ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I investigate the ways in which Lao have reacted to the recent changes in their economy. After ten years of socialist rule and subsistence economy (see Evans 1990), the Lao leadership began to ‘implement’ a market economy with assistance from international organizations. Almost everything regarded as necessary for a functioning market economy was constructed from scratch according to contemporary textbooks and practices, from the Lao constitution to marketable cash crops.
