The Kingdom Of Thailand: An Analysis

The Kingdom of Thailand has many social and economic problems. This is despite the King’s massive efforts so far to instill his principles of the Philosophy of Sufficiency Economy at all levels of His nation. This paper serves to explore this matter and draws a comparison between the world’s ‘happiest’ country, Denmark and Thailand, specifically looking at government intervention. This includes budget allocations, State policies and alleged corruption. The paper concludes that with more government intervention, Thailand could perhaps even mitigate many of its current challenges.

The Kingdom of Thailand has many social and economic problems. This is despite the King’s massive efforts so far to instill his principles of the Philosophy of Sufficiency
Assuming this proves the philosophy is being realized, it must then be ascertained what ‘success’ actually is. According to the King, the ideal achievements in applying the philosophy are “happiness, prosperity and serenity” (as cited in the Thailand Sustainable Development Foundation, n.d.). One only has to look at the current political situation involving a military coup to see that serenity is not a theme amongst the people. Thailand also has one of the largest income gaps in the world and poverty is considered a major problem.
Although Thai sources report the level of happiness amongst Thailand to be dubiously high, the World Happiness Report (Sachs, Becchetti & Annett, 2016) rates Thailand as 33rd on the list of countries examined. This is neither high nor low on a world index but indicates there is some work to be done to improve the people’s sense of well-being.
Perhaps it is worth considering the world’s supposedly ‘happiest’ country, Denmark, and to draw a comparison in economic
Thailand on the other hand is infamous for its high levels of corruption both at public and government level. The world has watched as Thailand’s political leaders and business sector have been accused of corruption but rarely held legally accountable and even Thailand’s own independent newspaper, The Nation (2016), has said, “The global transparency index has never been kind to Thailand, whether under civilian or military rule”. It is therefore interesting to look at Thailand’s fiscal budget for 2016 (“Thailand's Budget in Brief”, 2016) which shows an allocation of a mere 2,636.1 million baht for suppressing corruption in the public sector (there is no allocation for government corruption mitigation) and a massive 201,933.9 million for the Program on National Defense (almost the same amount as the entire budget for all the sustainable development programs), an allocation that will fuel the current military