The Concept of Political Power in Thailand’s Philosophy “Absolute Power Tends to Absolute Morality”: Obstacle of Thailand’s Democracy

Abstract

In the late of 20 century, since the fall of The Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of political ideology era has come, liberal Democracy the worst form of government except for all those other forms having been tried from time to time became a political main idea and regarded as one the great civilizing achievements of our time. However, the Kingdom of Thailand is different from that. The Authoritarian - Aristocracy old school regime in the name of moral was adopted and was supported by extreme right wing. The purpose of this paper is to study Thailand’s concepts of power, differing from the original western concept, which equates power with morals; and absolute power led to absolute morality and then Thai’s political philosophy does not share the idea of separated power. This view is concluded that the best way for political society if power centralized to the good moral ruler such as Plato’s philosopher king. As Montesquier’s famous quote, “Experience constantly proves that every man who has power is impelled to abuse it.” The consequence of this concept is a dictatorship.



Author Information
Chanin Maneedam, Bansomdejchaopraya Rajabhat University, Thailand

Paper Information
Conference: ECAH2018
Stream: Humanities - Political Science, Politics

This paper is part of the ECAH2018 Conference Proceedings (View)
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Posted by James Alexander Gordon