calculating land distribution
would improve or worsen equality.
Before discussing alternative measurements of inequality, it is
necessary to discuss the "family name problem" in the classification of
title deeds by individual. As part of a national effort to modernize the
society, King Vajiravudh decreed in 1916 that every Siamese family
must adopt a family name or surname. Prior to 1916 a person was
i