Dominican Republic compared to Haiti
One key to wisdom is to make things a simple as possible, but no simpler. That is harder than it seems
Unfortunately, there is a temptation to take one bite of the meal and assume you experienced the entire meal. People remember the parts of a book or story that are in alignment with their beliefs and rapidly memory-hole the parts that conflict with those beliefs.
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| Haiti on left, DR on right |
In the book Collapse, Diamond compares Haiti, which is a dystopian hell-hole, with the Dominican Republic which shares the island with Haiti. By comparison, DR is organized, law-respecting and avoided the worst of the environmental degradation that impacted Haiti.
The lesson the Political-Elites gleaned from this was that D-R's authoritarian policies worked. What they failed to comprehend was that the worst of the environmental degradation was avoided because the "strongman" supported the supply and distribution of LP gas (a petroleum product, GASP!) for rural cooking. Another factor that somehow eluded the Political-Elites is that the rule-of-law and clear property laws helped avert the tragedy-of-the-commons scenario in DR.
In Haiti, for instance, it is possible to have six families with a claim to a single parcel of land. When Port-au-Prince started to build a sewage treatment plant (paid for by foreign grants), construction kept getting held up as families kept popping up out of the woodwork with a deed to property they needed to continue construction. Undoubtedly, many of the claims were fraudulent but multiple claimants are so common that it was just easier to pay off the claims as they arose. Never-the-less, it did slow down construction.
From the perspective as a North American who identifies as a conservative, the one of the core messages is that dilution of property rights leads to chaos and destruction.
I would also point out that culturally, one started out French and the other started out Spanish. Vague on the issue but my recollection is Louisianna was a legal mine field once upon a time for businesses that were used to operating where English Common Law was the source of the legal system. I recall LA owing its legal origin to the Napoleonic Code.
ReplyDeleteMy wife's family is from southwestern LA.
DeleteHer uncles told me that lawyers from out-of-state have a very steep learning curve and, I think, need to retake their bar-exams because the State's laws are structured so very differently from the other states. Yes, Napoleonic Code.
Another quirk of Hispanola is the aborignal population refused to live in slavery, were consequently wiped out and replaced by Africans. I wonder if the source of the slaves brought in alternatively by the French and Spanish were different meaning different cultures transplanted or if it was just a mixed bag of whatever the Arabs brought to market. I also wonder if the Spanish had it all and gave up half in some agreement in settlement of a war or dispute. Time to go add a brake controller to my truck.
ReplyDeleteRule of law (includes property rights) is critical to civilization. DR and Haiti started out with the same resources and essentially the same population. One went for voodoo and chaos, the other rule of law and mostly Catholic Religion.
ReplyDeleteNorth Korea vs South Korea. Rule of Law and mostly capitalism in the South. Religious mixed, but all tolerated.
North Korea rule of law is what the "Dear Leader" says today.
Religion is essentially banned, worship of the "Dear Leader" is important.
As stark a difference the two Koreas vs Haiti and DR.
People tend to see the outcomes that they want to see based on their bias, without questioning the underlying reasons for those results. Thus many otherwise good people are swept into movements which ultimately betray the core of who they are.
ReplyDeleteA few historical quotes about "Elite Leadership"
ReplyDelete"The best government is a benevolent tyranny
tempered by an occasional assassination."
- Voltaire
Soviet America: Historian Niall Ferguson likens the US situation circa 2024 to a “late, Soviet America.” He notes that in 1990, observers were noticing a “ghastly and tragic... loss of morality” within the USSR. “Apathy and hypocrisy, cynicism, servility, and snitching,” were running wild. Nearly half the population thought that theirs was an “unjust society.” USSR leaders were old party hacks - Brezhnev, Kuznetsov, Andropov, Chernenko - or just ineffective.
The Soviet economy was largely fake... almost all of it directly or indirectly controlled by the Communist Party. The government ran chronic deficits... supporting a bloated military that looked powerful, on paper, but couldn’t win a war.
“Sound familiar?” asks Ferguson
Bonner Papers
When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion–when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing–when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors–when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you–when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice–you may know that your society is doomed.
Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged
Without private property you are nothing more than a hobo. Roger
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