Competitiveness is Good for Business
Politics and business have become evermore intertwined, as an end of an era is being swept away by the digital wave and rapid technological advances, old ways of doing politics should be obsoleted.
The Old Status Quo Need New Tricks
Contrary to one of English’s oldest proverb; “You can’t teach old dogs new tricks”, well, you can. It’s just harder. And when it comes to people learning new ways of doing things, well, maybe that’s even harder. Especially, if the person/s don’t want to learn or change. It sometimes becomes a misconception of principles.
However, when it comes to natural selection, the survival of a species, or business competitiveness, it boils down to evolve or die. This “Evolve or Die” adage is really obvious for business because companies can’t force customers, or, in advanced capitalist societies, monopolize consumers. It’s too bad the same can not be said for governments, especially military governments aka juntas.
Junta actually comes from a Latin word meaning “join” or “to join”, which ironically is very appropriate because juntas all have a pattern of forcing people to either join with them or face the consequences. And juntas don’t ever seem to change or evolve in this matter.
Financial Times wrote:
“Thai junta opens investigation into opposition party
Growing signs that military reluctant to allow return to competitive democracy”.
The opposition party being the newly formed party “Future Forward Party”, which was founded earlier this year in March by a group of relatively young and diverse professionals. Most notable of the party’s founders are its leader; the 39 year old former multi-billion baht automobile parts manufacturing business heir Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, and its secretary-general; Piyabutr Saengkanokkul, a young and progressive former university lecturer at Thammasat Faculty of Law. Both resigned from their former positions to work in politics more freely.
The founding members of FFP include; an academician in education; a member from the Social Technology Institute; a former president of Amnesty Thailand; rights activists for women, and LGBT rights; writers; filmmakers; a lawyer; social entrepreneurs; filmmakers; people from the content creation and media design sector; student youth leaders; a Thai microbrewery pioneer; and a HIV/AIDS activist who openly discloses that he himself has HIV.
Unsurprisingly, Prayut Chan O Cha’s new party is rumored to be recruiting the likes of Nakonpathom’s Sasomsub family, regarded as the big power house of the province. Or wooing Pattaya’s notorious family of Somchai Kunplome aka “Godfather of Chonburi”, who is currently in jail for the premeditated murder of his political rival, by appointing his sons; Sontaya Kunplome as his political adviser, and Ittipol Kunplome as adviser to the minister of tourism and sports. Prayut also met with Somsak Thepsutin, who is influential in Sukhothai. All very notorious names and well recognized faces.
The Nation reported:
“Prayut urges voters to resist picking ‘the same old faces’ at election”, citing Prayut as saying: “If you get the same old faces and they can’t fix anything, think about that for yourselves,”.
Oldest trick in the book of political hypocrisy; presenting yourself as a new alternative while recruiting all the OGs into your clique.
Thanathorn had expected the old “trip the leg” tactics one sees too many times in the cafeteria scene of teen flicks’, “just not this soon” he said to Matichon News.
And the NCPO did as expected by citing the old “public disturbance” rationale, and invoking Article 14 of Thailand’s computer crime act, citing false content and causing panic relating to a Facebook Live post. They just did it sooner than anticipated.
An excerpt from a Financial Times piece “12 Ways To Overcome Your Resistance To Change”, might be beneficial to consider, Realize You Don’t Fear Change, You Fear Loss.
The people of Thailand really needs to consider what is at stake, with the US – China trade war boiling hotter and hotter, the 4th wave disrupting businesses, the Internet of Everything becoming a reality, Apple market cap reaching wealth levels beyond most of the world’s nations’ national GDP, space exploration, bioengineering, automated cars, flying cars, AR, VR, and much, much more. What kind of leader should be at the helm?
Thailand needs to learn the new tricks of the current market to keep businesses ticking, hopefully the people of Thailand gets to choose.