The centre of accumulation and consumption
......During Phibun's administration, economic nationalism had provided the policy and ideological framework for the wide-ranging involvement of the state in economic affairs. By the post-war years a large number of manufacturing and trading enterprises in both urban and rural areas had been taken over or penetrated by the state. However, the achievements of official goals to retrieve capital from aliens (particularly the Chinese) and enhance self-sufficiency were limited. Notably, many enterprises were still managed by ethnic Chinese who had become Thai citizens. Moreover articles produced by the enterprises (paper and gunny sacks, for example) did not reduce demands for imports of essential industrial items (such as machinery). The state enterprises (as well as many private concerns were run as fiefdoms by government departments and powerful office-holders(Muscat 1994: 54-62). This rent-seeking pattern of behaviour also des cribed as a patrimonial economy' of state institutions was essentially a reproduction of the older tribute system of the sakdina state, but paradoxically, such behaviours coexisted together with an increasing professionalism and corporate identification based on meritocracy which had increased after the 1932 revolution (Girling 1981: 78; Jacobs 1971: 15 16 Evers and Silcock 1967). The eminently practical Chinese business elite adapted to this system by developing client relations with influential figures (Girling 1981: 78-9; Pasuk 1980: 42-3; Skinner 1957: 360 l)
.....Between 1951-6 imports into Thailand (both luxury and capital goods) almost doubled, with the renewed trading activity boosting the wealth of Bangkok's business groups. Throughout the 1950s and into the next decade economic growth was led by services (such as trading and banking) not exports, as had formerly been the pattern (Chatthip 1968: 40 2). At the same time, consumer goods imports were steadily rising, largely serving the small urban elite and middle class whose consumption levels increased throughout the decade (lngram 1971: 226). For example, between the years 1947 and 1957 the number of private cars in the municipalities of Bangkok and Thonburi increased by over 650 per cent, representing 87 per cent of all private cars in Thailand (Manop 1973: 17)
...................The period of war and Japanese occupation weakened the traditional hold of the European trading houses and banks in Thailand. In their absence, largely Bangkok-based Chinese entrepreneurs diversified their fields from trade to commercial banking and insurance, so that by the end of the war these commercial banks had formed an independent business base for financial dealings and investment (Suehiro 1989: 154-7). Another trend influencing economic activity in Bangkok was the tendency for Chinese Thais after the 1949 communist takeover of China to retain their savings in Thailand. This provided a pool of local capital for business development (Keyes 1987: 152-3) The European firms which set up in the post-war period concentrated on importing, specialising as agent for items such as automobiles, or they maintained engineering divisions for the servicing and installation o capital works (Suehiro 1989: 174-7)