THE COGNITIVE INTERNATIONAL DIVISION OF LABOUR HYPOTHESIS: WHAT POSSIBLE EFFECTS FOR THAI LABOUR AND EDUCATION?

Late capitalism has entered a new phase. It is not only global and financialised, but also based on a new technological revolution that gives a special emphasis to knowledge ( ). Not all these trends are at work in developing countries. Financialisation for instance, i.e. the priority given to the remuneration of share-holders by all means, which is much debated in developed countries for its impact on employment, wages and the welfare state, is not an issue at stake in Thailand for the simplest reason that the stock and bond markets do not play a decisive role in its economy. But globalization, the ICT revolution and knowledge will impact Thailand in the near future because they are shaping a new international division of labour ( ), the so-called “cognitive division of labour”, alongside the traditional international division of labour, sometimes pinned as the “taylorist” division of labour”. Thailand has benefited for decades from the “taylorist” division of labour to launch and reinforce its industrialisation process for it offered cheap and disciplined labour to multinational companies eager to produce at low cost for the Thai and foreign markets. The question for the future is as simple as that: can Thailand go on the same way or will it have to engage profound reforms in order to be part of the new division of labour? A subsequent question is: why is it of interest for specialists of education? We don't pretend in this modest contribution to answer comprehensively and definitely such a complex question. But we would like to present some arguments that can be of help for a collective debate. We will first explain what the “cognitive international division of labour” is about, which leads us to define what we mean exactly by “knowledge” (part 1). We will then turn to the consequences on employment and education in Thailand by engaging in some tentative assumptions (part 2).