Thursday, January 14, 2010

Why is Haiti so poor?

Almost 30 years in this newspaper racket and I can still be surprised about what gets readers riled up and engaged. I did this blog post on the Register's Orange Punch blog, quoting one of GMU econ prof Don Boudreaux's letter to the editor suggesting that a primary reason Haiti is so poor is that it has no economic freedom. It brought out the commenters like crazy, including one of our resident orthodox "liberals" devoted to defending the conventional wisdom against us libertarian ignoramuses and bearers of naivete. Nice to see that the exchanges mostly stayed civil. Feel free to chip in if you like.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

To be politically incorrect, I think the problem is the Haitian people themselves.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...

Haiti is the most culturally and demographically sub-Saharan African country in the western hemisphere. It is not surprising it most resembles sub-Saharan Africa. Actually Haiti isn't even all that poor by sub-Saharan African standards. As remarkable as it may sound there are 22 countries in Africa south of the Sahara that are poorer then Haiti. Haiti is poor because of its very poor "human capital". That I believe is the real truth. I understand this is politically incorrect and may offend some people. That is not my intent.