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A Coup For the Rich Thailand’s political Crisis
the old Left for clinging to idealism, thinking, for example, that capitalists automatically exploited the poor. For such people he had a simple suggestion: go back and live in the jungle like in the old C.P.T. days! Echoing the terminology of “Direct Democracy” used by the Peoples Movement, he argued that Thai Rak Thai was using a “Direct (sales) Approach” to dealing with the problems of villagers, without having to pass through Middle Men ie. political or state representatives. For Phumtham the various government schemes to encourage community entrepreneurs were designed to allow villagers to raise themselves out of poverty. He concluded that N.G.O.s needed to adapt themselves in order to cooperate fully with the government and not hinder its work, because, unlike the government, N.G.O.s cannot claim to be elected representatives of the people. October People argued that by entering the Thai Rak Thai government they had seized state power “without having to eat taro and sweet potatoes in the jungle”, a reference to the previous hardships of life with the C.P.T. Despite serious accusations of betrayal and turning their backs on the Movement, in some ways their alliance with what they regarded as the “progressives and modernising capitalists in Thai Rak Thai”, was not much of a departure from the old C.P.T. cross-class alliance strategy. Many old C.P.T. leaders even suggested that it was necessary to back Thai Rak Thai in order to confront the “old feudal power” in society (ie. the influence of the Palace). Of course, we must not forget that this Stalinist/Maoist cross-class strategy has been a proven failure in such diverse countries as China, Indonesia and Iraq. Most October People in Thai Rak Thai probably sincerely believed that their actions were benefiting society, but as with trade union bureaucrats throughout the world, as their live-styles became more and more like the capitalists and high-ranking ministers, with