Sowing and Reaping Devastation in Haiti
Pictures and accounts of Haiti’s earthquake devastation remind me of a November 1987 National Geographic photograph of Haiti’s border with the Dominican Republic–the two nations “share” the Caribbean island Hispaniola. The photo showed a heavily forested Dominican Republic and a barren Haiti. The caption noted that Haiti was once heavily forested.
I bet some of you are thinking, “Oh no, here comes an ivory tower academic telling us that cutting trees down causes earthquakes. He’s probably a tenured geology professor who couldn’t make it in the real world.” Rest easy, I’m not offering earthquake theories, and while I’m tenured, I’m a professor of economics not geology.
My point is that Haitian land stripped of its trees and Haitian land covered with earthquake debris trace to a common cause. That cause is the dysfunctional state of Haitian private property rights. “Dysfunctional” is charitable–a property-rights vacuum is more apt. The vacuum promotes economic myopia among Haitians. Future benefits–from preserving trees to constructing longer-lived buildings–figure less importantly in economic calculations when the benefits’ recipients are uncertain.
Haiti’s heritage is not a good one. A brutally ruled, slave-centered colony, its independence brought a series of home-grown tyrants. Nevertheless, Haitians necessarily bear the responsibility for the state of Haitian property rights. If not the Haitians, who else, pray tell? Does that mean I’m “blaming the victims” of the landscape devastation for the devastation, be it land stripped of trees or land covered with earthquake debris, including thousands of bodies? Yes.
Haitians sowed devastation’s seeds by trashing private property rights. They reaped the consequences. Don’t forget that the Haitians’ Dominican neighbors didn’t strip their land, even though the Dominican Republic comes nowhere close to being a property-rights paradise. Likewise, earthquakes of Haitian-like intensity don’t necessarily kill tens of thousands–the 1994 southern California earthquake, with a similar magnitude, hitting an area of higher population density, killed fewer than 100 people.
The state of property rights in a country is not an “either/or” proposition. Rather, it lies on a continuum, from very secure to very insecure. The Heritage Foundation regularly publishes an “Index of Economic Freedom,” which ranks nations based on several factors, including security of private property. In the 2010 Index the Dominican Republic ranked 86th (“moderately free”) and Haiti 141st (“mostly unfree”) out of 179 countries. (The United States is eighth and Hong Kong first).
The Dominican Republic and Haiti both rank below average on security of property rights. However, the Dominican Republic’s property-rights score is higher than Haiti’s, exceeding that of 41 other countries and tied with 34. Haiti, on the other hand, is near the bottom, tied with 12 other countries (including Cuba, Iran, and Libya) and exceeding only Burma, North Korea, and Zimbabwe.
Economist Hernando de Soto’s celebrated book, The Mystery of Capital, gives some specifics about the pathetic state of private property rights in Haiti. He estimates that 68 percent of Haitian city dwellers and 97 percent of their rural counterparts live in housing for which no one has clear legal title.
Tell me, if you were building a house for which you have no legal title, how interested would you be in using your resources to build a more durable structure? Not very, I’m sure. Certainly less interested than if you had clear title. After all, you’re unsure about whether someone can come along and take away “your” house, and you’re unsure about your ability to sell the house in the future. The resulting shabby construction won’t cause earthquakes, but it’ll make earthquake-related damage more extensive–even fatal.
Government Landlord
This lack of property title in Haiti is not surprising, says de Soto. For Haitians to settle legally on government (!) land, they must first lease it from the government for five years. Finalizing a lease requires 65 bureaucratic steps, taking two years on average. Then things get worse. Subsequent purchase requires another 111 bureaucratic steps, taking 12 more years–19 years of red tape in a country where, to compound the problem, illiteracy is pervasive.
The 1987 National Geographic photograph was a predictor of the earthquake devastation we have witnessed. A people who have little incentive to delay cutting trees–and when they do cut, to replant new trees–will also end up constructing buildings that crumble like a house of cards in the stress of an earthquake.
The larger lesson is that any effort to “rebuild” Haiti that doesn’t include eliminating this property-rights vacuum will be a case of throwing good money after bad, leaving the seeds of future devastations to germinate. An easy job? Forget it. International “do-gooders” with their quick fixes need not apply.
This article first appeared at TheFreemanOnline.org.
Comment by Arthur_500 on 26 April 2010:
Very good article.
People clamor about the underpriviledged and yet they want a government system that keeps people down. We are on a path to be like Haiti as our government becomes ever more pervasive in how we live our lives and takes away property rights at will.
The whole beauty of the American Dream was the clear understand of what you could not do and then you were free to be all that you could be within those outer lines. Today we are more often hit with how we need to take from those who have achieved something and give it to those who are waiting with hands outstretched.
This is not charity. This is the destruction of all people in favor of a privledged class. To say this 50 years ago would have caused people to call you a Communist an enemy of the State and discredit you for your life. Today it gets you elected President.
Comment by Stuart Rankin on 26 April 2010:
As I was in Haiti during the earthquake, just outside of the epicenter, and witnessed the devastation firsthand, as well as spending a month in Haiti helping with relief efforts, this article naturally peeked my interest.
In the larger picture of Haiti, well-established private property rights existing over time would produce a completely different economic scenario and healthier society – one with economic ability, not just incentive, to build better homes – homes that would have greatly reduced the massive earthquake devastation.
But in the meantime, most grass roots Haitians are living to make ends meet. While they would appreciate and benefit from the above picture of private property rights, in day-to-day life, grass root Haitians need the ability, and not just the incentive, to build better homes.
We have to remember that there is no middle-class in Haiti. Instead there exists a vast disparity between those who influence from the top down and most grass roots Haitians who are hard-working and good-natured, caught within a larger world of bondage, trying to make ends meets, while lacking in literacy and education.
Who pray tell? I think simply blaming all Haitians for this is a flat way of accounting for an entrapped nation in generational poverty and corrupt leadership. Certainly – the solution is to be found among the Haitians themselves. But the question is not so much, who pray tell?, but rather how pray tell? – How pray tell do the Haitians break out of this?
I agree it involves property rights. And government top down, whether internationally, or in Haiti, won’t find the solution. Maybe part of the solution comes with encouraging and getting behind those Haitians who have a vision for a changed nation – men and women with integrity and competence. Maybe it is encouraging investment programs such as micro financing (www.fondespwa.org for example), or in small, private ways of encouraging education, literacy, and entrepreneurship. But all that usually requires that people care beyond an intellectual interest or emotional response to a catastrophe.
Government attempts aside – could it be that when it comes to “fixing” problems, truly no man is an island unto himself? And in this case, Haiti even though shared with the Dominican Republic, is not an island unto itself? Just a thought.
(I posted this before, some time after this article was originally put online)
Comment by Charles Beauregard on 27 April 2010:
Stuart, you ask what should those of us who “care beyond an intellectual interest or emotional response to a catastrophe” do?
We, you and people like you, need to place private property rights at the top of what we care about. Where? Not just in Haiti, Cuba, North Korea or where ever you care about; but everywhere. We know the formula for eliminating human caused poverty: rule of law based on private property rights coupled with free market capitalism. And yes this formula is also on a continuum. It is not all or nothing. And everyone, everywhere is moving back and forth along the continuum: not just in the undeveloped world but also in the developed and developing world. What should those of us who really care do? Support the rule of law based on private property rights. Support free market capitalism where we live, where we work or wherever we are concerned with poverty, illiteracy or social justice. Your emotional response to the catastrophe in Haiti is admirable. Now, follow through with what you have done and seen and become an activist for private property rights and freedom.
Comment by Vanessa on 29 April 2010:
On the subject of Haiti, a new nonprofit called Professors Beyond Borders has been launched with plans to rebuild schools in Haiti. There’s more information here…
http://www.professorsbeyondborders.com/home.html
Comment by TokyoTom on 14 May 2010:
Norman, thanks for this thoughtful post. I have put together in these two posts links to other commentary that interested readers might find useful:
Some food for thought on who (US/UN/others/Haitians) and what is responsible for making and keeping Haiti poor – TT’s Lost in Tokyo http://bit.ly/4tztqC
More insights on what’s wrong with Haiti and how it can be fixed – TT’s Lost in Tokyo http://bit.ly/cwCut8
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