4.2. Flexibility and Corruption

Since the Thai are not principle oriented, and with the high value for personal relationships, they also appear not to be strictly law-oriented. In practice, principles and laws are ever-adjustable to fit persons and situations. In other words, laws are rules laid out in papers; but what is wrong or right depends not on the rules, but instead on who the person is or whom the person knows. A prominent Thai businessman ironically described this phenomenon in a seminar: 

We Thai are not a society of law; we are a society of relationship…. It is not what a person has done that’s wrong; it’s who he is…. If he is your cousin, or your friend, then what he has done is not wrong. But if another person does the same thing, and it’s somebody you don’t like, then what he has done is wrong…

Source: S. KOMIN, Psychology of the Thai People: Values and Behavioral Patterns. Bangkok, Research Center, National Institute of Development Administration.