Why the discrepancy between the Dominican Republican & Haiti

Great Debates
21

Do you really think roads built in 1934 (at the latest) are likely to be useful today?

You seem to have made up some of the other stuff out of whole cloth.

The University of Haiti’s medical college was founded in the 1820s, shortly following independence - which suggests that your claims about the school system are also untrue.

Malaria kills roughly 30,000 Haitians annually, so it doesn’t seem to have been wiped out in any real sense.

How do you quantify the African quotient of a nation’s culture, exactly?

22

Mr. Dibble,

As to your question, “Why the relevance?” Please see athelas #11.

He says in part, Haiti’s “level of development is not low, when compared to other African countries.” Read the post.

Regards,

KLR 650

23

In fact Haiti had occupied the DR for 22 years - from 1821 to 1844. That’s when slavery was abolished in the DR but the DR version of events was that Haitian rule was pretty damn nasty.

The DR then became independent, then bankrupt, then annexed by Spain briefly, then a corrupt dictatorship, near default, occupation by America (which created an educational system, a tax system, and a real police force), US withdrawal and a DR president infamous for his ignoring all human rights, and on …

So the question of the op is still unanswered: what about the DRs history put them the major step up from Haiti that they are? They both came from slave cultures. Both had huge debts at the onsets and at times since. Both were occupied and had strongmen rule them despotically at points. Both were exploited by various other powers.

The only difference I can see is that American occupation of the DR came at a time when the US was committed to the winning hearts and minds with new infrastructure approach and it benefited from that - including perhaps most importantly an adequate educational system. The US didn’t accomplish that as well in Haiti. The problem wasn’t occupation but the wrong sort of occupation. A very non-PC interpretation I know.

24

Haiti has historically been class-riven & with bad land management. I don’t know much about the DR, so I can’t say what the differences are in that.

Also, the DR was just one of many nations to gain independence from Spain & exist in a vast Hispanophonia. Haiti left France after France had already lost Canada & Louisiana–and Bonaparte had even sold off Louisiana to the Yanks illegally. So it was surrounded for a long time by both non-black greater powers & non-Francophone nations in general. It probably suffered for that lack of a larger culture to develop better technologies of governance & agriculture.

Perhaps we should compare to Martinique, which was incorporated into the French Republic proper.

25

Looking at the history it is clear that the DR had less slaves, less debt, less onerous occupations and less evil despots. (Not by much, but less)

I think you are mistaken on assigning the same value to the problems, Haiti had it worse.

There was indeed a sea of difference between what the French and the Spaniards did in Haiti and the DR. The US occupation did not worry about those differences.

26

Is it true that African culture (assuming one can even speak of a vast multinational continent as having a “culture”) is “zero sum”? Or that Voodoo has no ethical code?

27

In fact it is. Haiti’s per capita GDP is low even by African standards - not absolutely at the bottom, but in the bottom half, unsupported by as much subsistance farming as most poor African countries have, and WAY below relatively stable African countries like Botswana or Gabon. The Senegalese are incredibly poor, and their per capita GDP’s still fifty percent higher than Haiti.

And what IS so “African” about Haiti? They’re black? Haiti is 200 years removed from its African cultural roots. Its people speak a language that would be gibberish to any African, and which is largely European in origin. The majority religion is Roman Catholicism. Unless the Pope recently relocated to Lagos, I’m not seeing the African part aside from the color of some people’s skin.

28

What does “zero sum” mean in this context?

29

All that’s clear from post #11 is that it is somehow different from “British values, attitudes, and institutions.”

A “zero-sum game” is a game like poker, where you can only win money to the exact extent that the other players lose it; no value is added or created.

30

Different average cognitive ability may be a factor.

‘The impact of smart fractions, cognitive ability of politicians and average competence of peoples on social development’ Rindermann et al

Talent Development & Excellence Vol. 1, No. 1, 2009, 3-25

http://iratde.org/issues/1-2009/tde_issue_1-2009_03_rindermann_et_al.pdf

Averages (based on 2006 PISA score):

Dominican Republic IQ 84

Haiti IQ 72

http://www.v-weiss.de/table.html

31

Well, that’s rather a chicken-egg problem. I.e., a difference in measured average IQ between two national populations is usually attributable to differences in early-childhood nutrition, sanitation, education, access to health care – and the less of those things a country has, the less of them it is likely to get.

(Not that improvement is impossible. After WWII, a lot of Third World countries increased their measured average IQ by at least one standard deviation – and not because of any changes in the gene pool. This is discussed in The Bell Curve Wars.)

32

Well, yes although if you wanted to be controversial you could note that demographically the Dominican Republic is more mixed ancestry (according to wikipedia). That would be consistent with the Transracial Adoption Study by Scarr, Weinberg showing the mixed ancestry adoptees averaged between the white and black adoptees.

Also, there are socio-cultural factors with that too. Here is the Jared Diamond argument, mentioning these factors but in terms of political-social difference.

Then there’s a fairly waffly piece by Steve Sailer, quoting Diamond and also outlining cultural factors.

http://vdare.com/sailer/100117_haiti.htm

33

Actually, the long-term US occupation/protectorate in Hispaniola lasted, of Haiti from 1915-34 and of the DR from 1916-24; same historic period, not exactly the most enlightened (plus the US had beeen de-facto “trustee” of the DR for 10 years before direct takeover; and remained so for Haiti for a decade after “leaving”). No real difference in status-at-exit that I can read about.
(The 1965-66 US intervention in the DR was too brief, and really more of an action meant to make sure that the transition to democracy would, um, transition to the “right” king of democracy, wink, wink…)

However at the time (30s/40s) the DR was already in a better position to take advantage of what crumbs were dropped, to a great degree thanks to being more resources-rich than Haiti was, so at least they were likelier to have something to sell for hard cash at any given time, and having started off with a larger educated class, small as it was (every little bit helps). They specially were able to capitalize well on WW2-era commodity prices.
And when it came to the midcentury dictators, well, Trujillo may have been the worst ratbastard criminal to ever pin unearned stars to his own epaulettes in Latin America, but like every good fascist he wanted to showcase great achievements of his regime, WHILE lining his gang’s pockets and crushing his enemies, so SOME worthwhile investment got done. Meanwhile the Duvaliers seemed to only care about the pocket-lining and rival-crushing goals.

After Trujillo fell in the 60s the DR was able to work out over the next couple of decades, if not quite a full liberal democracy, at least the foundations upon which to create some sort of a constitutional order and attract investments. While that was happening, Haiti was getting… Baby Duvalier, who cared far less about governing than Papa; followed by a revolving door of military thugs; and then the utterly hope-crushing Aristide saga. All the while the country, falling to pieces.
To a very great extent, it looked to us on this side of Mona Passage like the Dominican ruling classes at least wanted to have a country worth ruling all along, while the Haitian rulers just couldn’t care less.

34

That doesn’t answer my question - saying Haiti’s level of development is similar to African countries (Which is disputable, especially as a generalizaion) still doesn’t answer why it’s relevant to this discussion.

Personally, I think the largest part of the discrepancy comes from differences in the colonial history, as others have alluded to. This is the same reason there’s a difference between, say, Botswana and Zimbabwe.

35

I’ve heard of and used the concept of IQ and its relations to various indices of development and modernization. However I assumed that Haiti & DR were pretty much identical in that area due to the geography, so I never bothered to look it up.

That was an interesting article. The average IQ of the 95th% play a role in civic, economic and STEM advances while the average IQ of the 5th% play a role in keeping down HIV and homicide rates.

Lynn and Vanhanen (from what I know of them) seemed to just focus on average IQ and its role in development, not the extremes.

36

One thing you all should consider is that not all of the Dominican Republic is the same.

Although most of our side is in some ways better-off than Haiti, there’re still regions with horrible poverty. And ultimately we are still a poor country with a relatively low per capita income. As for the why we’re better-off than Haiti, I would attribute it to two main factors.

First, we have lived in relative peace for almost 50 years as a democracy (or maybe a relative democracy). This has allowed for the development of a solid tourism industry through both local and foreign investments. Investments have also gone into another industries such as Industrial Duty Free Zones

Second, the around a million strong Dominican population in the US. Which besides contributing monetarily to the economy, have also created a strong cultural alignment with the US.

Another important factor would be our policies for the conservation of our natural resources.

37

Another Dominican here. I have been away from the Dope for a while, and the internet in general. But when I came across this thread I knew that the Illustrious Delirious would be here to impart some wisdom. And lucky me I find a fellow countryman…

I am not smart enough to answer the OP’s question, but I have some ideas:

Spain was a somewhat “benevolent” empire. I have mentioned it before, but Spanish conquistadores had no qualms about shagging women of all colors, and of course fathering their kids (same as the French and English), but unlike the French and English, and much like the Portuguese, they did not consider these kids as slaves, more like “lesser” children. This created a racial “middle class” of sorts, where the mulattos were considered to be above of the black slaves, and lower than the white rulers.

Much shagging and mixing ensued, making sure that the mulattoes ended up being the majority of the population, and creating our own brand of racial relations (which we share with a few Latin American countries). The racial tension between France and Haiti was significantly higher than that of Spain and Hispaniola.

Unlike Haitians and their justified paranoia of all things “white”, the Spanish colony never really saw the white Europeans as the enemy, insofar as the Spanish colony was so poor that at times master and slaves (and mulattoes) shared the same indignities. The slaves were slaves, thus not really in an ideal position, but their conditions were vastly better than their French counterparts (and the Spanish ruling class was vastly poorer than their French counterparts). The movement for ending slavery was not really successful, seeing as blacks/slaves were a minority in the Spanish colony (unlike in the French colony were the slaves accounted for over 80% of the population), and because all things considered being hung for revolting was worse than what they were going through.

When the country gained independence from Haiti (after Haiti, who saw the Spanish as a potential danger to their own independence expelled them out) there was a strong movement to return the colony to Spain as a protectorate, and it indeed happened shortly after defeating Haiti, but the colony eventually revolted (mainly because Spain was pretty ineffectual at improving the conditions in the colony, seeing as they were tied up elsewhere). The D.R. has always been pro-Spanish, even when it strongly supported the independence wars of other Spanish colonies. We had a lot more people with which to trade, and in fact trade improved once the Spaniards were thrown out (the French colony came about after a chain of events that started with Spain insistence that their colonies not trade with any other European empire). Spain had no resources to fight to regain the colony, but they did not close the trade. The newly-independent colony was also open and willing to foreign investors, and has always been a friendly place to invest, and more attractive to investors, we had more natural resources, more educated people, a lower population density with lots of unoccupied and very fertile land.
Another thing that has been mentioned, and which bears repeating, is that bad as some/most of our rulers have been (Trujillo was as bad a dictator as anyone, don’t be fooled by the size of his turf), but they wanted to have something to show for, so even when they bled the country there were things being done, and sometimes it’s easier to get things done when you don’t have to ask people’s opinion. Haiti’s rulers were as bad/almost as bad as ours, but they couldn’t care less if Rome, er Port-au-Prince burned while they fiddled.
And finally, we have to thank another MF of a president for the fact that we have a relatively healthy environment (Haiti is mostly a wasteland in comparison): Balaguer. However much I hate the dude, and however unethical his methods for achieving this were, he stopped deforestation (cutting trees without a permit from Forestry is illegal, even in people’s own backyards).
There is much more to this than that, but it is very hard to explain these things in 500 words or less.

38

Seriously? Color me very, very skeptical. An IQ of 72 is pretty much what psychologists would call “borderline” IQ. (I’m simplifying a bit here - a real IQ assessment covers bunch of different functional categories, but still.) People with IQs in that range are going to find a lot of everyday tasks really, really difficult. I’m not just talking about not being able to finish high school, or even illiteracy - baring unusually high performance in verbal IQ (which does happen), you’re probably going to notice, very quickly, when you’re talking to someone at that level. It’s not considered “disabling” on its own under US law - but it’s darned close. And it’s pretty rare - almost two standard deviations from the norm.

Consider that, for this to be the average Haitian IQ, you’d almost have to have substantial numbers of people with IQs equivalent to mental retardation, at a level that they’d require substantial assistance in their everyday lives. How in the world would genuinely disabled people survive, in Haiti, long enough to even get tested? The place was a mess even before the earthquake.

That number can’t be right.

39

That’s because it isn’t.

The linked source is a bunch of numbers from a 2002 study which utilized highly dubious methodology.

In several cases the authors guessed national average IQs because they couldn’t perform testing on the inhabitants or extrapolate from existing numbers.

In other cases they extrapolated from limited or irrelevant datasets. The number for Barbados, for example, is based on testing of 108 9-15 year old children.

Worst of all, they “adjusted” the numbers to bolster conclusions they’d already reached. See the link above for an explanation of the Flynn effect and how they “corrected” for it.

In any case, no IQ test has yet been created which is both culturally and linguistically neutral, and one probably will not be until we can directly identify, measure and properly intrepret brain activity (maybe not even then).

40

There was that “IQ Cap,” but . . .