Thailand’s Agrarian Myth and Its Proponents

Abstract

Thailand’s agrarian myth holds that culturally-based, small-scale subsistence farming is the most desirable form of community life for rural Thais. This article outlines Thailand’s agrarian myth and argues that its current promotion finds support in an obsolete ‘sufficiency ethic’, rather than from the country’s pragmatically-oriented farmers. Proponents of this myth come from Thailand’s cultural and bureaucratic elite, urban intellectuals, and religious fundamentalists. Based on field research and secondary sources the article demonstrates how the attitudes and behaviors of contemporary Thai farmers belie the agrarian myth which non-farming elites now advocate. The article concludes that yellow-shirted proponents of Sufficiency Economy, Community Culture, and austere Buddhist fundamentalism should adjust their vision to the reality that Thailand’s forward-looking farmers desire a rural lifestyle beyond the agrarian myth.