The Mighty Diamond

by Eric Martin

In the aftermath of the recent earthquake that devastated the already beleaguered people of Haiti, the impoverished condition of that nation - which greatly exacerbated the lethality of the quake - has received sudden heightened scrutiny.  Unsurprisingly, various factions have simply plugged Haiti's current condition into their preferred framework to reach their desired explanation. 

In some cases, the results were bizarre.  Pat Robertson chalked up Haiti's hardships to a prior pact with the devil (without clarifying how one Haitian, or even a small group of Haitians, could bind an entire nation, for centuries).  Mark Kirkorian suggests that Haiti was too quick to throw off the shackles of slavery and colonialism:

My guess is that Haiti’s so screwed up because it wasn’t colonized long enough…But, unlike Jamaicans and Bajans and Guadeloupeans, et al., after experiencing the worst of tropical colonial slavery, the Haitians didn’t stick around long enough to benefit from it. (Haiti became independent in 1804.). And by benefit I mean develop a local culture significantly shaped by the more-advanced civilization of the colonizers.

Kirkorian's allusion to "cultural" factors is more fully expounded on by both Jonah Goldberg and David Brooks (although Brooks leavens his thesis with some blame for those groups that have provided aid to Haiti in the past and present).  Each columnist seeks to bolster his theory of cultural determinism by pointing out that Haiti and the Dominican Republic reside on two sides of the same island and share a similar colonial history, therefore, the difference in their respective historical trajectories must be attributed to some cultural factor.  Goldberg:

Haiti's poverty stems from its lack of intangible capital. It shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic, and yet the Dominicans have six times the GDP (and are far better stewards of their environment).

Brooks:

Third, it is time to put the thorny issue of culture at the center of efforts to tackle global poverty. Why is Haiti so poor? Well, it has a history of oppression, slavery and colonialism. But so does Barbados, and Barbados is doing pretty well. Haiti has endured ruthless dictators, corruption and foreign invasions. But so has the Dominican Republic, and the D.R. is in much better shape. Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the same island and the same basic environment, yet the border between the two societies offers one of the starkest contrasts on earth — with trees and progress on one side, and deforestation and poverty and early death on the other.

As Lawrence E. Harrison explained in his book “The Central Liberal Truth,” Haiti, like most of the world’s poorest nations, suffers from a complex web of progress-resistant cultural influences. There is the influence of the voodoo religion, which spreads the message that life is capricious and planning futile. There are high levels of social mistrust. Responsibility is often not internalized. Child-rearing practices often involve neglect in the early years and harsh retribution when kids hit 9 or 10.

However, geographical proximity does not always mean parity in terms of agricultural prospects and the ability of a given ecosystem to sustain its population, and, beyond that, to enable its population to thrive. 

Jared Diamond's masterpiece, Guns, Germs and Steel, does much to undermine so-called "cultural" explanations for why some societies thrive and others fail by pointing out that, in actuality, geographical happenstance (and the availability of certain plants suitable for mass agriculture and animals capable of domestication) have been the central drivers of disparity in development. 

In essence (and apologies to Professor Diamond for the oversimplification), the reason that England was establishing an empire while Papua New Guineans were still hunting and gathering had very little to do with culture, but rather how one region's environment allowed for excess food supplies that supported a non-laboring class, while the others' didn't.  The cultural differences, to a large extent, grew out of these conditions, rather than the other way around (with certain variations within like geographic regions/ecosystems, and across dissimilar strata, due to human ingenuity and other cultural factors).

Diamond discusses the disparate fortunes of Haiti and the Dominican Republic in a recent piece.  The causes primarily stem from a bifurcation of the Island's habitat, which led to different quantities of arable land - with the geographically inferior Haitian habitat exacerbated by colonial influence (contra Kirkorian et al).

Why did the political, economic and ecological histories of these two countries — the Dominican Republic and Haiti — sharing the same island unfold so differently?

Part of the answer involves environmental differences. The island of Hispaniola’s rains come mainly from the east. Hence the Dominican (eastern) part of the island receives more rain and thus supports higher rates of plant growth.

Hispaniola’s highest mountains (over 10,000 feet high) are on the Dominican side, and the rivers from those high mountains mainly flow eastwards into the Dominican side.

The Dominican side has broad valleys, plains and plateaus and much thicker soils. In particular, the Cibao Valley in the north is one of the richest agricultural areas in the world.

In contrast, the Haitian side is drier because of that barrier of high mountains blocking rains from the east.

Compared to the Dominican Republic, the area of flat land good for intensive agriculture in Haiti is much smaller, as a higher percentage of Haiti’s area is mountainous. There is more limestone terrain, and the soils are thinner and less fertile and have a lower capacity for recovery.

Note the paradox: The Haitian side of the island was less well endowed environmentally but developed a rich agricultural economy before the Dominican side. The explanation of this paradox is that Haiti’s burst of agricultural wealth came at the expense of its environmental capital of forests and soils. [...]

While those environmental differences did contribute to the different economic trajectories of the two countries, a larger part of the explanation involved social and political differences — of which there were many that eventually penalized the Haitian economy relative to the Dominican economy.

In that sense, the differing developments of the two countries were over-determined. Numerous separate factors coincided in tipping the result in the same direction.

One of those social and political differences involved the accident that Haiti was a colony of rich France and became the most valuable colony in France’s overseas empire. The Dominican Republic was a colony of Spain, which by the late 1500s was neglecting Hispaniola and was in economic and political decline itself.

Hence, France was able to invest in developing intensive slave-based plantation agriculture in Haiti, which the Spanish could not or chose not to develop in their side of the island. France imported far more slaves into its colony than did Spain.

As a result, Haiti had a population seven times higher than its neighbor during colonial times — and it still has a somewhat larger population today, about ten million versus 8.8 million.

But Haiti’s area is only slightly more than half of that of the Dominican Republic. As a result, Haiti, with a larger population and smaller area, has double the Republic’s population density.

The combination of that higher population density and lower rainfall was the main factor behind the more rapid deforestation and loss of soil fertility on the Haitian side.

In addition, all of those French ships that brought slaves to Haiti returned to Europe with cargos of Haitian timber, so that Haiti’s lowlands and mid- mountain slopes had been largely stripped of timber by the mid-19th century.

It's not that social and political factors are irrelevant - Diamond himself lists a few contributing factors.  But to put the lion's share of the onus for Haiti's current predicament relative to the Dominican Republic and other regional states on cultural quirks like voodoo or a lax work ethic (that for Goldberg, magically stiffens when you "cross theborder" into U.S. territory), or to lament the short duration of colonization (which itself was a major factor in Haiti's crushing deforestation), misses the true story by a wide mark, while perpetuating ill-informed race-tinged theories.

Comments

[Fraud Guy]

But that means it's not their fault. We apparently can't have that be the case.

[mythago]

"There is the influence of the voodoo religion, which spreads the message that life is capricious and planning futile."

Seriously, what? Even for Brooks this is jaw-droppingly stupid. Haiti is overwhelmingly Catholic. "The voodoo religion," which is to say, Voodoo or Voudou, is not a nihilistic religion opposed to all things progress, either.

[Slartibartfast]

It's kind of like the state of Washington, turned around, perhaps. Washington is moist and green in the west, where the moist air dumps rain, but is separated from the dry eastern part of the state by the Cascades.

This is good stuff, Eric. I'm a huge fan of Guns, Germs and Steel. Certainly Haiti hasn't done itself any favors, government-wise, but not all of its difficulties are cultural; certainly the earthquake wasn't.

Unless you're Pat Robertson, or insane. But I repeat myself.

[Jay C]

"...misses the true story by a wide mark, while perpetuating ill-informed race-tinged theories."

What?? From today's "conservative" punditocracy?? Surely you jest.....?

[hairshirthedonist]

Some people actually pay to read the Times and the Post, yet Obsidian Wings is free. There's a value disparity there greater than the economic disparity between Haiti and the DR.

[russell]

Columbus landed on Hispaniola in 1492. From that point the Spanish enslaved the indigenous Taino population and forced them to mine gold.

The Tainos were, for all intents and purposes, exterminated through being killed outright and worked to death. From an original population of up to 3 million, they were reduced to about 25,000 in about 20 years. Some years after than, they virtually disappeared. Gone.

In the early 1500's the Spanish began importing African slaves to Hispaniola. Under both Spanish and, later, French colonial rule, Africans were subject to more or less non-stop insane cruelty and abuse.

Data point: the average life span of a black slave in Haiti under French colonial rule was 21 years. Not, you'll live for 21 years after you arrive, but you'll be dead by the time you're 21.

At the beginning of the 19th C the black slaves managed, somehow, to overthrow the French and win their independence.

They were rewarded by being isolated by basically every other nation on earth. Most of their neighbors were still under colonial rule, and black slavery still existed in the US. Nobody wanted to encourage further revolts, so nobody wanted to recognize Haiti, engage in trade with it, or otherwise do anything to help it succeed.

Even after recognition, Haiti, like every other Caribbean nation, has been regularly f**ked with by the US and other 1st world countries.

It's a miracle the country continues to exist, at all.

I've made this comment several times since Robertson's stupid, ignorant, callous, asinine statement, and I'm sure I'll make it again:

If the blacks made a deal with the devil to kick the French out, it's because he offered them better terms than the French did.

Haiti suffers because they've been kicked in the teeth since the day they won their own independence. The fact that they are even still there is a testimony to their own grit and endurance.

Robertson, Goldberg, and Brooks can kiss my ass.

If Diamond neglects to mention the history in the context of his discussion of the topography, likewise.

[AmberChi]

Russell hits it straight on!

Not to mention the money that Haiti paid to France for 100+ years as payment for 'recognition' as an independent country.

[derek]

the weird thing about all this voodoo talk is that santeria is very prevalent on carribean islands. it's not like voodoo is just isolated to haiti. west african influence this entire hemisphere

[Hogan]

Why is Yemen so poor? They share the same peninsula as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait; what is it about Yemeni culture that keeps them from drilling for oil?

[Eric Martin]

"I don't practice santeria..."

[wades]

Jeez, don't you realize Diamond is a tree-hugging Commie cultural relativist who has nothing of value to say to Real Americans?

[Slartibartfast]

I ain't got no crystal ball.

[Eric Martin]

That's two for two in the past two days slarti.

Now if you got the allusion in this post title, I would truly be impressed.

[Uncle Kvetch]

Kirkorian's allusion to "cultural" factors is more fully expounded on by both Jonah Goldberg

Every time Jonah Goldberg writes about the importance of pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps, irony dies all over again.

[JanieM]

I'm sure I don't get the allusion in this post title (I almost never get them, it must be a generational thing, or maybe a nerd/non-nerd thing (I'm the nerd side)), but it has made two things merge and float around in my tired brain all day: The Mighty Quinn (Bob Dylan), and Casey at the Bat.

Clearly I need a nap.

*****

I like Jared Diamond too. I have been trying to think where I read what little I know about Haiti, and I had thought it was all from Mountains Beyond Mountains. I had forgotten that Diamond wrote about it too.

[Eric Martin]

And the value of a protestant work ethic!

Mr. Could-Readers-Research-This-Topic-And-Email-Me-The-Results himself.

[Eric Martin]

Janie: Most are probably generational, as my musical tastes trend toward the more recent, at least in post title bingo.

That being said, this one refers to a reggae band that's been around since the late 1960s - and whose best music was produced in the mid 1970s. Although admittedly obscure.

[Jacob Davies]

I think Diamond tends to overstate the power of environmental factors relative to cultural ones, but he certainly has a good point in regards to Haiti (as does russell here talking about the colonial history of the country). And the idea that we should listen to a bunch of upper-middle-class Americans talking about the factors that affect economic development in developing nations is ridiculous.

What does David Brooks know about the problems involved in creating an environment for businesses to develop in a country that is still mostly agricultural? There are two enormous impediments to that happening that are absolutely beyond the control of anyone in Haiti: one, the fact that anyone with an entrepreneurial bent looking at the potential rewards from their effort in Haiti versus those from the same effort if they moved to the US or another developed country is going to see that if they can get out, they should; and two, that anyone hoping to start a manufacturing business in Haiti for the local market has to compete with gigantic foreign companies that run automated factories in China and America and Germany that are each half the size of Port-au-Prince and churn out Haiti's entire annual demand for laundry baskets or scissors or coffee cups in about an hour, and thanks to free-trade rules pushed by the US, cannot be kept out of the local market.

Industrial development in the now-developed world was built on captive markets for goods that were not being served by foreigners. If a bunch of aliens had shown up in the US & Britain in 1850 and sold us all iPhones and Toyota Camrys, the indigenous capacity for producing those things would never have developed.

Of course, all Haiti has to do is find something it can produce more cheaply than a billion dollar company in the US with a thousand engineers devoted to designing automated factories. No problem!

What you actually see is competition in the extremely low-skilled, labor-intensive field, like clothing manufacturing. Better than nothing, but to say that Haiti is culturally inferior because of that is spectacularly bogus. I'd like to take David Brooks and get him to work a day in a clothing sweatshop and see how he feels about "responsibility".

[Slartibartfast]

Here, maybe?

[Bernard Yomtov]

Funny, I thought the title meant the post was going to be about how DR was better off than Haiti because of all the Dominican baseball players making millions in the major leagues.

That aside, good post.

I think it's important when reading these people, especially Goldberg, to understand what their job is. It is emphatically not to present logical, fact-based comments and analyses on events in Haiti or elsewhere. Instead, it is to use whatever comes to hand to parrot standard conservative themes, whether what they say makes sense or not.

[Eric Martin]

Yeah Slarti. The eponymous album is their best IMHO.

[Slartibartfast]

I got a lump in my throat about the note you wrote.

[Harald Korneliussen]

Second the "jaw-droppingly stupid"-assessment about voodoo. Hint to Harrison/Brooks: They have it on the other side of the border as well!

[Eric Martin]

Nawlins anyone?

[Sator Arepo]

Brooks: "Haiti, like most of the world’s poorest nations, suffers from a complex web of progress-resistant cultural influences."

Um, what?

Hey, David Brooks, why is it okay when *we* do it?

[geographylady]

Podcast from the "Plaid Avenger" on why Haiti sucks pts 1, 2, & 3, from a geographer's perspective, with a lot more facts than any of the pundits, and 10 times as entertaining.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

Diamond's more recent book 'Collapse' has a chapter on Haiti vs. DR that is quite interesting.
The excerpt in the Globalist leaves out (or rather, just hints at) one of the major differences in Haiti vs. DR outcomes.

(the subject of 'Collapse' is how and why civilizations collapse; resource depletion is a big topic. Geography plays a big role, but so does cultural blindness to geographic and ecological limitations)

But while Haiti and DR differ in their initial resources, Diamond points out that Haiti has had a much more laissez-faire attitude toward their exploitation, while successive DR right wing authoritarian regimes imposed strict limits on clearing forests, etc.

It's enough to make a lefty go "hmm". Of course, laissez-faire vs. centralized land planning would make a righty go "hmm' as well.

Read the book.

[Hartmut]

Those DR dictators were tree-huggers, so they can't have been real RWers. From real RWer's POV that was probably their greatest flaw. From everyone else's it was about their only redeeming feature.
Btw, that there is still a wee bit of forest left in Central Europe is also likely due to the ruling despots that needed large hunting grounds and unspoilt views from their palaces. Especially true for Germany where those privileges were not annulled before 1918.

[bobbyp]

The capacity for self-justification is, unlike our physical environment, infinite. Brooks, Goldberg, et al, like other propagandists, have no shame.

[Hogan]

Those DR dictators were tree-huggers, so they can't have been real RWers.

"We are blessed here in America with vast natural resources, and we must use them all." -- Bob McDonnell, a real RWer, in his response to the SOTU

[russell]

They have it on the other side of the border as well!

The traditional African religions of Ifa (Yoruba) and Vodun (Fon) persist throughout the Caribbean, South America, and North America as vodun ("voodoo"), santeria, candomble, and palo mayombe, among others.

They came to this hemisphere with the Africans who were brought here as slaves, and persisted by renaming their respective pantheons of "gods" and "goddesses" after Catholic saints.

The number of people in the US who practice santeria, specifically, is estimated to be about a million. It's a hard statistic to pin down, however, because of how deeply African-derived religious beliefs and practices are with Catholicism among Caribbean people.

The Haitian people may indeed have learned that life is capricious and planning is futile, but I doubt traditional, African-derived religions was who they got it from.

Brooks is talking out of his @ss.