IS HAITI SO POOR?
I. A study of
the Root, but Less Visible Causes of Haitian Misery.
The ultimate causes of Haiti's misery are human. They are rooted
in greed and power. Both the international community and Haiti's
rulers have continuously assured the destruction of Haiti's colonial
wealth and the creation and continuance of her misery.
- The international
- The international
boycott of the new nation of 1804.
- The French
debt of 1838.
- The United
States Occupation, 1915-1934.
- Post World
War II United States domination.
- The role
of Haiti's rulers.
labor systems in the early republic.
- The elite's
protection of its wealth.
- Human rights
violations as a tool of oppression.
II. Secondary, but Immediate Causes of Haitian Misery
and national political climate of Haiti has assured her misery.
But, little by little these forces have caused other factors to
emerge that assure the continuance of Haitian misery even if Haiti
were to secure good local government free from international intervention.
(An unlikely prospect in either instance!) Some of the most noticeable
secondary causes of Haiti's poverty are:
as an oppressor.
of education (or miseducation).
vs. local food crops.
of a social infrastructure: inadequate roads, water systems,
sewerage, medical services, schools.
in an age of international economic competition.
III. A MYTH AND TWO PUZZLES
As well as arguing
why Haiti is so poor, I address two factors which are often claimed
to be causes of Haitian poverty. One category I will call MYTH.
The contention that the Voodoo religion is a serious factor in causing
the misery of Haiti is a myth, and an exceptionally pernicious myth
The second category
I term PUZZLES. These are areas which are not clear to me. They
may or may not be causes of misery. In this section I will try to
point out the complexities of two cases: foreign investment in manufacturing
HAITI: THE JEWEL
OF THE ANTILLES
called The Jewel of the Antilles, was the richest colony in the
entire world. Economists estimate that in the 1750s Haiti provided
as much as 50% of the Gross National Product of France. The French
imported sugar, coffee, cocoa, tobacco, cotton, the dye indigo and
other exotic products. In France they were refined, packaged and
sold all over Europe. Incredible fortunes were made from this tiny
colony on the island of Hispaniola.
How could Haiti
have once been the source of such wealth and today be the poorest
country in the Western Hemisphere? How could this land that was
once so productive today be semi-barren? How did "The Jewel
of the Antilles" become the Caribbean's hell-hole?
A. INTERNATIONAL FORCES
THE FRENCH COLONIAL
One of the primary reasons that Haiti was such a productively rich
land was because of slave labor. When people are willing to put
productivity above all other values, then productivity is likely
to soar. Not only did the slaves work long days under tremendously
unsafe conditions, with little or no technology beyond hand labor,
but Haiti's slave system was the most brutal in the Caribbean. Many
documents of Western slavery explain that the ultimate threat to
a recalcitrant slave was that he or she would be sold to Haiti.
for the masses of Haitians, slavery did not die with French rule.
Rather, the basic concept of forced cheap labor was passed on to
the emerging native Haitian elite. The French system allowed for
some slaves to earn their freedom by exceptional work. This system
worked well to get more productivity from the slaves, and the system
was tough enough that very few slaves were able to earn their freedom.
Thus slave owners got increased productivity with little loss of
slaves through freedom.
A second group
of slaves who became free were the mulattos, the children of white
masters and slave women. These children were in a middle ground,
uncomfortable to both slaves and whites. The slaves never knew how
the white man would respond to his child, but often the slave owner
didn't want to be reminded of his paternity. Thus mulattos were
not welcomed in either community. Many mulattos received their freedom
and formed a special middle class in the colonial period.
A special class
of freed slaves emerged. About 1/2 of them were freed black slaves
and about 1/2 of them were mulattos. They could receive some education,
operate businesses, own property and in general imitate the French.
of the French became the hallmark of these freedmen. They wanted
a clear separation from their slave backgrounds. Thus they imitated
the whites. They adopted their religion, language, dress, culture,
education and ways. But, most importantly for this story, they learned
the value of slave labor. The colonial French heritage carried on
in the Haitian elite's imitation of the French labor system. This
is an important factor in Haiti's later misery.
BOYCOTT OF THE NEW HAITI.
After the revolution which concluded in January, 1804, Haiti became
the second free country in the Western World (after the United States),
and the first black republic. However, the United States was still
a slave nation, as was England. While France had freed the Haitian
slaves during the revolution, France and other European nations
had slaves in Africa and Asia. The international community decided
that Haiti's model of a nation of freed slaves was a dangerous precedent.
An international boycott of Haitian goods and commerce plunged the
Haitian economy into chaos.
It is difficult
to measure the exact impact of this international conspiracy. Here
was a nation of ex-slaves trying to rise to democratic self-rule,
rising to run an economy in which the masses had only served as
slaves before. The international boycott of Haitian products at
this time was devastating for Haiti's long-term economic development.
THE FRENCH DEBT
The Haitian governments were extremely anxious to be recognized
by France and the Europeans. But France would not recognize Haiti
unless indemnities were paid for lands of former slave owners taken
over after the revolution. Finally, in 1838 President Boyer of Haiti
accepted a 150 million franc debt to pay this indemnity. This debt
plagued the economy of Haiti for over 80 years and was not finally
paid until 1922. In the meantime Haiti paid many times over 150
million francs in interest on this debt. It is difficult to measure
the incredible harm which this did to the Haitian economy, but by
the most conservative measures it was extremely significant.
THE UNITED STATES
OCCUPATION OF 1915-1938.
Perhaps the most serious blow Haiti ever had to her independence
and self-image was the occupation of the United States Marines in
1915. The marines took over control of the collection of revenues,
the banks, and forced through a new "Haitian" constitution
which repealed the 1804 provision that foreigners could never own
land in Haiti. The U.S. decided who would and would not be government
servants. The only factor of Haitian life which seemed to escape
U.S. domination was education. The elite's identification with French
culture was too strong for even the marines to overcome and the
schools remained French in language and structure.
POST WORLD WAR
II UNITED STATES DOMINATION.
The occupation ended in 1934. However, the U.S. presence in both
the economy and internal government affairs was well established.
Ever since the occupation and increasingly since 1946, the United
States, through the power of its aid packages, has played a central
role in Haitian politics. In this way the U.S. has contributed to
the misery of Haiti since it has given oppressive governments comfortable
aid packages which kept these rulers in power. The United States
was not interested in furthering Haitian misery itself, rather this
is the price the U.S. has had to pay to keep friendly governments
in power so that American military, propaganda and economic interests
could be served. The result may well have served the interests of
U.S. control in the region, but the issue here is the cause of Haitian
misery. U.S. backed governments have certainly been a major factor
in this suffering.
B. HAITIAN ELITE
community has done and continues to do its share in causing Haitian
misery. But the contribution of the Haitian elite and Haitian governments
has been and continues to be a root cause of suffering.
SYSTEMS IN THE EARLY REPUBLIC.
After the French left there was a scramble for power and control
in Haiti. The elite emerged as the dominant power. Given their superior
educations, and experience in running businesses and other affairs,
their control was not at all surprising. But, a pattern arose because
the only model they knew for successful agriculture was the slave
system. It was impossible to return the masses to slavery, but Jean-Jacques
Dessalines, the first president, tried to enforce a system of labor
on the peasants which resembled medieval serfdom, i.e., tying the
peasants to particular plantations owned by the elite. This system
failed miserably and in the process created a labor system which
has been instrumental in the developing misery of Haiti.
in the 1804-1820 period set the tone for Haiti's future and is directly
responsible for much of her misery. The former slaves ran away from
the lowlands, the plantations, away from the cruel rulers who would
have effectively enslaved them again. They ran to the mountains
where they would be safe from the soldiers and police of the realm.
And here they have in large measure remained. This pattern of relocation
has defined several aspects of Haitian life which undermine the
development of a healthy economy.
The price the
Haitian masses have paid for their freedom has been to live at or
below subsistence, remaining in their tiny huts and non-fertile
mountain regions in order to have peace and freedom from oppression.
For nearly two centuries they have sub-divided their small plots
among their generations of descendants until the plots of land are
very tiny and relatively unproductive.
A widespread attitude has developed holding that no government could
ever be good government. Folk wisdom seems to demand that one retreat
ever further from government and eke out an existence outside the
mainstream of society.
All of these factors contribute greatly to the misery the Haitian
people suffer, and they are a direct legacy of Haitian politics
and government. These evils are brought to the Haitian people by
the greed of the elite.
PROTECTION OF ITS WEALTH.
For the most part the 3% of the people who constitute the Haitian
elite are descendants of those same families who were free prior
to the independence of 1804. There is an elite which is mainly black
and an elite which is mainly mulatto. These two groups have their
own fights and battles, but in the few cases when the masses have
attempted to rise up and assert the rights and needs of the people
as a whole, the elite has rallied together using its wealth and
power to crush the masses.
family's rise to power was just another in a series of such moves.
The present government of General Namphy continues the pattern even
today. There has been no revolution in Haiti, just a change of government.
Corruption is common in all governments, especially prominent in
highly authoritarian regimes, and practiced beyond measure in Haiti.
The elite have used their positions in government ever since 1804
to gather the wealth and power of Haiti for themselves. What little
wealth the country had has been manipulated into the hands of this
elite. Foreign governments and humanitarian and religious organizations
have often attempted to aid the suffering people of Haiti. Time
and again, over and over in the 182 years of so-called freedom,
the Haitian elite and government officials have sidetracked much
of this wealth for their own purposes. Haiti faces the incredibly
difficult task of dealing with corruption that is so established,
so all-persuasive as to be an accepted social practice.
VIOLATIONS AS A TOOL OF OPPRESSION.
One would never expect that the Haitian masses would have sat placidly
by and allowed such a tiny elite to inflict the conditions of misery
on them. Indeed, the people did not sit willingly by. The history
of Haiti from early colonial days until the present is one of constant
resistance, constant rebellion. But the elite have been equal to
the challenge. For 182 years the Haitian rulers have used terror,
killings, beatings, illegal arrests and detentions, forced exile
and other such measures to keep the masses in line.
when it seemed that the overthrow of the Duvalier dynasty would
end the dreaded Tonton Macoute and ease the pressure against resisters,
we are reading of the activities of the Leopards. This is a crack
military organization which has been implicated by Amnesty International
in recent attacks on literacy workers and others aiding the masses
in attempting to non-violently break out of two centuries of oppression
of the Haitian elite.
SUMMARY OF THE
and misery in Haiti are human created. The root causes are the political
and economic systems which have dominated Haiti for the whole of
her 182 years. These oppressive factors have come from the international
community, especially France and the United States. However, the
Haitian elite, comprising only 3% of the Haitian people has also
been a major factor in creating and continuing these oppressive
The causal roots
are generally not very visible. Rather, they are the basis of the
more visible and immediate factors which I will explain in the next
section. Even the overt human rights abuses are not mainly visible
on a daily basis. However, the Duvalier years were especially bad.
Tens of thousands of people died or disappeared. Hundreds of thousands
more felt forced to flee their homeland and seek a safer life elsewhere.
Nearly everyone in the country felt the terror of the Duvaliers
and their Tonton Macoute.
MORE IMMEDIATE CAUSES OF HAITI'S POVERTY
Perhaps the oddest cause of poverty anywhere in the world is the
fact of language in Haiti. In a word, the imposition of French on
the country is an immediate cause of Haiti's misery.
French is the
official language of the country. All state business is carried
on in French, the schools educate mainly in French. Social prestige
is related to the ability to speak French. Yet only about 10% of
the people can even get along in French, with less than 5% knowing
the language fluently. Creole is the language of the masses. 100%
of the Haitians speak and understand Creole as their mother tongue.
The road to
social, economic and intellectual development is reserved to the
speakers of French, while the masses are kept in their misery because
their language is not recognized nor allowed as an official language.
Creole is not
a patois or dialect of French. It is a recognized language in its
own right, with its own syntax which is significantly different
from French. The Creole grammar is rooted in Central African languages,
though most of its vocabulary is influenced by French.
One of the results of this oppression of language is a national
illiteracy rate which is very close to 90% in the cities, and higher
in rural areas. It is hard to calculate the suffering tied to illiteracy
and the ignorance of alternatives which comes with illiteracy and
lack of education. When a whole people cannot read, they are cut
off from advances in knowledge.
Thus they are
condemned to repeat the forms of life they have developed whether
or not those practices have negative aspects. Haitian life has many
disastrous practices and these account for much of her misery. These
will be detailed below. The point here is to note that the immediate
cause of many negative practices is rooted in ignorance of the alternatives.
It is ignorance that allows traditional practices in agriculture
or education, health care or house-hold hygiene. Some of these practices
are killing Haitians unnecessarily and destroying the agricultural
base of this agricultural land. This harmful ignorance is the direct
result of the illiteracy which defines the nation.
THE SYSTEM OF
EDUCATION (OR, MORE PROPERLY, MISEDUCATION.)
Legally, education is free and open to all. Actually, state-sponsored
education is limited and most secondary or university education
goes to the children of the elite. Only about 30% of Haitian children
ever begin school, and of the 30%, only 2% stay in school beyond
the 5th grade.
There are many
factors which contribute to the lack of education, among them are:
mainly in French, a foreign tongue to the masses of Haitians. In
the past 6 years Creole has begun to creep into the school as part
of a reform movement. However, books are still primarily in French,
and after the 5th year in school, even classroom instruction reverts
to French. More importantly is the indoctrination that only French
is the language of intelligent and well educated people. Thus peasants,
who speak only Creole, despise their own real language and demand
that their children be educated in French, thereby assuring that
their children will not succeed in school.
After the fifth year students must pass a difficult examination,
the "sertifica" in order to continue. This examination
is in French. Few children of the peasant masses pass this examination.
Teachers are very poorly prepared. Materials are totally inadequate.
In the rural schools it is common that only the teachers have books.
Rote learning is the most common form of instruction, even in schools
in the capital. Students are taught to parrot the teacher. They
learn little beyond the immediate textbook.
Schools are terribly overcrowded. Teachers have many too many children
in each class and discipline is a problem. Of course, the fact that
class centers around a language the children do not know does not
help discipline either. The response to serious discipline problems
is a harsh punishment system which relies on beating and serious
physical assaults on misbehaving children.
In a word, the school system is in shambles. It does very little
to help Haiti out of her massive ignorance and illiteracy. If anything,
it helps to continue the reliance on French, a primary controlling
tool of the Haitian state.
Nearly everyone has heard about Haiti's disastrous soil erosion.
Haiti is a mountainous country. For the past 200 years people have
been cutting the trees on their mountains without replanting. Now,
when the rainy season comes with its four or five months of daily
pounding rains, one can see the brown rivers torrent down the mountain
sides and watch, helplessly, as Haiti's little remaining soil flows
out into the Caribbean Sea. How has this terrible situation come
There are four
primary reasons for the soil erosion:
to earn a living.
motivation to reform.
Haiti has no
fuel except wood. People cook with charcoal. This requires massive
amounts of wood to provide fuel for 6 million people. Thus the demand
on wood as a crop is the immediate cause of the denuding of the
mountains of Haiti.
motivation of much of the cutting is economic. Peasants are hungry.
They have little available work. But wood is in constant demand
as charcoal, or to sell to others to make charcoal. Peasant wood-cutters
who do understand the soil erosion problem will argue that they
have no alternative. They either cut and sell wood or they starve.
Mainly they are right. Haiti suffers massive unemployment and most
peasants have inadequate access to farm lands.
Because of the
problems of illiteracy and lack of education detailed above, Haitian
wood cutters do not really understand the extent of damage their
cutting does. These uneducated peasants have little sense of history.
In their generation Haiti has always looked denuded like it does
today. Thus to convince them that they are contributing to Haiti's
misery by cutting the few trees which any one of them cuts, is not
a very convincing argument. When compared with the alternatives
of hunger or even starvation facing the wood sellers, the argument
fundamentally makes no sense.
There is little
motivation for wood cutters to replant more trees. Mainly they do
not own the land. They cut here or there as sharecroppers or renters,
then move on to other lands. The land owners are often city people
or more wealthy village folks and they do not keep a close watch
on their lands. Were they to replant, it is likely that the neighbors'
animals would eat the seedling trees since there is little forage
left in Haiti. The land tenure system--the way land is owned and
used in Haiti--provides little motivation to anyone to replant the
trees. Of course, it is in the interest of the nation as a whole
to replant trees. But, no individuals who own, share-crop or rent
lands are personally motivated to do this costly and troublesome,
and non-economic work.
VS. LOCAL FOOD PRODUCTION.
portions of Haiti's best lands produce crops for export. Sugar cane
is the dominant export crop, but tropical fruit and other crops
are grown as well. With most of the very best land out of production
for local food crops (beans, rice and corn), the masses of people
do not have access to land to grow food for eating or selling on
the local market. Ironically, Haiti, a primarily agricultural land,
is a net importer of food. At first one might think that this is
not such a bad thing. After all, by selling crops on the international
market income is generated for Haiti, jobs are produced and money
circulates. Unfortunately none of this happens in any positive way
for the great masses of people. First, these lands which produce
the export crops are controlled by the elite of Haiti. Most of the
imported cash goes to these owner/controllers of the land and most
of it is not spent in Haiti, but in the more interesting markets
of the United States and Europe. Not even a trickle down effect
is felt from this flow of cash. Further, the farm wages are among
the lowest in Haiti. Cane cutters spend an entire day in back-breaking
work to cut a ton of sugar cane. For this long day one can expect
$1.00 a day OR LESS! When one compares this with the high prices
of imported food, one can see the contribution to Haiti's difficulties
from this concentration on export crops.
THE LACK OF
Haiti does not have the basic social infrastructure to allow a viable
economy. There are inadequate roads in the rural areas. Thus shipping
goods to the market in Port-au-Prince is expensive and risky. Travel
by workers is difficult and extremely time consuming because of
bad roads. During the rainy season many areas cannot be reached
at all by motor vehicles.
difficulties for the people as well. Only the houses of the wealthy
in Port-au-Prince and the major regional towns have running water.
The masses do not have access to potable water and the death and
disease related to water is critical. It is said that 80% of all
disease in Haiti is water borne. Sewerage systems are limited to
the homes of Port-au-Prince's elite. The rest of the people make
do with outhouses or worse, just use the outdoors. This presents
a terrible medical problem in the crowded slums of the capital.
is not available except for a tiny percent of the populace. I've
already written about the deplorable conditions of schools and the
inadequate health care facilities. Haiti simply doesn't provide
the basic infrastructure which allows a healthy people in a healthy
plead that the country is too poor to provide such services. There
is some truth to this claim. However, millions and millions of dollars
donated by foreign governments and charitable groups for infrastructure
projects have been stolen by government officials. Cheating and
corruption in dealing with these funds are widespread. Lastly, the
economy is run for the benefit of the rich elite. There are too
few just taxes to provide the needed income for the basic infrastructure
which makes a decent life possible.
Masses of people have no work, or work for pay which cannot come
close to providing a living wage a one's family. Because of the
soil erosion and structure of agriculture, thousands pour into Port-au-Prince
looking for work.
Most of them
have heard of a friend's friend or an uncle's cousin said to have
found work in the tourist industry, or manufacturing sector. But
there are few jobs to be had, and the slums grow. These unemployed
masses put increasing pressure on the already inadequate city infrastructure.
of unemployment and underemployment are caused in large measure
by the lack of an adequate infrastructure and the domination of
all wealth by the few. The political instability of the present
moment does not help. Members of the Haitian elite and foreign investors
are leery of investing in Haiti since no one knows where the government
IN AN AGE OF INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC COMPETITION.
Today's world economy is international. Competition is bitter and
severe. We are all familiar with this competition between the United
States, Western Europe and Japan. But this is a competition of the
strong fighting the strong for a piece of the market. Haiti is in
a terribly disadvantageous position. Haiti is an undeveloped country.
It is not even a developing nation. The economic structure of Haiti
has in large measure deteriorated in the 29 years of Duvalier rule.
Haiti cannot compete. It's a case of being hopelessly behind in
a long distance race of superstars. Instead of catching up, Haiti
falls farther and farther behind each day.
My own experience has been that large masses of Haitian people suffer
from a self-defeating image of themselves. They know they are poor
in a rich world. They have heard that they are ignorant and illiterate.
They speak Creole and are told that this is not a "real"
language, but a bastard tongue. They experience their own powerlessness
and are told it is their own fault. Such a self-image creates its
own cycle of misery. The victim, the masses of Haitian people, blame
themselves for their own suffering.
I have painted
a grim picture. Haiti is a devastatingly poor country. The causes
of this misery are many and varied. Most of them are stubbornly
resistant to change or amelioration. Many of the woes of Haiti are
beyond Haiti's capacity to cure even if a just government and economic
order were to appear, which, of course, is highly unlikely.
THE MYTH THAT
THE VOODOO RELIGION CAUSES HAITI'S MISERY
many many ills which I've tried to catalogue above. Ironically,
one often hears that Voodoo is the major cause of Haiti's misery.
I want to address this claim because I believe it is a complete
myth. That is, I hold that Voodoo in no serious way causes Haiti's
misery. But, the concentration on this non-cause dissipates much
energy from more useful tasks.
claim that the Voodoo religion is some sort of satanic worship and
thus Haiti's suffering is caused by a combination of divine punishment
and the ineptness of the satanic powers.
I will not comment
one the supernatural part of it. But, the factual claim that Voodoo
is a satanic worship is flatly mistaken. Voodoo is an African family-spirit
religion. The spirits (not gods, but spirits--sort of like angels
in Christianity) are invoked for moral advice and help with daily
affairs. Additionally, Voodoo is a healing religion. Much of this
healing is effective for local health problems. In general my strong
impression is that people are very pragmatic about their healing.
If a houngon or mambo (priest or priestess) heals, then people will
use them again, otherwise not.
I don't want
to paint a romanticized picture. There is widespread use of healing
practices which go beyond the houngon and mambo's abilities. Wherever
this occurs it should be combated as poor healing practice. Similarly,
the Haitians have added a new rite to African Voodoo. This is the
petro rite, a black magic rite which includes such exotic and socially
damaging practices as death curses and the creation of zombis. There
is no question that these practices are harmful. But, the observers
of the Haitian scene whose evidence I find most plausible, maintain
that these petro services probably account for no more than 5% of
I have no personal
stake in defending Voodoo. But, it is factually wrong to blame Voodoo's
excesses for seriously contributing to Haiti's misery. The reason
that this is such an important issue is tied to the question of
Haitian self-image and the rights of the Haitian people to their
own culture. The problem is not Voodoo, but some excesses and superstitions
in an otherwise legitimate religion. More importantly, it is the
religion of Haiti's people.
is that the criticism of Voodoo is not really because of its alleged
harmful practices, but simply because it is not the religion that
Western missionaries would prefer the Haitian people to follow.
A second version
of the myth is to claim that Voodoo is filled with harmful medical
practices and superstitions and must be erradicated. Again, I believe
the extent of this harm is greatly exaggerated, but I do agree that
there are indeed harmful medical practices and superstitions in
Voodoo's present form.
I balance these factors against the importance of Haitians having
their own culture, their own ways; when I balance these negative
factors against the poor self-image that Haitians already have of
their culture, it seems more important that critics of Voodoo concentrate
their criticisms not on the religion as a whole, but on the harmful
If we look back
in Western culture to the Middle Ages we find a Christianity riddled
with superstition. The process that won the day in that struggle
is precisely what I advocate for Voodoo. Medieval Christianity was
purged of its worst superstitions and the religion survived. This
is the need in Voodoo.
PUZZLE #1: FOREIGN
INVESTMENT IN MANUFACTURING
jobs. Hundred of thousands of people are unemployed in Port-au-Prince,
or can only find part-time work. Thus, at first glance it would
seem that the arrival of American manufacturing operations in the
1970s would be a boon to Haiti. Well, are they really? The case
is not so clear.
On the positive
side, some 350,000 jobs now exist in the manufacturing sector which
did not exist 15 years ago. 350,000 people have full-time employment;
people who were unemployed before.
national minimum wage is $2.60 daily. Most companies evade even
this pittance by shifting their pay system to piece work and then
making it so that the typical wage is closer to $2.00 than the minimum
Until the fall
of Duvalier, labor unions and labor activity were illegal. Even
now few people know what a labor union is and the government continues
to harass any labor activity. Additionally, the press of the hundreds
of thousands who have no work, and who would very much like even
these $2.00 a day jobs, keeps workers disciplined not to rock the
The $2.00 a
day actual wage is nearly double the $1.00 typically earned in the
agricultural sector. However, the American firms who own and run
these plants earn fantastic rates of return on capital, profits
entirely generated by the labor of the Haitians. Any sense of justice
one can muster calls for a fairer distribution of the wealth created
in these plants.
Are these plants
a way out of Haitian poverty? Yes and no. Immediately, they do employ
the unemployed and that is a positive factor. But, the non-living
wage which is paid insures that people will not rise out of their
squalor and misery, but will remain at subsistence level.
is quite like the early Industrial Revolution in the United States
and England. Most of us are familiar with the hard and long battles
which labor had to fight to get a fairer portion of the wealth their
own labor created. The Haitian fight is hampered by many factors
which were not as limiting in the United States--the high level
of illiteracy, more severe levels of government oppression than
existed here, more competition for jobs, etc.
So, I find this
new development in Haiti to be a puzzle. Does it help or hinder
Haitians? I just don't know. With just reforms this manufacturing
sector could profit both Haiti and foreign investors. At present
some Haitians do survive because of these jobs, and fortunes are
made by the investors.
PUZZLE #2: OVERPOPULATION
Haiti is a small
country, about the size of Maryland. It has between 6 and 6.5 million
people. The soil erosion, inability to compete in the international
economy, backward agricultural technology and many other factors
combine to make this population of 6 to 6.5 million one which Haiti
cannot easily support.
portions of the best Haitian lands are used to grow export crops
for North America and Europe. This production benefits only a handful
of the Haitian elite. Thus, if only the land were returned to the
Haitian people and used for local food crops, Haiti would have no
difficulty in providing a sound diet for all her people.
improvements in agricultural technology (wider use of oxen and plow,
for example), or improved understanding of agricultural problems
(stronger national help in fighting soil erosion) and the land that
is in production of local food crops could be much more productive.
is caused by the present social system, it would seem that it is
not overpopulation which causes the crisis in Haiti. But this view
is shortsighted. A reformed use and understanding of agriculture
(both highly unlikely) would make it possible for Haiti to feed
its present population and even the expected population into the
next century. But, eventually, Haiti will face a population crisis.
Certainly by 2025, only 38 years from now, Haiti's present 2.2%
growth rate will make Haiti incapable of feeding her people in the
best of circumstances.
There are population
control programs throughout Haiti. But they simply don't work. Much
research shows that moral preaching, sex education, available contraceptive
measures and even force do little to reduce populations in very
poor nations. This is because people NEED lots of children. They
need them for 4 reasons:
As workers in
the farm fields.
As old age insurance for parents who have no other security.
Because in a life of low material gratification, raising children
is among the few joys and delights one can have.
Because they suffer high children mortality rates, people must have
many children so that enough will survive to accomplish 1-2-3.
Sociologists know that only economic development can effectively
lower the birthrate, and that economic development--providing old
age security, and some level of material comfort, almost invariably
lead people to voluntarily limit birth rates. Such a rise in material
standard is also accompanied by higher levels of education, which
further contributes to voluntary birthrate limits.
Is it really
overpopulation which causes Haiti's misery, or is the overpopulation
another result of Haiti's misery? It's not a clear case at all.
With more humane social planning, Haiti could provide for its people
NOW. But what about in a few years? Population is a puzzle.
By Bob Corbett
Bob's note: I wrote this essay some 13 years ago. I still agree
with most of it, but have some changes in my own knowledge and thinking
over the years. But, I've decided to leave the essay as it originally
appeared in The Haiti Project Newsletter where I published this.