Really? Oh well, thats a relief but then what are the specific reasons that made Haiti do worst than the rest of the Caribbean and what could we change here after the Revolution to make things better? I thought the reparations thing could be star but I suspect is not enough.
I will write up a more detailed response later, because Haitian (under)development history is essentially my main field, but I still have to attend to other work right now. But what I want to say briefly is that there are a few different models for why Haiti is so undeveloped, and none of them are perfectly satisfactory. That is to say that no one has all the answers. From an AH perspective, you could take one theory, and assuming it correctly addresses the reasons for underdevelopment, resolve those problems and come up with a plausible "developed Haiti" scenario. But people from other schools can still try and poke holes in it.
But some really brief specifics; Haitian isolation from international trade paired with serial exogamy of the ruling classes meant that a middle class really struggled to develop in Haiti, while there was a near constant outflux of capital. Despite plentiful fish off the shores of Haiti, by 1910 almost all the fish on Haitian dinner tables was imported from New England. There was also a cash crop monoculture dependence on coffee that wasn't even that profitable. Frankly, even if Haiti were to maintain sugar production it would still be increasingly undercut by other markets and face the same underdevelopment IMO. Constant political instability also played a significant factor in underdevelopment in somewhat of a vicious cycle, although there are also certain cultural standards in Haiti that boost the instability such as a common belief in the validity of violent revolution (although arguably, this belief also may also simply exist in a vicious cycle with the instability).
The reparations were a problem, but to an extent I think it's overemphasized and served to merely inflame the other structural/institutional tensions that would have been there and put Haiti in the same place regardless.
The Duvalier dictatorship(s) is the main problem. Haiti in 1950 had the largest tourism industry of the region, a modernized sugar and coffee plantation economy, and even a bit of light manufacturing if I remember right
I like this, but one issue is that keeping the government stable or avoiding a similar noiriste backlash in 1950s Haiti is easier said than done. Haitians ourselves also tend to see Duvalier as exceptionally bad, which he was in many ways, but his rule was also the culmination of trends built upon for decades by this point. I think the critical strengthening of the army by the American occupation forces, paired with the weakening of civilian institutions and the agitation of black nationalism made the place a tinderbox by the time they left. EDIT: I should note that while there are numerous arguments that the American occupation helped to drive underdevelopment afterwards, like I presented here, there are also several counter-arguments and it's far from an area of consensus.
I do agree that the best chance Haiti has though is some sort of 1950s export-oriented industrialization like South Korea. There simply aren't the natural or human resources to industrialize or develop in the age of coal and steel.
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