SUFFiciENcy EcONOMy ANd GRASSROOtS DEvElOPMENt

194
The Meaning of Sufficiency Economy
International Conference
reliance and a sustainable future(อุดมพร อมรธรรม 2549). From then on, social capital
along with other concepts in the same category such as self-reliance, sufficiency and
moderation were heavily promoted as the national values by Thai governments.
Recently, the Thai National Economic and Social Development Board recognised
the concept of social capital as a scheme of country development in Thailand’s 10 th
national economic and social development plan (this plan covered the country’s
development strategies from 2007?2011).
Definition of social capital
There are several definitions of social capital. In the broadest sense, social
capital is a type of asset. It was differentiated from two other well-known capitals:
financial capital and human capital. While people’s financial capital was the amount
in their bank account, and their human capital was what was in their head or their
ability to perform the task, their social capital could be found in the structure of their
relationships(Portes 1998). Leading scholars accepted that social capital could be
both an individual asset and a community attribute. Bourdieu defined this notion as
“the aggregate of the actual of potential resources which are linked to possession of
a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual
acquaintance or recognition”(Bourdieu 1986). Coleman defined social capital
through its function. Coleman’s social capital included the entities in the social
structures that facilitate certain actions of person or the communities who belonged
to those structures. More recently, Putnam’s definition of social capital as “the
connections among individuals–social networks and the norms of reciprocity and
trustworthiness that arise from them(Putnam 2000)”, was the most widely accepted.
Used in a practical perspective, a simplified categorisation of social capital
was proposed. Two perspectives of social capital: cognitive and structural (Bain et
al. 1998, cited in De Silva 2005) were widely accepted(De Silva et al. 2005). The
cognitive social capital, what people “feel”, referred to the individual’s
characteristics such as trust and reciprocity, while the structural social capital could
be found in what people “do” which referred to group participation and networking.
Social capitaland Sufficiency Economy in Thai’s context
The Thai National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB)
adjusted the definition of social definitions to fit Thai’s social context in their 10 th
economic and social development plan (2007-2011)(สำนักงานคณะกรรมการพัฒนาเศรษฐกิจ
และสังคมแห่งชาติ 2549). In Thai social context, social capital was the structure of the
relationships of four elements: people, institution, culture and knowledge. The
people element included their morality, their ability and wisdom, while the
institution were family, religion, politics and administration, education, business and
the media. The element of culture included the belief, faith, social norm; moreover,
the historical buildings, sites and objects were also included in this group. Unlike the
definitions given by Seeman(Seeman and Berkman 1988) and Schwarzer(Schwarzer