Haitian “Disaster Capitalism” At Work

One phrase often referred to after the Haiti Earthquake is that of Haiti’s “fragile infrastructure.” A country’s infrastructure refers to, among other things, the stability of schools, water, public safety, waste management, and transportation. Post-quake, all of these were damaged almost beyond repair, but they were all indeed fragile many years before this tragedy. Take the Port Au Prince airport for example. As the world watched and wondered why planes with much needed aid could not land, those in Haiti understood the structural and staffing limitations that the airport suffered from in the first place. It is said that prior to the earthquake, the airport typically had little more than 30 incoming flights daily. Suddenly there were hundreds expecting to land on broken soil. This is just one example.

So how did this infrastructure become so weakened? More importantly perhaps, are there significant plans in place that will allow the millions in aid sent to the country to be used to rebuild and strengthen it? Is it possible for this rebuilding effort to not turn into “disaster capitalism,” where outside capitalist investors jump into the effort with the focus on profit, leaving little change in the infrastructure to help communities ever gain self sufficiency? The money in turn, leaves the country to outside profiteers. I was sent this interesting article by Naomi Klein, who flips the script on the common view that Haiti is a liability to the world. Instead, she posits Haiti as a “creditor to the world, not a debtor.” Interesting perspective and historical content.

Second, the video above really deconstructs previous policy, and highlights some points of disaster capitalism, even looking at a potential US role in weakening Haitian infrastructure. Remember how much political energy citizens of the US expended to fight sweat shops in Central America? Here it is shown that US policy has helped foster a Haitian garment industry that is little more than sweat shop rule itself. Workers earning $3 per day? Wow.

Check out Partners in Health, who are referenced in the video. If you need a hands-on organization to see the work that has been done and which still needs to be done, this would be a good place to start looking around.

Naomi Kleins work on disaster capitalism and “shock doctrines” can be found here.