Mats Lundahl on the Lakou

"Subdivision of a Lakou in the Marbial Valley, 1840-1948," taken from Mats Lundahl's The Haitian Economy: Man, Land And Markets. Clearly, over time, the extended kinship network and cooperative labor practices of this lakou (derived from the French la cour) reveal some of the problems facing Haitian peasant farmers in the second half of the 19th century and the whole of the 20th century. The lakou is based on a patriarchal 'founder,' which in the case of the Marbial Valley, originated in land grants from the state for men, whose descendants divided the land for the next generations.

The patriarchal founder divided his land equally among all male heirs, which was likewise repeated by the sons for their male progeny. Lakou were also a form of clustered housing where an extended family collaborated on agricultural projects, shared food and resources, provided mutual assistance (including loans), and maximized productivity on the collectively held land. Sons were to work on their father's land, providing labor for their male head of the lakou, while also being able to have their own sons do the same for them.

However, over time equally dividing the land among all male heirs led to smaller and smaller plots for the 3rd and 4th, and 5th generations, which inherently fueled conflicts within the lakou. According to Lundahl, there was less available land, more population pressure on the resources of the lakou, and more pressure for some kin to leave, either migrating to the towns of Haiti or trying their luck on their own. But for quite some time, from about the 1830s to the 20th century, many extended families lived prosperously through cooperative labor practices, all voluntarily agreeing to provide reciprocity in sharing resources, labor, funds, and support.

Although Lundahl seems to emphasize growing population pressure as a determinant in the fall of the lakou (as well as general problems from gradually smaller plots of land distributed to the next generation), the decline of lakous in the 20th century (such as in the Marbial Valley) represents a general decline in living standards and wealth for the rural population of Haiti. Whereas a lakou could support a large number of people, provide opportunities for saving and innovation, and increase productivity, unequal taxation (overwhelmingly on the export commodities of peasants, or the imports used by peasants), political marginalization,exploitation by middlemen and export houses, and a lack of government support for agriculture undermined the collective, clustered lakou pattern of rural Haitian agriculture. Other forms of cooperative labor practices survive in Haiti, but they were all weakened by declining living standards as peasants were increasingly reduced to subistence levels over the course of the 20th century (with accompanying malnutrition, rural to urban migration, soil erosion, you name it). One should also take issue with any claim that overpopulation or rapid population growth is the key determinant in poverty, since 'overpopulation' is usually the result of poverty, not a cause.