Haiti - After the Dust and Tears

[This post by Mr Steven Frisch is an expansion of the comment thread for ‘Haiti and Compassion’.  Steve is the president of the Sierra Business Council and frequently offers a more progressive perspective to RR posts.  Here he kindly accepted my invitation to post his more comprehensive thoughts on post-disaster US policy toward Haiti.  gjr]

Steven Frisch

I absolutely do not think we want Haiti to become a ward of the US.

I think the US needs to be significantly less interested in creating client states in the future and more interested in helping to build economies and governance structures that secure freedom - by that I mean economic freedom, stable governments and military security. If we can use our political capital and economic power to help build stable governments we might not have to pay the price of remaining the world’s only hegemonic power.

Ultimately we are neither our brother’s keeper nor should we think of ourselves as their betters. They must control their own destiny and decisions. We should help, then back away.

Ensuring that Haiti does not become a ward of the US is going to be tricky since it is 90 miles from our shores and there are about 600,000 Haitians in the US.

In the short term, during the crisis, I would not care too much about money.  First, food, water, shelter and medical care as part of the global relief effort.

Next, we should just go in there and help rebuild. It should be an international effort, but we should just bite the bullet and set the example by guaranteeing funding in the low billions to rebuild Haiti's infrastructure and use that pledge to leverage the several billion more from the rest of the world, and do it quick. By rebuild I mean really re-build. Total infrastructure investment: roads, schools, bridges, water systems, sewage treatment, power plants, electrical grids, hospitals, churches, etc. I would have Clinton/Bush lead a private fundraising effort to backfill the guarantee.

We should also be partnering with the UN, who has a strong presence and history peacekeeping in Haiti, and other Caribbean nations including Cuba, to ensure security in the interim.  This is going to be a tough one to swallow as Americans.  It is a necessary step to keep civil governance in the short run, but if we don't share the police function we run the risk of having it for years to come.

Concurrent with the infrastructure investment, we need to start helping re-building the Haitian economy. In the short term, we should be using Haitian labor for the re-building effort and training Haitians in the skills necessary. In the long run reconstruction will not be a sustainable economy. Eventually the building will be done and something needs to take its place. I am not vain enough to believe I know what that is, that effort needs to be based on the local assets--and the starting point is horrendous: 80% poverty, 50% literacy, average wage $2 per day, 250,000 children in 'slavery' as unpaid household servants. Some smart international development minds need to work on this aspect, but the starting point is probably building on the existing agricultural economy, increasing the literacy rate, and working on the great natural resource crime that is driving the exposure of Haitians to the elements--the destruction of their landscape and forests.

Haiti used to be 98% forested. It is now less than 2% forested. Those forests anchored the landscape, mitigated floods that came in the wake of hurricanes, provided shelter in high winds, treated water and held the soil in place to support agriculture. Haiti's forests were cut for charcoal, the only source of energy on the island. To fix the landscape the energy problem needs to fixed, which is why I included power plants in the infrastructure list.

Finally, there needs to be a concerted effort to re-build civil governance. Haiti's civic infrastructure is a shambles. It is one of the most corrupt governments on earth.

This leads to a fascinating question for us, you (Rebane) and me, as ideological opposites in many ways.

I believe that there is a clear link between liberty, property, the rule of law, and civil society. Societies where the wealth of the nation is shared, and everyone has a stake in the economy, tend to gradually insist on the rule of law and civil stability to protect their wealth. Societies where people can aspire to reach greater wealth and security through the fruits of their labor tend to support individual liberty and the rule of law. I think we only differ over the extent that economies need to be monitored and controlled to ensure that wealth is shared, the rule of law is maintained, and civil society can use the wealth to meet the needs of the people. You believe the free market leads to shared wealth, I believe that a combination of free markets and monitored and controlled economies create shared wealth.

I would make the case that in the short term we need to insist that any investment made in rebuilding needs to be carefully monitored and protected from the corruption of the government. In the long run, if we can hire Haitians to rebuild their own country, and they get paid a fair wage to do so, and if we help them create and economy where the wealth is shared, and we provide security from the return of military dictatorship, a civil government that respects individual rights, property, and the rule of law will follow.

Then we back the hell away and let them go. They will owe us nothing.

Comments

[George Rebane]

Steve, thank you again for this post on post-disaster US policy toward Haiti. I was struck by your prescription for “re-building” the various infra-structural areas of Haiti. It implied that each of these areas was formerly (pre-earthquake) at a level that would have supported a productive civil society and functional government. I think that evidence points to other conclusions. Therefore, it seems you are recommending that the US should become the major funder of build the country’s infrastructure, legal norms, and educational levels to support some form of national governance that doesn’t rapidly re-degenerate the country to its former state.

This appears to me to be a multi-decadal effort during which time Haiti will indeed be the ward (or its functional equivalent) of the US or the UN, and no longer a sovereign nation-state. Is this a correct understanding of how you see America’s proper stance toward the Haitis of the world?

[Mikey McD]

I have included the text/audio to one of my favorite speeches NOT YOURS TO GIVE- BY DAVID CROCKETT. It exemplifies my feelings... let individuals give, keep my government out of philanthropy.

David Crockett: http://www.pointsouth.com/csanet/greatmen/crockett/crocket2.htm

you can listen to it at the bottom right of this page: http://libertypen.com/LibertyPen.html

[Steven Frisch]

First, I think there are ways to help people and not steal their sovereignty, we just need to be smart and careful and true to our principles.

Second, I clearly stated that I did not want the US taxpayers to be the ultimate funder, I want us to collaborate with others to be the guarantor.

Third, Mikey McD what are ya' doin?

This from the official Supreme Court web site:

"SPENDING FOR THE GENERAL WELFARE

Scope of the Power

The grant of power to “provide ... for the general welfare” raises a two-fold question: how may Congress provide for “the general welfare” and what is “the general welfare” that it is authorized to promote? The first half of this question was answered by Thomas Jefferson in his opinion on the Bank as follows: “[T]he laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. They [Congress] are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please; but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union. In like manner, they are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose.”581 The clause, in short, is not an independent grant of power, but a qualification of the taxing power. Although a broader view has been occasionally asserted,582Congress has not acted upon it and the Court has had no occasion to adjudicate the point.

With respect to the meaning of “the general welfare” the pages of The Federalist itself disclose a sharp divergence of views between its two principal authors. Hamilton adopted the literal, broad meaning of the clause;583 Madison contended that the powers of taxation and appropriation of the proposed government should be regarded as merely instrumental to its remaining powers, in other words, as little more than a power of self-support."

http://supreme.justia.com/constitution/article-1/18-spending-for-general-welfare.html

The bottom line--general welfare powers have already been decided on behalf of the Hamiltonians and there is now a strong body of precedent to that effect.

Finally, I don't know if you noticed it but you pulled that little southern ditty from a web site that is an apologist site for the Confederacy. The CSA stands for Confederate States of America: from a group that proudly proclaims its support for succession, and the quote is not even sourced. So I did a little background. And what did I find? This quote is considered completely un-sourced and completely unreliable by historians, was never quoted before Ellis included it as a narrative story in his book "The Life and Times of Colonel David Crockett" in 1884, was never footnoted, and never showed up in the congressional record. Not only that, Congress did not ever pass a relief act as a result of a fire in Georgetown.

I think you got some bad data here buddy. But then consider the source.

One more thing, as a student of history who occasionally reads original sources, the vernacular is all wrong for the antebellum period.

I think if you are going to quote American history you better try to get your sources right.

[Account Deleted]

I notice that no one has suggested that we send the ACLU, SEIU and a phalanx of lawyers. We could, of course, teach the Haitians to re-build their own infrastructure. It wouldn't be Rodeo Drive, but it could be something they could afford and maintain. We could help them set up some sort of industry that the island could support and help them to earn hard capital. I'm sure there is some one in our federal govt. that could show them how to run a printing press. As it is, they will continue to be a sink hole of wealth. Humanitarian aid is a given right now, with the racist, evil Americans leading the way in both governmental and charitable giving. As far as getting other nations to pitch in with a re-building effort, good luck with that. Few even care to help with the other on-going problems in Somalia, Afghanistan and the Imperial Valley in California. We will help get Haiti back on it's feet and it will totter off in the same derelict condition it has been in for decades. I'm being cynical for sure, but also far more realistic than the pipe-dreams of folks who have completely failed to bring about anything good in this country, let alone another.

[Steven Frisch]

So it seem the French Cubans, Israelis, Turks, Venzuelans, Chinese, UN, and scores of others are stepping up. US private donations for Haiti are now at more than $225 million in just the first 5 days, more than 4 times our 5 day total for the 2003 great Tsunami--where we raised more than $5 billion.

[Steven Frisch]

Proof that others are stepping up and we do not have to do this alone

http://awesome.good.is/transparency/web/1001/haitian-aid/flash.html