The Sufficiency Economy is not so much a theory about how the world works, more a set of simple maxims about what brings success, based on practical experience. Know what you're doing. Act honestly. Work hard. Exercise moderation. Apply insight. Build up inner resilience. According to the enthusiasts for this approach, these maxims can be applied in any situation, from the family farm to the national economy.But the disarming simplicity of these maxims also means they are capable of varying interpretations in different hands. In 1999, Thailand's economists got together to discuss the Sufficiency Economy and happily concluded it was fully compatible with the skills and tools of their discipline. The idea of moderation could be approximated to new ideas on fuzzy optimisation. The idea of resilience emphasised the need to return to Thailand's tradition of conservative macro management which had been abandoned before the crisis. And so on.