←back to thread

116 points mooreds | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
NDizzle[dead post] ◴[] No.45655702[source]
[flagged]
throwaway48476 ◴[] No.45656040[source]
Haiti failed to develop, south africa is developing in reverse.
replies(1): >>45656120 #
MSFT_Edging ◴[] No.45656120[source]
Haiti was in debt to france over freeing themselves from slavery, with a debt structure designed to never be paid off.
replies(1): >>45656191 #
throwaway48476 ◴[] No.45656191[source]
Haiti and the DR only diverged economically after the debt ended. It's not a convincing argument.
replies(1): >>45656315 #
MSFT_Edging ◴[] No.45656315[source]
The debt kneecapped the potential for development. It's not a difficult concept.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/05/20/world/america...

replies(3): >>45656344 #>>45656379 #>>45656653 #
ashanoko[dead post] ◴[] No.45656379{3}[source]
[flagged]
MSFT_Edging ◴[] No.45656473{4}[source]
This conversation is silly. The lovely Haiti watchers who ignore historical contexts and the effects of a couple centuries of foreign involvement in their sovereignty has no effect in regards to modern material circumstances.

The only things that matter, according to those who love to shit on Haiti, is their apparent inability to self govern. This inability must have come from nowhere, or is genetically innate to the people.

It's crazy how every country who has had it's sovereign legs kicked out from under them multiple times just ends up being a failed state. Total mystery!

replies(2): >>45658053 #>>45658889 #
1. JuniperMesos ◴[] No.45658889{5}[source]
> It's crazy how every country who has had it's sovereign legs kicked out from under them multiple times just ends up being a failed state. Total mystery!

It's not the case that every country that has had its sovereign legs kicked out from under them multiple times just ends up being a failed state, and this is an important observation if you're trying to come up with a theory for why Haiti is in the state it is in. As the sibling comment mentions, a number of countries that today are peaceful and prosperous places to live, the sorts of places Haitians might want to immigrate to rather than live in Haiti, are countries that earlier in history were badly defeated in war and conquered - this descibes the losing WWII powers such as Germany, Japan, and Italy, it describes countries subject to some kind of colonial influence until well into the 20th century like Vietnam, South Korea, China, India, and many other places. Most of these countries are doing fairly well today, certainly much better than Haiti, which hasn't been directly ruled by a colonial power since the beginning of the 19th century.

Germany in particular was badly defeated and occupied twice in the first half of the 20th century and had crippling debt obligations imposed on it by (largely) France, and is nonetheless a much much better place to live today than Haiti is. This is a fact about the world that needs to be explained.