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

238 CREATING THE THAI MIDDLE CLASS
now saw as ‘the middle class’. Since this growth occurred during a period of
political change, it was rather simple to attribute all the change to this ‘new’ group,
despite the analytical dubiousness of conflating the various constructs noted above.
Nevertheless, descriptions of ‘the middle class’, and the identification of times when
it has ‘acted’ politically, have become the basis for the dominant discursive
construction of the middle class: as a force for democratic change.
CONSTRUCTING THE POLITICAL MIDDLE
CLASS
The first of political ‘action’ of the newly identified middle class, attributed to it in
retrospect, was the 1973 uprising that overthrew the military dictatorship and
installed democratic rule. The uprising was student-led, but soon came to include
people of all classes. The events of 1973 demonstrated that concerted action could
overthrow an unpopular government. New leaders emerged, leaders willing to
work to induce change. This group has become the conscience of the ‘political
middle class’, and has contributed heavily to its construction.
That the 1973 uprising has been identified in academic discourse as the
beginning of middle-class political activity does not mean that it actually was a
middle-class uprising. Only in retrospect was this construction of events gradually
created. Originally, the demonstrations were credited to the public in general, and
students in particular. ‘Through the leadership of the country’s youth, a mighty
force had congealed and made itself evident–people power’ (Theh Chongkhadikij,
Bangkok Post, cited in Zimmerman 1974:515). Scholars followed this
characterisation, attributing the uprising to students and ‘the people’, ‘people from
all walks of life’ and ‘members of the public’ (Withayakan 1993:77; Heinze 1974:
498; Race 1974:198).
Among the first to describe the 1973 uprising in middle-class terms was Benedict
Anderson (1977). Anderson began by describing the changes in class structure
that resulted from the expansion of the economy in the 1960s. This created a ‘new
petty bourgeoisie’, the new rich, responsible for the success of the uprising:
There is no doubt the new bourgeois strata contributed decisively to the huge
new crowds that came out in support of students’ and intellectuals’
demands… Indeed, it can be argued that these strata ensured the success of
the demonstrations–had the crowds been composed of slum-dwellers rather
than generally well-dressed urbanites, the dictators might have won fuller
support for their repression.
(1977:18)
Likhit Dhiravegin (1985) of Thammasat University wrote a similar article,
describing the development of ‘the middle class’ during the 1960s, and attributing
the events of the 1970s to its new-found participation in politics. This argument is
still dominant in Thai intellectual discourse.