Culture and Privilege in Capitalist Asia - Jurusan Antropologi ...

232 CREATING THE THAI MIDDLE CLASS
aristocracy and the lower classes. The middle class then claims superiority for its
lifestyle and attempts to impose it on other classes. Several problems are clear in
this approach. First, a middle class cannot construct itself out of nothing–middleclass
elements must exist before they can construct a lifestyle. In other words,
neglecting the structural basis of class is as problematic as neglecting the historical
process through which it forms itself. Second, this approach downplays the
constraints that limit the ways the middle class can construct a distinct lifestyle
(Ellin 1991:821). 3 Classes are not only cultural constructs, they are structured by
the capitalist system, and by external actors, but the balance of these sources of
identity clearly varies. For example, media constructions of the middle class are
constrained by the needs for profit. On the other hand, there might be fewer, or at
least different, constraints on academic constructions of the middle class.
In describing the making of the English working classes, Thompson stressed the
formation of working-class organisations and culture. Similarly Frykman and
Lofgren emphasise the development of middle-class culture. Yet, the middle class,
however it might be defined, is better suited to construct itself and its culture(s) in
ways not readily available to the working class: discursively. Segments within it are
responsible for writing and editing newspapers and magazines, for radio and
television programming, for writing textbooks and teaching students, and for
writing advertising copy. In this way, the middle class is able to construct itself
academically, ideologically and culturally. To understand the way the middle class
is being constructed, then, I will discuss the way it has developed structurally,
within the context of the way it is constructed discursively. By examining both
academic discourse and media representations, it is possible to highlight the
contrasts inherent in the different mix of educational and monetary constraints.
DISCOVERING THE MIDDLE CLASS IN THAI
HISTORY
In her 1992 dissertation, Jiraporn Witayasakpan wrote that by the end of the
nineteenth century commercial theatre became viable as a result of the rise of ‘the
middle class’. This she attributed to ‘expansion of trade, western education, and the
bureaucracy’ (p. 39). 4 ‘The middle class which emerged…encompassed merchants,
bureaucrats, and intellectuals with western-style education and distinct tastes
towards western elements’ (p. 43). The late nineteenth century seems to be the
earliest date offered for the appearance of ‘the middle class’, although Jiraporn is
not unique in pointing to this time period. 5
Although not new, this middle class grew rapidly at the turn of the century.
While the number of merchants had been increasing since the Bowring Treaty of
1855, the semi-hereditary bureaucracy was transformed into a salaried civil service
and expanded dramatically during the 1890s. Siffin (1966) estimates that ‘the
salaried bureaucracy more than doubled in size between 1892 and 1899’. By 1900,
he estimates a bureaucracy of some 25,000, growing to about 80,000 officials by
the year 1918 (1966:94). The structurally defined middle class of the period was