Rather than making plans to explain proper child-rearing practices to the Haitians, I wish David Brooks had stuck to his discussion of the limitations of humanitarian aid to effect economic growth. I thought the study he cited was interesting.
In the recent anthology “What Works in Development?,” a group of economists try to sort out what we’ve learned. The picture is grim. There are no policy levers that consistently correlate to increased growth. There is nearly zero correlation between how a developing economy does one decade and how it does the next. There is no consistently proven way to reduce corruption. Even improving governing institutions doesn’t seem to produce the expected results.
The chastened tone of these essays is captured by the economist Abhijit Banerjee: “It is not clear to us that the best way to get growth is to do growth policy of any form. Perhaps making growth happen is ultimately beyond our control.”
Seeming to accept this verdict, Brooks moves on to blame voodoo and bad parenting for Haiti’s problems. The truth of the matter is that Haiti needs investment, but it just isn’t a very attractive place to invest. I am not a fan of Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine, but she’s right about disaster capitalism to a degree. I’ve already seen a lot of people talking about a clean, blank slate, as if economic powers can now impose the kind of discipline on Haiti that would make it a good place to invest. Where Klein’s analysis breaks down is that Haiti desperately needs foreign investment, and people don’t invest their money out of the goodness of their hearts. That is what humanitarian aid is for, and humanitarian aid doesn’t create jobs on a large scale. A progressive response to this tragedy shouldn’t be to oppose an extent of paternalistic corporate opportunism, but to ask our government to guide that opportunism in ways that are mutually beneficial.
Haiti needs foreign investment but, they, and we, must know that doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result in the definition of insanity.
Hey – let’s not all try to become development experts overnight. I have been studying aspects of development economics and politics on and off for nearly 40 years and and have found very few “solutions”, especially external solutions, that have worked in any kind of consistent way in all environments.
Certainly far eastern economies have prospered by adopting capitalism largely red in tooth and claw and without many of the safeguards of the European model. But their capitalisms have been largely indigenous in ownership and management – even if they started by copying US models and designs and adapting them to their own needs.
Latin America, by comparison, has been quite different, and attempts to impose US style capitalism by force – as in numerous US orchestrated coups – have virtually all led to an impoverishment of their peoples and cultures – not to mention their political cultures, Those Latin American countries that are now doing best have generally resolutely resisted US external investment aka attempts at domination of their economies or polities.
Sub Saharan Africa has been quite different again. At first ruthlessly exploited by their colonial masters and then sometimes even more so by their own (acting in concert with global corporations). Their democracies and political cultures have been extremely fragile and open to corruption, and the greater the western aid, the greater the ongoing under-development that seems to result.
I do not know enough about the specific of Haiti to judge which models apply best there, but I suspect some mix of the African and Latin American models may be the most applicable. If that is the case, greater penetration by US corporations and privately (= corporately) funded NGO’s is the last thing they need.
We have to distinguish between short term emergency aid – which is welcome from any source – and a long term development strategy which will work for the Haiti people themselves. The solution is not necessarily to try and become some kind 51st. US state or protectorate like Puerto Rico – although if you offered that to them now they might well run with it.
The starting point has to be ask the Haitian people themselves and to enable them to build up their own Governing and infrastructural institutions themselves. Many will doubtless have ideas as to what worked well and less well in the past. But unless you are trying to create some kind of even greater neo-colonial dependency, you have to work with what people and skills and respources and institutions they currently have – not wipe them out by administrative fiat or competition from global corporations they cannot possibly compete with.
Humanitarian aid can create sustainable jobs, as can indigenous Government action. Perhaps not the prestige corporate kind, but perhaps more sustainable and less divisive ones in the context of the indigenous culture and class structure.
Attempts to resolve their problems by external action, however well meaning and effective in the short term, are not necessarily the best way to ensure sustainable indigenous development. I am not generally a fan of the Cuban model, but let us not forget there are alternative development models on offer and the choice must ultimately be made by Haitians themselves.
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Great stuff, I fully agree with your comment.
True the people of Port-au-Prince are poor and have suffered greatly. One thing that we can observe today, while grieving their loss of a home and family members, none are mad or frustrated by their government and lack and speed of relief. They had no expectations from historical reference and do not realize they are missing support. The Haitians are fully self-reliant for the few possessions they have. The nation was already covered by multiple relief organizations including the United Nations. Their infants were bought by the wealthy Westerner … many parents who came to Haiti for adoption died in the quake.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."i’ve seen plenty of footage of angry people yelling about the lack of government action, although there is a degree of resignation about it that you didn’t see in New Orleans.
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Must be: “yelling about lack of
governmentU.N. action” without realizing the losses suffered by the same United Nations. I understand nearly 50% of the population relied on food handoouts before the quake."But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."right. they will starve now.
Haiti earthquake: food houses looted, WFP says
Help Haiti
Haiti: UN agencies ramping up response following deadly quake
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WASHINGTON, Jan. 14, 2010 – President Barack Obama said today said he’s made helping Haiti in the wake of a crippling earthquake the top priority of every U.S. government agency.
Obama called the quake an unimaginable tragedy, and said the United States has launched “a swift, coordinated and aggressive effort” to help.
“I’ve made it clear [to Cabinet officers and government agency heads] that Haiti must be a top priority for their departments and agencies right now,” Obama said. “This is one of those moments that call out for American leadership.”
The United States is deploying a Marine expeditionary unit, the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson and the hospital ship USNS Comfort.
US sending 10,000 troops to earthquake-hit Haiti for food distribution
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."…without realizing the losses suffered by the same United Nations.
Hits close to home. About 150 UN staff and peacekeepers are still unaccounted for. A very close friend is presumed dead – she was in the collapsed UN HQ. Another had been missing, but finally got through with good news last night. Other acquaintances remain missing…
I’m very sorry, ask.
I presume this is the worst blow the UN has ever taken?
Yes, to my knowledge.
The bombing of the Canal Hotel in 2003 was devastating and took 22 lives. A close colleague was lost and several came back seriously maimed.
Attacks on humanitarian workers
Of course, this time it was a natural disaster that caused the losses.
I’m so sorry. I was hoping more people would be found safe and accounted for when I first read the news.
The low expectations of Government are themselves the product of a Government that has often failed them, and there is no doubt that previous attempts at development and foreign help from the US and others have been abject failures.
Merely re-creating the situation pre-quake is not going to create a more resilience Government and economic infrastructure for the future. Bad as the quake is, it is also an opportunity to rebuild on a someone different model. Obviously more quake resilient buildings would be a great start, but perhaps also a more poverty/inequality/underdevelopment resilient social and economic infrastructure and even more important, if less immediately visible foundation for progress in the future.
Where foreign poaers like the US could help is to take a look at the big picture and propose a plan – with local input and consultation – for an immediate regeneration of the economy and infrastructure. This could include, inter alia:
Hopefully the UN has some such plan in the works – or the people who can create one. But they need to maximise local participation for the skills to be transferred and for the development to become self-sustaining.
…crazy. What can they possibly know about their own condition?
< /snark>
The fact that I felt the need to state the bleedin’ obvious should be instructive…
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If there are more morons like David Brooks anywhere near policymaking in our government, no wonder U.S. foreign policy has been a wasteland creating a greater mess with any intervention worldwide these past 100 years.
“The first of those truths is that we don’t know how to use aid to reduce poverty. Over the past few decades, the world has spent trillions of dollars to generate growth in the developing world. The countries that have not received much aid, like China, have seen tremendous growth and tremendous poverty reductions. The countries that have received aid, like Haiti, have not.”
This is the same ignorance expecting the development in Afghanistan to follow the example of Vietnam. To have a chance of development, the people need to be literate and well educated. Socialism and Communism have done a better job in many nations than the “liberal economies” in Africa and South America that were being looted by the former colonial democracies of the West. The arrogance matches the ignorance in these statements. His remark “the world has spent trillions of dollars” is false. Perhaps nations like Iraq, Iran, India, Korea, Vietnam and China do profit from being civilized for thousands of years. Haiti and the Dominican Republic are connected by a common border. Haiti has a link to the great civilization “The United States of America” and a history of cruel dictators, the Dominican Republic has been a protectorate of the socialists of France. The proof lies in the pudding.
Literacy rate per country from CIA Factbook: Afghanistan (28%) – Albania (99%) – Iran (77%) – Indonesia (90%) – Vietnam (90%) ; Haiti (53%) – Domincan Republic (87%).
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Investment doesn’t always have to have a profit motive.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vivian-norris-de-montaigu/economic-colonization-the_b_109799.html
I am a big fan of microfinancing, but microfinancing will not rebuild a capital and financial center for Haiti. We’re not talking about the same thing.
last night NPR was talking about how, before the quake, there was a sense of hope in the global community for Haiti.
So while i agree the country was in bad shape, and of course horrible shape right now, i don’t know if i accept the premise that “The truth of the matter is that Haiti needs investment, but it just isn’t a very attractive place to invest”, because it looked like there were substantial investments made in the country. I don’t know that i reject it either, i just don’t know if that’s the most informed comment i’ve read.
funny, I thought you were about to agree with me because your predicate seemed to support my conclusion, but you chose to interpret 180 degrees away from how I did.
But, in any case, it’s pretty obvious that things have changed now. After the tent cities are erected and the UN has ramped up to feed two million a day (which will take at least a month) and the dead are buried, and the debris is cleared (which will take three or four years), they have to rebuild a government center and a financial center, and some tourism trade, and some basic industry, and distribution networks, their port, their roads, and create jobs.
That isn’t going to necessarily be a lucrative enough prospect for Haiti to find the financing, and certainly not on favorable terms. So, it is what it is, but while microfinancing can help build a sustenance economy on the margins, what they really need is outside investment.
“Foreign investment” means extraction of wealth, and quite frankly, there isn’t much left to extract from Haiti except cheap labor.
What is apparent from the Brooks quote is that the folks he talked to are fixated on “growth”, whatever that is. If you are talking about growth in GDP, in most developing countries there is not the adequate data gathering capabilities to determine the GDP at all. Most governmental figures from those countries are either best guesses (and I do mean guesses not estimates) or straight-out government propaganda pulled out of thin air and tweaked enough to make it credible in the rest of the world.
There are no external policies capable of delivering because the external “experts” have insufficient understanding of the issues. Heck, in the US we can’t even “develop” Appalachia and Mississippi to reduce poverty.
There are few national policies that work until you have a widespread national bureaucracy; most far eastern “tigers” started with autocratic and mercantilist policies and only later evolved through crony capitalism into more competitive forms.
And in most cases, development is local. And dependent on resources (not just funds) being available for creating the next round of productive capacity. And in the developing countries, the risks of adverse events – drought, flood, crop failure, corruption, war, political instability – is high enough to frequently destroy the gains that have been made in a locality.
But disaster response aid does indeed make a difference, and the millions of small-scale efforts do make a difference. Not in GDP figures but in village healthcare, export of crops and crafts, schools, sanitation, and more productive and sustainable agriculture.
And what one finds about corruption is that it decreases when one has a better chance of making a significant income honestly instead of dishonestly. And exactly where has that condition occurred?
FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: A Qualified Defense of Pat Robertson
…background in “a qualified defense,” but this …the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations looked the other way as Jean-Claude Duvalier solidified his iron grip is a very generous reading. And the U.S. training of the Leopards, the replacement for the Tontons Macoute under Baby Doc Duvalier, ought to get a little play in the story as well. You can see some of it here.
In its entirety.
What more needs be said?
Will we do it?
Any of it?
Don’t bet on it.
AG
Bottles of water, bags of grain. A bit of financial largess depending on domestic politics. Maybe in 5-10 years Haiti will be back to being the poorest country in North America.
I don’t know what else is realistic.
There will be a substantial population outflow, leadership will funnel the limited aid into the state security apparatus, civil war to follow.
See Managua 1972.