Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing political perks in Thailand and the notion of digitization itself. Let me go ahead. And I'm going to quote from an article here and to be clear, the thrust of this goes in a different direction, and it's interesting for those who are sort of following Thai politics, but more to my point gets into digitization. Let me just start. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: People's Party on back foot over reform. I urge those who are watching this video, go check out that article in detail but the thrust of it is, the commentator, the person writing the article brings up the fact that People's Party needs to kind of be careful. They are on their back foot in bringing up issues of the “political perks”, and now they are trying to like broaden it out to folks in the bureaucracy and things because these same politicians that are saying, "oh we need to do something about this", are asking for their own perks. It's always the big issue when you have politicians, is getting them to do something or to cut back on waste, but nobody wants to gored their ox, or to have their ox gored as it were. Make the cut go somewhere else, is always sort of the thing. And that's kind of the gist of this that People's Party needs to be a little bit cautious in bringing this up because it's kind of one of those, "people in glass houses shouldn't throw the stones". Now that said, just from an objective observer's perspective, I don't know that People's Party is any worse from this standpoint than anyone else. If anything, it would appear that it might be the opposite.

That said, the trust of this video talks about political perks and that's where I'm going here. Quoting directly: "By citing specific examples - advisors, secretaries, security staff, official cars and layered benefits - the PP is seeking to paint a broader picture: the public anger over "politician perks" should be matched by scrutiny of unelected centres of power, whose compensation is often higher and less visible." Now that's a heck of a good point. And that might be what some would describe in other contexts as the "Deep State"; this sort of bureaucracy that's just rain or shine sort of always around and some of their benefits and perks are even more than the politicians end up with, and yet they're around no matter what. I haven't ever liked in recent years the use of the word "Deep State." It actually, the first time I ever saw it applied, I think it was in an article in Foreign Policy or The Economist in the later '90s, early 2000s, in reference to Turkey, the notion of the “Deep State” in Turkey. It was a specific kind of niche term that sort of explained a very specific way in which the power structure in Turkey operated in a practical manner. That said I'm not trying to bring that kind of terminology into this but the notion of "political perks" going beyond just elected politicians is a valid point, and I think it's something - whoever brought it up - it's something to be explored. That said, I think there are more perks that are going to end up accruing from this "digitization move", than anything we have heretofore seen which I'll get into here in a moment. 

That said, quoting further: "But politically, the problem remains the same: the Party is responding after the fact. Dr. Warong's intervention resonated because it struck at a weakness that is both symbolic and emotional. The PP has built much of its brand on being an anti-establishment force willing to challenge entrenched political habits. But such a brand carries a higher standard. When the issue turns to reducing benefits for MPs themselves - especially those the Party has previously criticized or campaigned against - the public expects the PP not merely to support reform in principle, but to move first, visibly and decisively." Again, if you're going after other politicians for their perks, and then you ask for your own perks, it starts to beg certain questions; I get that. That said, quoting further: "Instead, Dr. Warong managed to occupy the reform space with a simple and highly legible message: cut food budgets, cut assistants, trim the political fat, the observer noted." 

Okay, fair enough, and my point in this video is the parsing between politicians and unelected bureaucrats and all of their perks, fair enough. I understand that there is some political wrangling to be done in there and I think "cutting the fat" would probably be a good idea especially in light of intrinsic, entrenched likely on-coming economic issues we're going to have not least of which in the energy sector although I think Thailand is far better poised than many other jurisdictions with regard to that. 

More to my point in this video though is this move toward digitization in the Thai government, and we've talked about this in many other videos. They're going to all these digital platforms to do everything, and on paper it all looks better, except it's not better. Like for example in the Work Permit area, there is now this private - I don't even know what you call it - contractor that does what the government once used to do, but they do less of it. They only give out certain slots to be able to come pick up a Work Permit, whereas in the old days, the Work Permit was ready, you just went and picked it up. But now, there's all this stuff that's put in the way, again in these digital platforms, which are put in between you and the actual desk to talk to somebody, who can actually make the decision to actually make something move ahead, they are putting something in between you in that person and then they're telling them, "oh let's all work from home" because of some nebulous crisis that seems to always going to be on the horizon now post-Covid. The flavour of the month right now is for “fuel shortages”. They're going to be working from home, and your only option is going to be using the digital platform. That's going to be the biggest political perk to people both in the elected government, as well as the unelected bureaucracy. And that perk is going to be something that is going to be devastating to the public insofar as their inability to get services in a timely manner, and it's going to be a huge boon to these folks. I've already seen this happen at the Embassy here. The US Embassy during COVID was, I mean I don't even know what the Immigrant and Non-immigrant Visa unit did for about a year and a half. We processed like three K-1 cases that happened to have gotten on the other side of the National Visa Center in like a one-year period. It was ridiculous. I mean these lockdowns and things and then coupled with placing this digital intermediary between the public and the public servants - who are supposed to be serving the public - has only operated to the benefits of the public servants having to do less, and the public having to do more, or being frustrated in an attempt to get things done, that could once be done as a matter of course. 

So my big issue with all of this is, you can talk about political perks like meal budgets and things of that nature, this digitization is coming down as the biggest political perk that I can see because you have got a bunch of people who will be entrenched at a certain salary, presuming a certain workload, who will just fob it all off to the digital platform, not care one way or the other, and they're not particularly accountable when there's not somebody who is actually at a desk saying, "hey can we get a move on here please." That's about the biggest political perk as I can think of for a bureaucrat both here, as well as anywhere else in the world.