Thaksinomics eats the barrel

I wouldn't call Prime Minister Thaksin the "Thai FDR", but Thaksinomics sure looked like the ol' Keynesian state-sponsored economic resurrection we all know and love as the New Deal. Except that 1997 was not a global depression, Thailand has always been a wobbly tool of realpolitik, and Thaksin's not exactly a political genius. Thus the faintly audible chuckles from Foggy Bottom as he boarded a plane to NYC this week. The coup seemed inevitable, preordained, supported by international capital and soft-focused as a "democratization" move by American media. At last, an uncouth populist stands before the world with his pants round his ankles!

Here are two perspectives on the coup (from opposing ideologies), both all too valid.

From the sapling Kissingers at Oxford Analytica:

While Thaksin's supporters will respond well if they are treated relatively favorably, managing expectations will be a key challenge. Failure to reconcile the aspirations of the elite with those of the poor who supported the ousted premier could swiftly lead to more extreme social and political friction.

From Lenin's Tomb:

Well, as with Indonesia and the Phillipines and practically everywhere else that the US has crushed democracy, the American government would presumably like to see a managed process of neoliberal reform, with or without the appearance of democracy. This has been happening anyway, and the decades of corrupt autocracy have ensured that capital has a fairly easy time of it, with sweatshops bringing the dictatorship right down to the local and day to day experience of the Thai working class. The US no longer needs Thailand as much as it did during the Cold War and was therefore unwilling to bail out the country during and after the 1997 crisis. However, they had been banking on a 'free trade' agreement with the regime, and are now hoping that when the military 'restores democracy', it can be resuscitated. The military indicates that it will return to a democracy 'loyal to the King', but the King happens to be bearer of class power that has been revived, supplied and protected by the US government for fifty years. I think that 'free trade' agreement will go ahead in short order.