Haiti and Wyclef Jean - the new Hong Kong?

Economics Political Theory
1

(My capabilities in english are very limited!)

The rapper Wyclef Jean candidates for the post as President, in Haiti. He seems to like capitalism:

ESQ: …everyone agrees there’s a small group of families that control money and commerce in Haiti. If that’s so, how can you decentralize that structure in order to do things like reinvent health care?

WJ: The first question is not who they are. The first question we have to ask is, What are these families? They are capitalists. They believe in capitalism, in making money, right? We have to build an open system that doesn’t stop them from making money, that will work for them, if only because what they’re making could double, triple. Everything starts with policy. We just say, If you break the law, then you’ll pay for it, because there’s an enforceable policy in place. In America, we don’t stop people from making money. If you’ve got a dollar, and you can make three with it, make three with it, you can make six, make ten, but — pay your taxes, dude. Don’t do that and you’re going to be in trouble. That’s how I see it happening.

What do you think, would capitalism and free markets be the right solution for Haiti right now, Hong Kong did great with economic freedom right?

From the little economic theory I have learned, I think capitalism would be largely good for this country.

BUT: Would it not be best if the government invested in infrastrucure or do you think that a poor country like that has the capabilities in the free market to build up infrastructure? There is also a lot of social problems there that the government may have to take care off.

Best regards! You guys are doing a great job with this page in economic education!

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It’s good that he is pro business, but I doubt he fully thinks in terms of negative externalities and natural rights etcetera. Some corporatists crooks will probably take advantage of him, but it’s better than nothing.

Regarding infrastructure, the free market could do that yes, but it depends on how stable the rule of law will be perceived. Nobody will invest millions in roads if the next government will nationalize it again.

3

…

"It is because we see the world reeking with injustices piled one on another to the very heavens that we are impelled to do all that we can to seek a world in which these and other injustices will be eradicated. Other traditional radical goals - such as the “abolition of poverty” - are, in contrast to this one, truly utopian, for man, simply by exerting his will, cannot abolish poverty. Poverty can only be abolished through the operation of certain economic factors - notably the investment of savings in capital - which can only operate by transforming nature over a long period of time. In short, man’s will is here severely limited by the workings of - to use an old-fashioned but still valid term - natural law. But injustices are deeds that are inflicted by one set of men on another; they are precisely the actions of men, and, hence, they and their elimination are subject to man’s instantaneous will.

Let us take an example: England’s centuries-long occupation and brutal oppression of the Irish people. Now if, in 1900, we had looked at the state of Ireland, and we had considered the poverty of the Irish people, we would have had to say: poverty could be improved by the English getting out and removing their land monopolies, but the ultimate elimination of poverty in Ireland, under the best of conditions, would take time and be subject to the workings of economic law. But the goal of ending English oppression - that could have been done by the instantaneous action of men’s will: by the English simply deciding to pull out of the country.

The fact that of course such decisions do not take place instantaneously is not the point; the point is that the very failure is an injustice that has been decided upon and imposed by the perpetrators of injustice - in this case, the English government. In the field of justice, man’s will is all; men can move mountains, if only men so decide. A passion for instantaneous justice - in short, a radical passion - is therefore not utopian, as would be a desire for the instant elimination of poverty or the instant transformation of everyone into a concert pianist. For instant justice could be achieved if enough people so willed." [- MNR](http:// http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard199.html)

…

At least he hasn’t ranted about the “abolition of poverty” ?

4

The only way the question has any logic at all is beause you probably think the govt has a pile of money that it can invest where it needs to be invested.

BUT: The govt doesn’t have any money. It is not a business or a factory that makes things and sells them for a profit. So how does the govt get money? By taking it away from someone.

Now how can an economy possibly improve if people are being constantly robbed by violence of some of their money?

Left to themselves, people will do with their money what they think is most important for them. If enough think they need a road, need it enough to pay for it, someone will come along and build it.

On the other hand, if the govt builds it, that means they are saying “We will build a road with your money wether you like it or not, wether you want it or not. Not only that, but it will cost you more and serve you less well than one built by the private sector. And of course you will have less money for food and clothing and everything, because we took yours.”

How can this possibly benefit an economy? When has it ever benefitted an economy?

5

Easy to speak form the podium. I’m somehow afraid we only get a Thatcher every century or so.

6

If I was president,
I’d get elected on Friday, assassinated on Saturday,
and buried on Sunday.

7

I like Wyclef: great artist, self-made, upright, honest chap not afraid to speak his mind. Would probably make a fine leader given the chance.

But what chance has he got? Haiti has a far worse problem than recovering from decades of corruption and dictatorship and a catastrophic earthquake. It is literally occupied by the UN and a horde of other government-sponsored so called “charities”. Now, don’t get me wrong: I have nothing but admiration for, say, a medical student who takes a three months sabbatical to head to Haiti to help those desperately in need. But I have nothing but contempt for the way NGO’s seem more and more preoccupied in being given government contracts to run millions-worth of humanitarian aids. Africa is a sad remainder of what happens when you let UN bureaucrats and well meaning but politicized and overambitious NGO’s run amok.

Wyclef should kindly ask the UN to get the Hell out of Haiti as fast as possible. While the UN is still in effective control of the country there’s nothing he or anybody else can do to really improve the lot of those poor sods. Then ask foreign governments to remove both their military and civilian personel which isn’t strictly concerned with embassy work. Finally take a serious look at the NGO’s in the country. It may seem harsh but they should be kept under strict surveillance. Then and only then he could set down to work.

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He might simply rent out sovereignty of large tracts of territory to landlord (i.e. ‘charter cities’). Let the UN stay as long as it will. In time, people will know what to make of the difference between the prosperous private cities and dirt-poor UN-sanctioned rest of the country. But again, he’ll never do so.

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Wyclef:

“In America, we don’t stop people from making money. If you’ve got a dollar, and you can make three with it, make three with it, you can make six, make ten, but — pay your taxes, dude.”

(1) Glad to hear him talk like this. I hesitate to say ‘go Wyclef, go’, however, because using America as one’s model of capitalism is NOT a good starting point—that is, because America is NOT a capitalist society, not in a true sense. America’s economy is much more mercantilist (see Murray Rothbard’s conceptions of ‘mercantilism’—you won’t get a clear understanding of it from anywhere else, except maybe another Austrian; wikipedia and the mainstream textbooks have mercantilism wrong). And I’m not arguing semantics—there exists a VERY large difference between ‘capitalism’ and ‘mercantilism’.

(2) As per Haiti’s infrastructure, the free market could rebuild it from the ground up. See Walter Block’s wonderful and penetrating work on how private capital can provide a society’s necessary infrastructure, and do so far better than can government. Again, this is not a random argument. Dr. Block’s ideas are quite sound.

Good luck, and have fun with your economics journey!

10

FDR was a Capitalist too…