| Abstract: | A large-scale representative field study in Thailand and much anecdotal evidence from other lands indicate that consumers in the less developed countries (LDC) are facing a high-risk marketplace. This is due to structural features of the market, seller chicanery, and buyer poverty. Consumers respond by intensive search, the value of which is greatly reduced by the ephemeral nature of local information. Clearly, the LDC are in dire need of aggressive consumer policy. A program of consumer emancipation is set forth in detail. The policy priorities postulated are consumer protection, education, and information — an order reverse from that earlier proposed for industrialized Western nations. The program is predicated on a concurrent transformation of cryptocapitalist markets into an open market sector where buyers and sellers are substantially equal partners.Hans B. Thorelli is the E. W. Kelley Professor of Business Administration in the Graduate School of Business at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47401, U.S.A. The field research project in Thailand from which this article emanates was codirected by the author and Dr. Gerald D. Sentell, presently the John F. Kennedy Professor of Business Administration at the National Institute of Development Administration in Bangkok and a member of the College of Business Administration Faculty of the University of Tennessee. Dr. Sentell, with Dr. Sarah V. Thorelli, provided valuable inputs to this article. The Midwest Universities Consortium for International Affairs (MUCIA) favored the Thai study with its financial support. |
