The Real Fallout Of The Haiti Earthquake

While aid floods into Haiti in the wake of the earthquake, the real problem is actually rebuilding the country. There’s a difference between an earthquake happening in Port-Au Prince and one happening in a the major city of another country which has a much more stable government and social services infrastructure in place. The truth is that right now, to paraphrase Tyler Cowen in a really amazing post, the country Haiti does not exit. Here’s Cowen:

It’s a mistake to think there’s any brick-by-brick way out of that predicament.  It’s not like the earthquake in Armenia or for that matter eighteenth century Lisbon.  Haiti has no functioning government, no working legal system, and very little remaining infrastructure.  There’s no formal means to make decisions about reconstruction and no capital to clear away the mess.  As I’ve written, the country as we know simply doesn’t exist any more (view the second video or try these photos).  Port-Au-Prince is destroyed and the city was the heart of the country, economically, politically, and otherwise.  Léogâne, Jacmel, and other significant locales are mostly destroyed as well and they’re not receiving much assistance.

[...]

Obama will (and should) do something about this situation.  First, I believe he sincerely wants to help but also he cannot ignore his African-American constituency, especially after former President Clinton devoted so much attention to Haiti and especially if health care reform doesn’t go through as planned.  Yet he will have a festering situation on his hands for the rest of his term.  If “looting” (a bad word in this context) increases or continues, how quickly will the American people lose sympathy with the Haitians?  How can the “reconstruction” possibly go well?  Ugly gang rule isn’t even the worst case scenario.

Personally, I think the Haitian problem is the inheritance of the U.S. because America does have the resources and also the proximity to best repair the country. The problem is, the U.S. lacks the know-how to actually rebuild the country from scratch. That’s pretty essential, especially when the rebuilding has to start from the very bottom up.

For some further links:

—Tyler Cowen has been writing some great stuff at his blog Marginal Revolution.

—Foreign Policy magazine has a great new blog on the U.N. with a lot of posts (suitably) on Haiti.

—A physician who is part of Doctors Without Borders is on the scene in Haiti and tweeting pictures of what she sees.

–Daniel Strauss