Redeveloping Thailand

In one of Mike Davis' books, I think City of Quartz but possibly Ecology of Fear (and I'm not going to do the research to find out which one) he says that each time places like Malibu burn, it's a boon to real estate developers. More land is redeveloped for extremely upscale housing and the city becomes even more stratified.

The same thing seems to be happening in Thailand. Check out this story from CNN about how Thais who live on beaches are being forced out by developers wanting to not only rebuild the Thai tourist structure but in fact expand it greatly.

Let's face it, natural disasters are great times if you're a capitalist. Throughout American history at least, the impact of natural disasters have been placed on the backs of the poor while the rich make mucho dinero off of it. This may sound like an simplistic Marxist interpretation of natural disasters but the evidence really backs this up. Not only does Davis provide a convincing argument but Ted Steinberg's Acts of God is devoted entirely to this phenomenon.

Although Thailand doesn't have the long term history of capitalism that the United States does, now that tourist capitalism has arrived, it has done so in force. The impact of this, both positive and negative, had already greatly changed Thai society. Now one of the most negative aspects of tourism is coming down like a hammer. Investors, both Thai and foreign, are taking full advantage of the tsunami to build more tourist infrastructure and more high scale resorts. They are using the disaster to consolidate their control over the coastline, driving out traditional fishing families and other coastal dwellers.