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

democracy by associating it with a middle class that is not only fragmented but has
shown only limited and sporadic support for democratic practice. The unfortunate
side-effect of these attempts has been to consolidate a conviction among the middle
classes that democracy belongs to the middle class, and that the lower classes are
incapable of effective participation in a democratic system. The middle-class
frustration with the common practice of vote-buying is the most dramatic indication
of this attitude: frequently it is the poor who are blamed, rather than those doing
the buying. Denying the role of lower classes in the popular uprisings that brought
about democracy is a necessary part of the conclusion that the poor are unworthy
of participation in the democratic system.
The current frenzied efforts to construct a cultural identity for the middle class
reflect the latter’s fragmentary and largely indeterminate social character.
Reformist academics seek to associate the middle class, particularly the new rich,
with democracy, while advertisers aim at consumption and an associated need for
a high growth economy. When economic downturn was associated with
democracy in the 1970s, the new rich turned on the students and academics and
supported a coup. This legacy is one reason why academics were so pleased when
the new rich supported democracy in 1992. Academics sought to consolidate that
limited support, which came only after high economic growth was associated with
democracy during the 1980s. Ultimately, despite the differences in the various
fragments, it may be the overlap that is most important. Out of this overlap, and
the discursive power of intellectuals, may eventually emerge a coherent social
middle class. As middle-class cultural identity becomes more intricate, more clearly
defined, and moves towards greater consensus, the fragmented middle classes will
tend to conflate, perhaps even without closure of mobility. In the meantime, it seems
safe to conclude that there is no ‘middle class’ in Thailand. Rather, there are
different fragments in the process of becoming.
Notes
JIM OCKEY 247
1 See, for example, the cover story of Far Eastern Economic Review, 21 March 1992.
2 For a good summary of Marx’s views on the middle classes, see Val Burris (1986).
3 See Anderson (1980: ch. 2) for a further critique of Thompson.
4 I have not distinguished clearly between contemporary and retrospective work as,
oddly enough, they seem to follow the same general pattern outlined here. See also
note 7.
5 Akin (1969:162) pushes this date back: ‘By 1850 the Chinese had gained almost
complete control of the interregional trade of Thailand… It seems therefore, that
besides the two classes of phrai [commoners] and nai [nobility], there was perhaps
another class, an entrepreneurial class of Chinese traders in the middle.’
6 These recent attempts to reclaim the 1932 event for ‘the middle class’ should be seen
in historical context. Both works were published in 1992 for the sixtieth anniversary
of the revolution, just one year after a military coup had ended the latest attempt at