AHC: Most successful and democratic Haiti possible

Zioneer

Banned
Alright, I've got a challenge for y'all. I've always felt sorry for Haiti, and I feel like with good luck and a few better choices, they could be a lot more successful. So your challenge is to make Haiti as successful and democratic as possible.
 
Alright, I've got a challenge for y'all. I've always felt sorry for Haiti, and I feel like with good luck and a few better choices, they could be a lot more successful. So your challenge is to make Haiti as successful and democratic as possible.

Napoleon not deciding to re-enslave them through superior firepower would have been probably the best premise for a brighter future (I actually toyed with this notion for a TL).
Or keep Toussaint around longer: a problem the Haitian Revolution had was the lack of really effective, far-sighted and cohesive leadership after he was gone. In a sense, they were taken in a loop vaguely similar to the one the Soviet leadership had to face after 1917, only worse: the part of the population with the education and expertise to rebuild the country according to their needs was largely hell-bent to undo everything the revolution had achieved, so to represent not only a problem but a threat. In both cases, the response was extreme brutality, which of course did not much to advance the cause, furthered the international hostility (that would be likely to be there anyway) and deprived the country of critical economical and intellectual resources.
The alternative however would have been a potentially treasonous elite.
Both revolutionary leaderships had had actually more than enough in the way of realities to foster paranoia about it.

Now, Toussaint might, just might have found the tight rope to walk on.
The problem was of course to get the local white elite contribute to the country rebuilding, at least to the point of a begrudging acceptance of the new order if not an enthusiastic endorsement of it, while making sure that they are not plotting re-enslavement every second Thursday.
Is that possible? I think so. Is that easy, or likely? Hell, no. :(
 
I think the the best chance would be if Magloire had held on to power in 1956. If there had been an orderly election for successor, instead of Duvalier taking over, there could now be a successful Haiti
 
If the investment policies of the early 1900s hadn't been reversed Haiti would have been the beneficiary of many years of globalization following.
 
If the investment policies of the early 1900s hadn't been reversed Haiti would have been the beneficiary of many years of globalization following.

But as real capitalism shown, it's possible only an elite would have beneficiated from it, and the mass of workers be marginally better, underpaid cheap labour exploitation. At least at start.
 
The most recent "hope spot" in Haiti was (IMO) the Dumarsais Estimé administration of the 1940s - a government that went outside the mulatto elites and showed a commitment to rural development for pretty much the first time in the country's history. A more successful Estimé - in other words, one that the United States government and American corporations didn't try to undermine at every turn - might have been able to build on the infrastructure growth of the occupation era and create a participatory (albeit corrupt) political system. Given the toxic combination of Cold War politics and American economic colonization of the Caribbean, though, I don't know if that's really plausible.

Alternatively, Lysius Salomon, who presided over another "hope spot" of growth and development, could finish his term and hand off to an elected successor. A couple of peaceful transfers of power could result in a stable system that might eventually evolve into a democracy (Haitian politics wasn't very democratic at the time). Again, though, we'd need a change in political culture, albeit this time in Haiti rather than the United States, and any evolving democracy would have to deal with high debt and foreign ownership of most of the economy.

Going further back, eliminating the French reparations could help with the prosperity, but not immediately with democracy, and developing a working democratic system would take a lot of luck given the leadership of the time.
 
The most recent "hope spot" in Haiti was (IMO) the Dumarsais Estimé administration of the 1940s - a government that went outside the mulatto elites and showed a commitment to rural development for pretty much the first time in the country's history.

Weren't the mulatto elites driven out of Haiti early in its history several successive times? Going outside or getting rid of the elites didn't seem to help anything.
 
Weren't the mulatto elites driven out of Haiti early in its history several successive times? Going outside or getting rid of the elites didn't seem to help anything.

Who said anything about evicting them? Just that they wouldn't work for them.
 
Who said anything about evicting them? Just that they wouldn't work for them.

I'm just saying that Haiti's problems probably weren't caused by wealth inequality so much as government instability. Governments had gone after the wealthiest people in the country several times, including foreigners, and this appears to have hurt Haiti more than it helped it, because those elites fled over and over and drained money out of the country.

Haiti has had more than 20 violent coups since independence. If a more stable long-term government had formed, the country would have been much more successful.
 
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