The Haitian earthquake has been a disaster that any small country would have a difficult time dealing with. However, Haiti is almost unique in its disastrous social collapse. What happened ? Jared Diamond studied Haiti in his book, Collapse.
Here is a discussion of Diamond’s theory.
It’s very interesting: The Spaniards came to the island of Hispaniola first, settling mostly on the greener (rainier) side. Before long, the home country got too preoccupied with growing difficulties elsewhere in its empire to pay much attention to Hispaniola anymore. The French showed up later, took the dry end of the island, and then—because they were rich and their empire was on the rise—were able to convert it to intensive sugar cane cultivation, importing and brutally exploiting lots and lots of African slaves who eventually got fed up and revolted. Once independent, the Haitians understandably wanted to stop hacking at sugar cane. They also wanted to keep the Europeans out. So Haiti settled into an existence of isolation and subsistence farming. The Spanish side of the island, which eventually became the Dominican Republic, experienced no such sugar-cane boom, and was conquered by the Haitians a couple of times along the way, but welcomed immigrants from Europe and developed multiple cash crops.
OK, so climate had a role and slavery had a role.
Then, in the 20th century, both Haiti and Dominican Republic were ruled for decades by murderous tyrants, but the Dominican murderous tyrant (Rafael Trujillo) was at least interested in industrial development. He was also eventually succeeded by a former minion (Joaquín Balaguer) who, while not at all a nice guy, did turn out to be a patriot and a total tree hugger. Meanwhile, Haiti’s despicable “Papa Doc” Duvalier was succeeded by his only slightly less despicable son. The result: The Dominican Republic, while still poor, is much richer than Haiti—and it still has trees.
Neither of them made out well in the governance department. Typically, commenters on blogs that deal with these issues make a big deal of the fact that US Marines occupied Haiti from 1918 to 1934. I suspect that was a golden age for Haiti but that sort of thing doesn’t go over well in leftist academic circles.
Tyler Cowen has more ideas including a list of Haitian curses.
Voodoo religion ?
The comparison with Barbados is pretty interesting. Barbados exported manual laborers to the Panama Canal project. This resulted in an exodus of young men who might otherwise be unemployed or depress wages. They also sent home remittances that funded many social improvements.
Governor Carter refused to limit emigration because the remittances sent back to Barbados from the Panama workers had markedly improved the economy, especially for poorer tenant farmers. In a country that had recently been on the brink of collapse, he was not going to tinker with that.
Agents went out into the crowd to interview and select potential workers. A doctor then checked the potential workers, selecting those who would receive a contract. In 1907, Arthur Bullard described the scene as follows:
“Several policemen kept the crowd in order and sent them up into the recruiting station in batches of 100 at a time. As the men came up, they were formed in a line around the wall. First, all those who looked too old, or too young, or too weakly, were picked out and sent away. Then they were told that no man who had previously worked on the canal would be taken again. Then the doctor told them all to roll up their left sleeves and began a mysterious examination of their forearms. He saw that a few men had been vaccinated by him already, and these were sent away. One protested that a dog had bitten him there. Then, he went over the whole line gain for trachoma, rolling back their eyelids and looking for inflammation. Seven or eight fell at this test. Then he made them strip, and went over them round after round for tuberculosis, heart trouble, and rupture. About 20 of 100 were left at the end.”
The whole situation stirred up some resentment and anger.
The selected migrants reported back to the docks a few days later. After a second medical examination and a check to insure that every emigrant had a number that matched the one on their contract, they boarded the steamers, where they had to find deck space and food for themselves during the 12 day voyage to Colón. According to a report presented to the Barbados Legislative Council, the atmosphere on the docks was fairly hostile towards the ruling class. The crowds would “abuse whites and aggressively denounce them” before boarding.
The result, however, was interesting at home.
Ironically, the departure of so many angry young men gave plenty of leverage to those who stayed behind. One prospective emigrant was heard telling his co-workers, “Why you don’t hit the manager in the head and come along with we?” His co-workers refrained from assaulting the manager, but there was a wave of plantation labor disputes, and the following song became fairly common:
We want more wages, we want it now
And if we don’t get it, we’re going to Panama
Yankees say they want we down there
We want more wages, we want it now
And what do you know? Wages went up. By 1910, the American consul in Bridgetown reported that agricultural workers received 30¢ per day, a 25% rise in nominal wages over the 1900 level. More importantly, unpaid labor — remember the located labor laws? — basically disappeared. Planters reacted to the new environment. First, they started to employ tenant women in the fields. Second, they modernized production. In 1910 there were no modern sugar centrals on the island — intead, windmill-powered presses wasted upwards of 30% of the raw material. By 1921, in contrast, 19 modern sugar centrals had entered operation. Third, they mobilized politically to halt emigration.
Haiti was not so lucky. Today, The Dominican Republic, while quite poor, has five times the average annual income of Haiti and Barbados, with a similar post-slavery background, is prosperous and has a booming tourist economy.
Over time remittances grew, peaking at $2.39 per person in 1913 — a bit more than a week’s labor for a male worker at 1910 wage rates. Not nothing, but not the millenium, either.
But the indirect impact was huge. First, it bolstered the growth of smallholders. In 1897, an estimated 8,500 small proprietors held a bit less than 10,000 acres. By 1912, 13,152 smallholders owned plots. Assuming that the average size of holding remained constant, this represented an increase in smallholder ownership of 5500 acres, or over 22 square kilometers, five percent of the land area of Barbados. By 1929, the number of smallholding households had further increased to 17,731. Land ownership on the island remained astoundingly concentrated, but the percentage of Barbadians who owned property rose from 18% in 1897 to 40% by 1929.*
Second, it supercharged the Barbadian banking system. Barbadians opened 16,094 new accounts in government savings banks between 1906 and 1913, and deposits increased 88%. In 1920, deposits per person surpassed $11. That was a level of financial penetration about half of contemporary Spain and two-thirds of Italy; very high for a country as poor as Barbados. It prefigured the island’s emergence as a regional banking center a half-century later.
Very interesting comparisons. There seems to be little mention of the fact that what we are talking about here are property rights and capitalism.
I wonder if we could see another US occupation ? Not with this president.