Two years ago, Thaksin announced that his party, if elected into power, would wage a war against poverty. Two weeks before the polls, when his political future was threatened by the National Counter Corruption Committee, he said: “Nothing will stand in my way. I am determined to devote myself to politics in order to lead the Thai people out of poverty.”

How come one of the country’s richest men, who formed a government packed with other rich businessmen, their tax lawyers, and fixers, should espouse the cause of the poor? There were several explanations.

The populism explanation. Thaksin is just a cynical politician. He is exploiting the situation created by the financial crisis. To gain power, he promised to help everyone who got hurt—both the bankrupt businessmen, and the poor who lost jobs and income. Whereas old money politicians used their corruption income to offer red notes and petty gifts to the voters before the poll, Thaksin had the much grander idea of promising much bigger gifts (debt relief, village funds, cheap health care) after the polls. Like populists everywhere, his plan is to use public money to buy popularity. The risk is the fisc. Populist programmes are expensive. Thaksin will have to offer more and more to stay in power. Given Thailand’s level of debt, the result will be another crisis. So (thankfully) Thaksin cannot last. This was the line adopted by journals like the Far Eastern Economic Review at the time of Thaksin’s election, and still repeated by the Democrats.

The new social contract explanation. Over the last decades, Thai society has become dangerously more divided. The rich got outrageously richer during the boom. The poor got less than their fair share, and then were dumped with the pain of the crisis. The result was the rising trend of popular protest through the 1990s. Businessmen gradually came to realise that one major threat to their ability to make more and more money in the future was the risk of social and political disorder.

So adjustments had to be made so the poor get a better deal. This is the line which Thaksin and his allies have adopted, particularly when talking to foreign audiences. Speaking to a Fortune forum in Hong Kong, Thaksin said his government had to “solve the problem of poverty of the majority” and “reduce the socio-economic gaps between the poor and the well-to-do” in order “to ensure social cohesion and political stability, which will enable economic recovery and growth.”

In Tokyo, Thaksin told potential investors that his social policies were designed “to create a stable social platform for investment…. Improving the quality of life at the grass-roots level will create a stable social platform—a cushion. This social harmony protects and enhances your investments from the volatility of the global economy.” In this view, if the policies succeed, Thaksin will be in power for eternity.

The capital-in-crisis explanation. The financial crisis severely damaged Thai business and weakened its confidence. The export economy was all taken over by foreigners. The Thai companies that survived were those involved in parts of the domestic market which still have some protection from foreign competition—telecoms, media, real estate. To survive and prosper, they need a rising home market. Thaksin’s rural policies are designed to stimulate the economy in general, and to boost spending on the products of these companies in particular. Mobile phones are selling like candy. Advertising expenditure is up. The property market is creaking back to life. These policies are actually designed to help the rich by appearing to help the poor. Instead of trickle-down these are gush-up..

But, the capital-in-crisis explanation continues, Thaksin’s policies won’t really help the poor. Some of the policies are just short-term doles. Some are based on the idea that the poor can be turned into entrepreneurs by giving them access to credit through People’s Banks, revolving village funds, and one-tambon-one-product schemes. But the local gangsters will grab the money. The real poor won’t benefit. That’s because what the real poor need is not credit but real assets—particularly land and access to other natural resources like forests, water, and fish. Thaksin has adopted some of the rhetoric of sufficiency and self-reliance, but he doesn’t understand the content.

That’s because deep down Thaksin represents the businessmen and urban interests who compete against the poor for use of natural resources. They want dams for power, and trees for pulp, and land for making speculative profit. Thaksin’s government is not going to make any structural changes which would really help the poor by securing their access to resources. That’s why he has not cancelled the Bo Nok and Hin Krut power projects, just delayed them for a bit. That’s why he announced that the resources of Koh Chang would be preserved, but in fact set off a race to grab and destroy those resources as fast as possible. That’s why the final fate of the Pak Mun dam and fishing communities is still undecided. That’s why the issue of land reform has sparked the final break between Thaksin and the NGOs who supported him on the chance he might be offering something different.

Moreover, the capital-in-crisis continues, as the economy strengthens and Thai businessmen recover confidence, then the need to pump money into the villages fades from the list of priorities. Then the poor and their protests return to being an obstacle in the way of “progress”. That’s why the government needs measures like the 23 April Cabinet resolution to help them get on with the job of removing this obstacle. This is only the beginning. Probably we can expect more in this vein. And that’s why Kingkorn Narintarakul na Ayudhya said: “We can no longer depend on this government any longer. It is obvious that it is intent on an open war on the poor while supporting the rich.”