The king's interests lay not only in developing the economy but also in applying modernising changes to the state administration. This was because a modern centralised state(of the royal absolutist model) would concentrate wealth and power in the hands of the monarch. A modern administration and tax system would strip wealth and power from the great families and remove the noble class as the mediator between the king and people. King Chulalongkorn and his allies therefore pressed for more thoroughgoing modernization.