The fashion in which the Thai peasantry was captured has heavily conditioned the development of the industrial labour process and labour markets. Thai workers did not simply appear at the factory gates when and where they were needed and in possession of the requisite skills. Rather, new streams of marginalized peasants began to join older streams of immigrant Sino-Thai workers as the capitalist transformation of agriculture proceeded, and the ways in which these new streams entered the industrial labour force depended in part upon the ways they were removed from agriculture. Beyond this, the state did not merely passively witness the absorption of former peasants into the industrial labour force but actively abetted the process through a variety of measures, ranging from state promotion of industrial development to investment in education and training of workers. The Thai state also actively shaped the labour market through its alternating suppression and promotion of trade unions, a matter addressed in this chapter. The state functions that are integral to the industrial transformation described here were carried out by internationalized segments of the Thai state, including one—the Department of Labour—that would typically be associated with national corporatism, thus illustrating the depth and complexity of the internationalization process. The internationalization of capital and the state around industrial manufacturing development has been more complicated than the internationalization of capital and state in the capture of the peasantry both because of this depth and complexity and because of the overlapping roles played by two hegemons. Whereas the capture of the peasantry was the product of collaboration between Thai and US elites, the disciplining of the industrial labour force involves more multifaceted collaboration among Thai, US, and Japanese elites—as well as transnational statist institutions. Furthermore, there has been some historical phasing of the relative influence of the two hegemons, with US influence declining after the mid-1970s and Japanese influence increasing. Finally, whereas the US intervention in Thailand aimed directly at transforming the structures of state power along with the economy, the Japanese state has been more inclined to make use of the existing state apparatus and to transform its functions, where necessary, through sheer economic power.
Incessant Conceptual/Industrial Transformation of Automobiles
