In recent years Haiti has attracted an increasing amount of academic research, but some 40 years ago very few scholars were interested in the country. One of those who was, and has stayed the course, is Mats Lundahl. He has published extensively on the economic, social and political problems of Haiti and has become the most knowledgeable academic in Europe on its economy. The essays gathered in Poverty in Haiti are representative of his work over the last 20 years.
The book is organised in four parts. The first deals with history; in it, Lundahl makes the claim that the history of Haiti is all-encompassing and powerfully shapes contemporary life. The key period is the nineteenth century, which established a subsistence peasantry and a predatory state: ‘These two interacting and opposing forces are, in the main, those responsible for the state of utter underdevelopment that characterises Haiti almost two centuries later’ (p. 28).
The second part focuses on the various forces determining stagnation and decline, which have been constant features since the 1920s. Lundahl identifies two that are of greatest significance. One is the increasing rate of erosion of arable land and the rate of population growth, which puts enormous pressure on land as a resource, leading to unsustainable agriculture (the average landholding is 1.29 hectares) in an economy where two-thirds of the population are peasants. The greatest poverty is to be found in rural areas. The other is the predatory political state (all presidents from 1843 to 1915 were kleptocrats), with the ‘apogee’ of kleptocracy being reached during the regime of ‘Papa Doc’. The combination of the two means that ‘Today the Haitian economy may be in the worst place of its history. Per capita income has declined to a level of US$250–60 or less’ (p. 97). The problem with this figure, as with so many others in Haiti, is its potential unreliability, a point that Lundahl makes much of in his chapter on income and land distribution and again in his chapter on migration to the Dominican Republic; in the latter he notes that figures on Haitians in the Dominican Republic vary from a few hundred thousand to two million.
The third part considers the attempts to develop the country after the fall of the Duvaliers. It develops points made earlier about the predatory state, the need for reforms such as the dissolution of the army, and the attempts to promote the economy. The chapters on policy reform in the Haitian economy and on the prospects for sustained growth are particularly sobering. They point to the failure of agriculture, the failure of import substitution industrialisation because of political corruption, and the failure of tourism as a viable economic strategy. The only bright spot was the development of export-oriented industries based on cheap labour from the 1960s onward, but even that lacked real comparative advantage and was decimated in the early 1990s by the economic blockade imposed on Haiti following the overthrow of Aristide. In the meantime Haiti was in large part kept afloat by the remittances regularly sent home by some two million Haitians working legally and illegally abroad.
The final part is headed ‘A Future for Haiti?’. The question mark is well placed. Here Lundahl briefly criticises a recent book on Haiti by Hallward and then discusses at length the Action Plan for National Recovery and Development adopted a couple of months after the 2010 earthquake. He sketches out past economic policy failures and forcefully argues that the political tradition in the country must be broken if there is to be real change. He then looks at economic prospects for agriculture and industrialisation, seeing the latter as the only way forward for Haiti. Other policies he favours are decentralisation from Port-au-Prince to create regional development, and the close involvement of Haitian emigrants via their remittances. These suggested changes will take a generation to implement and can only be seen through if the Haitian government and the international community work hand in hand to achieve them. Will they succeed? Lundahl's final words are ‘I wish I could be optimistic’ (p. 261).
Lundahl is in all essentials correct. Haiti is, to say the least, a challenge. The starting point must be realism, and this Lundahl supplies in abundance. The merits of this book are to be found not only in his deep knowledge of and engagement with the country, but also in his insistence on the imperatives of political and economic change. In respect of the first he makes the point again and again that ‘the political history of the country has always been the number one obstacle to change’ (p. 233). The reasons for this lie in the divide between the elite and the masses and between the state and its citizens. In such a situation democracy will be difficult, some would say impossible, to build and sustain. In respect of the second, the ‘fundamental problem is the fragile ecology’ (p. xii), which renders agriculture a hazardous business. It has brought about severe land erosion and a declining or stagnant economy that can provide no real income for the majority, hence the need for some form of industrialisation and continuing support from the international community (and especially from the United States) if most Haitians are to be fed, housed, clothed and, most importantly, educated.
Is it likely? The answer that Lundahl invites the reader to conclude is that it is not: ‘in the past the negative heritage of Haitian history has always taken over’ (p. 43). The record since the earthquake, which Lundahl does not cover but which he anticipates, would only confirm it. The difficulties that have been encountered are those that Lundahl has highlighted, and to date little has been done to seriously address them. The best recommendation for those seeking to bring change in Haiti is to read and reflect on Lundahl's book at the earliest opportunity. It does not provide the blueprint but it does convey a lot of insightful wisdom and to those seeking to understand why Haiti is the way it is, the book is an indispensable introduction.
