The Origins of Haitian Underdevelopment

For some strange reason, it took us a few years to finally complete Benoit Joachim's classic work on Haitian economic history, Les racines du sous-développement en Haïti. Joachim's analysis covers everything from colonial slavery to the semi-feudal, bourgoisie d'affaires who coexist to control a parasitic independent state suffering from neocolonialism. But while this already sounds familiar to the scholarship of other Haitians, particularly on the nefarious impact of the bord de mer on Haiti's economic development and the imperialist actions of the Western powers (France, USA, Germany, Britain), Joachim raises a number of interesting questions and problems.

For instance, Haiti's economy in the period 1804-1915 did experience growth. However, it was never enough to alter the backward agricultural production, pillaging of the coffers by the state, the lack of industrialization or the toxic power of the international & local bourgoisie d'affaires who engaged in constant forms of corruption, graft, loans, fake indemnities, financing revolutions and outright thievery. Nonetheless, Joachim raises a number of intriguing questions by shifting attention, momentarily, to the Haitian internal markets and consumption. Thus, the levels of exports are not entirely useful for a holistic view of Haiti's economy (and not solely due to widespread contraband and illegal exports). After all, local production of subsistence crops and the large local use of coffee, sirop, tafia, tobacco and other crops grown within Haiti appear to have grown after independence. Similarly, in his critique of the 19th century Haitian intellectuals who believed the country lacked sufficient workers, Joachim called attention to the underestimated impact of immigration on Haiti. While it remains a topic for further research, it is probable that a large part of the Haitian population descend, at least in part, from foreigners who came after 1804. This would include African Americans, West Indians, Europeans, Levantines, Latin Americans, and even a few Africans. 

Joachim also sought to elucidate the development of social classes within the Haitian economy burdened by neo-colonialism/international capitalism and the "feudal" landowning class, professionals (above all lawyers and other educated people who occasionally hailed from petite bourgoiesie or even the popular masses) and the Haitian elites. It was an alliance frequently shaken by competing claims to power and control of the government (to pilfer the nation), and sometimes operated with colorist biases but never seriously meaning to reform the state and economy. This negatively impacted the paysans, the urban poor, the small, embryonic working-class, and the petite bourgeoisie. Unsurprisingly, paysan resistance, often flaring up when coffee prices were low in the international markets and the economic repercussions led to crises and an increase in suffering for the Haitian lower class, upon whose backs the state lived, but the peasantry never could completely undermine the three-part powers that be without being coopted or snuffed out. That said, Joachim appears to put himself in the camp of Haitian intellectuals who believe that the Cacos active in 1911-1915 represented a real revolution that was thwarted by the US Occupation in 1915. If, however, the Cacos did represent a real revolution and the US had not invaded, perhaps some reforms or actual changes in the Haitian state and economy could have taken place. Undoubtedly, this would have been more meaningful and radical than the "talk" of reforms and the mild changes recommended by the intellectuals of the period who usually limited themselves to education, agricultural tools, and industry.