# Is there any hope at all for Haiti? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 15, 2010, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-hope-at-all-for-haiti/525073 "2010-01-15T14:39:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2010, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-hope-at-all-for-haiti/525073/1 "2010-01-15T14:39:48Z")
It seems the country’s entire history has involved consistently getting screwed over by one civil war, natural disaster, foreign intervention or kleptocratic dictator after another. Even the poorest countries will have some bright spots in their history that the populace can look back upon as “the good ol’ days.” But that doesn’t appear to be the case here. So can this country be fixed, and if so what will it take? Is it possible that it can one day become a stable, somewhat prosperous place like its neighbor the Dominican Republic? ---
**Author:** ![Silverstreak\_Wonder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Silverstreak\_Wonder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silverstreak_Wonder)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2010, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-hope-at-all-for-haiti/525073/2 "2010-01-15T14:53:55Z")
Sure it could be fixed if someone would take it over that could invest and make it a tourist and cruise stop, say Disney. Also could grow exotic things, and someone smart might set up a copyright free zone and invite producing knock off items, and oh yes no silly pollution laws. You could easily get a great economy going that way. Invite all the peer to peer bit-torrent folks to set up high tech internet and make knock offs of Apple and MS PC’s and OS’s and you could have wonderful employment, while saving the rest of us big bucks too. That is called thinking outside the box, and just what is needed. Unless the corrupt leaders are removed it is pointless to put money there, by the way no one says how did the leaders come out? Are they alive? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2010, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-hope-at-all-for-haiti/525073/3 "2010-01-15T14:59:10Z")
Just prior to the revolution, Haiti was a lot better off than its neighbour. In fact, due to the extraction of renewable resources, sugar, coffee and indigo, Hiaiti was France’s most prized colony in the New World, more so than even Quebec. So yes, there is hope. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2010, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-hope-at-all-for-haiti/525073/4 "2010-01-15T15:19:44Z")
> [@Silverstreak\_Wonder](#): > > Sure it could be fixed if someone would take it over that could invest and make it a tourist and cruise stop, say Disney. Also could grow exotic things, and someone smart might set up a copyright free zone and invite producing knock off items, and oh yes no silly pollution laws. You could easily get a great economy going that way. Invite all the peer to peer bit-torrent folks to set up high tech internet and make knock offs of Apple and MS PC’s and OS’s and you could have wonderful employment, while saving the rest of us big bucks too. > > That is called thinking outside the box, and just what is needed. > > Unless the corrupt leaders are removed it is pointless to put money there, by the way no one says how did the leaders come out? Are they alive? If you’d read the fucking news you’d see that the fucking president is still fucking alive. Fuck. ETA: Fuck. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2010, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-hope-at-all-for-haiti/525073/5 "2010-01-15T15:26:15Z")
Haiti’s economy has traditionally been built around the unskilled but labor-intensive cultivation of commodity crops, for the lowest possible production cost, on large plantations. It would require a socioeconomic and political miracle for such a system NOT to produce poverty and corruption. It’s been said, perhaps only half in jest, that the civil rights movement in the southern US could never have succeeded until after the mechanical cotton-picking machine was perfected. The best hope for Haiti would be a blight that wiped out the cultivation of sugarcane. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2010, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-hope-at-all-for-haiti/525073/6 "2010-01-15T15:47:09Z")
> [@Silverstreak\_Wonder](#): > > Sure it could be fixed if someone would take it over that could invest and make it a tourist and cruise stop, say Disney. Also could grow exotic things, and someone smart might set up a copyright free zone and invite producing knock off items, and oh yes no silly pollution laws. You could easily get a great economy going that way. Invite all the peer to peer bit-torrent folks to set up high tech internet and make knock offs of Apple and MS PC’s and OS’s and you could have wonderful employment, while saving the rest of us big bucks too. > > That is called thinking outside the box, and just what is needed. Or in other words, invade it, stripmine it, ruin it and dump it. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2010, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-hope-at-all-for-haiti/525073/7 "2010-01-15T17:04:07Z")
Why would Disney want to take people on cruises to a copyright-free zone? That sort of thing is very much against their interests. No pollution laws isn’t going to help the tourist industry, either. Would you want to take your vacation on a beach full of trash, where the air smells bad and makes you cough? ---
**Author:** ![Silverstreak\_Wonder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Silverstreak\_Wonder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silverstreak_Wonder)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2010, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-hope-at-all-for-haiti/525073/8 "2010-01-15T17:11:36Z")
They were alternate ways to get the economy going, not both together, although people DO tour China. By the way since sugar grows so well there, what about MaryJane? I mean officially and sell to anyone anywhere and tax that for support of roads and infrastructure to do the anti-copyright stuff? That would work. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2010, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-hope-at-all-for-haiti/525073/9 "2010-01-15T17:36:41Z")
> [@Silverstreak\_Wonder](#): > > They were alternate ways to get the economy going, not both together, although people DO tour China. By the way since sugar grows so well there, what about MaryJane? I mean officially and sell to anyone anywhere and tax that for support of roads and infrastructure to do the anti-copyright stuff? That would work. Yeah, that would be a _great_ way to get our government to ban all travel and business there. ---
**Author:** ![Silverstreak\_Wonder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Silverstreak\_Wonder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silverstreak_Wonder)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2010, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-hope-at-all-for-haiti/525073/10 "2010-01-15T17:40:27Z")
Just the opposite, we would give them money to try and stop it, we are doing this with opium farming in the middle east now, we give them more free money. I sure would not, but that is the fact. It would work, one way or the other. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2010, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-hope-at-all-for-haiti/525073/11 "2010-01-15T17:45:52Z")
> [@Silverstreak\_Wonder](#): > > Just the opposite, we would give them money to try and stop it, we are doing this with opium farming in the middle east now, we give them more free money. I sure would not, but that is the fact. It would work, one way or the other. What religion do you claim to belong to, again?? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2010, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-hope-at-all-for-haiti/525073/12 "2010-01-15T20:56:09Z")
> [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](#): > > Just prior to the revolution, Haiti was a lot better off than its neighbour. In fact, due to the extraction of renewable resources, sugar, coffee and indigo, Hiaiti was France’s most prized colony in the New World, more so than even Quebec. > > So yes, there is hope. Er - it was “better off” in the sense that it produced more wealth - but the overwhelming majority of the population were slaves. Remarkably ill-treated slaves, at that. Not exactly a golden era. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2010, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-hope-at-all-for-haiti/525073/13 "2010-01-15T21:12:31Z")
> [@Silverstreak\_Wonder](#): > > They were alternate ways to get the economy going, not both together, although people DO tour China. China has historical and cultural attractions that Haiti doesn’t. China, unlike Haiti, has the option of putting the worst of the polluting industries far away from the tourist attractions. > [@](#): > > By the way since sugar grows so well there, what about MaryJane? I mean officially and sell to anyone anywhere and tax that for support of roads and infrastructure to do the anti-copyright stuff? That would work. As it’s worked so well for Colombia with cocaine. ---
**Author:** ![figure9](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f0a364/32.png) [@figure9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/figure9)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2010, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-hope-at-all-for-haiti/525073/14 "2010-01-16T19:04:56Z")
Institute a 1 child per woman policy. Eventually the number of people will approach what the ecosystem can support. Once the country can feed itself the other problems will be easier to solve. ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2010, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-hope-at-all-for-haiti/525073/15 "2010-01-16T19:53:10Z")
[WHY IS HAITI SO POOR?](http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/misctopic/leftover/whypoor.htm). An essay written in 1986 with the author’s 1999 note > [@](#): > > 1999 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. Let’s use this crisis to take some time and brush up on our Haitian history and learn some new things. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2010, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-hope-at-all-for-haiti/525073/16 "2010-01-16T20:09:11Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Yeah, that would be a _great_ way to get our government to ban all travel and business there. If it were just pot cafes and tourist traps, I don’t see why it would be worse than Amsterdam or something. Unfortunately, murderous drug-czars would turn it into an even worse mess. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2010, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-hope-at-all-for-haiti/525073/17 "2010-01-16T20:11:22Z")
> [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](#): > > Just prior to the revolution, Haiti was a lot better off than its neighbour. In fact, due to the extraction of renewable resources, sugar, coffee and indigo, Hiaiti was France’s most prized colony in the New World, more so than even Quebec. > > So yes, there is hope. However, that extraction was of **non** -renewable resources. That is, intensive agriculture of that kind in the Haitian terrain is environmentally destructive and non-sustainable, causing deforestation and soil erosion. (See [this article by Jared Diamond](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/15/forces-working-against-haiti).) Sugar, in particular, uses up the land on which it is grown. [Haiti produces almost no sugar today,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Haiti#Cash_crops) and not for lack of cheap labor. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2010, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-hope-at-all-for-haiti/525073/18 "2010-01-16T20:13:09Z")
> [@figure9](#): > > Institute a 1 child per woman policy. You need a pretty vigorous and effective government to enforce that – something Haiti is not likely to have in the foreseeable future. ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2010, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-hope-at-all-for-haiti/525073/19 "2010-01-16T20:23:51Z")
In reading the previous article I linked, it looks like the French were using Haiti as some sort of “cash cow” for most of it’s history. > [@](#): > > THE FRENCH DEBT OF 1838. > > 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. Maybe Haiti would have developed differently if it didn’t have France viciously extorting it with threats of re-enslavement/colonization for ~100 years. I’d also advise people to read Jared Diamond’s book “Collapse.” It has a very interesting (if downright pessimistic) summation of the natural/political forces that came into play against/for Haiti after independence. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2010, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-hope-at-all-for-haiti/525073/20 "2010-01-16T21:21:51Z")
The Heritage Foundation wrote this; In addition to immediate humanitarian aid, the U.S. response to the tragic earthquake in Haiti ,offers opportunities to reshape Haiti’s long dysfunctional government and economy as well as to improve the public image of the United States in the region. I guess no disaster should be passed up if money can be made. Then, it is an opportunity to steer the government into something that would benefit us. Like in Naomi Klein’s "Disaster Capitalism’, we can take advantage of a bad circumstance and make a boatload of money. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-hope-at-all-for-haiti/525073.md?page=2)