Critiquing Developmentalism: What’s Wrong With Haiti?
As per David Brooks’ article in the New York Times. I’m not sure I resonate w/ the underlying tone, “What’s Wrong With Haiti?” and I would respond “What’s Wrong With Us?” – the point being that we have contributed to the problem. The recent disaster not only shows up flaws in the Haitian infrastructure but the complicity of the powers in shaping the nation-to-be. Still; Brooks presents interesting thoughts on this problem (and I do mean problem) of “developmentalism”:
In the recent anthology “What Works in Development?,” a group of economists try to sort out what we’ve learned. The picture is grim. There are no policy levers that consistently correlate to increased growth. There is nearly zero correlation between how a developing economy does one decade and how it does the next. There is no consistently proven way to reduce corruption. Even improving governing institutions doesn’t seem to produce the expected results.
The chastened tone of these essays is captured by the economist Abhijit Banerjee: “It is not clear to us that the best way to get growth is to do growth policy of any form. Perhaps making growth happen is ultimately beyond our control.”
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.
We’re all supposed to politely respect each other’s cultures. But some cultures are more progress-resistant than others, and a horrible tragedy was just exacerbated by one of them.
What do you think about the tone of this article?
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I don’t see the problem with the tone, and Brooks is neither the first nor the last to point out that our traditional development policies (say from 1944 to the present) usually fail or make things worse. It is becoming a commonplace that culture is THE primary determinant of economic development.
Of course, economic development is not the only important value, and the free-market democracies that excel in economic growth fall short on other values.
Are all cultures equally deserving of respect? Perhaps, but each has its own pervasive sins and its own shortcomings and we do no one a favor by pretending otherwise. And the old fundamentalist adage that the best way to improve conditions is to change people’s hearts may hold more truth than we ever cared to admit.
hmm… that brings up a good point of what development really is; monetary, economic, social, political, or indeed spiritual? Of course this latter would be rejected largely, but as evangelicals it makes complete sense;
I only contend that depravity be a two-way street; is it conceivable that their voodooism is trumped by our materialism, power et al? Or maybe not?…
i like where you are going, wayne, about two-way depravity. Brooks is measuring progress by our standards. Now, as far as basic needs, sure, our nation has “progressed” more in that more people have them met. But like you said, is our materialism a point of “progress”?
And, the D.R. oppressed (oppresses?) Haitians a lot, b/c of skin tone, language differences, etc etc. Mass murders by the DR. That sure doesn’t help Haiti, either. (Edwidge Danticat is a Haitian author who writes about the history between the two…)