Haiti, Chile, and Sometimes Anorexia Is a Bad Thing

For thirty years the mantra has been consistent.  Smaller government and deregulation are the key to continued prosperity.  This shibboleth has been repeated so often, that it has become tattooed upon the public brain as if it were a law of economics.

These things are not laws, really.  They are theories which serve moneyed interests to consolidate power at the expense of a dwindling middle class.

When taken to an extreme, the end result is not prosperity.  The result is a nonexistent middle class, abject poverty, and the inability of a government to respond to the population it purports to serve.

If any proof is necessary, the Gentle Reader is encouraged to take a really good look at Haiti.

Haiti has never been what one would call a stable or thriving country.  It has almost always been a festering cesspool of corruption.  Any regulation a businessperson could want could be had for a price from the Duvaliers or another dictatorship.

With the atmosphere came a total collapse of mechanisms that people in more developed countries take for granted. There were no building codes, few hospitals or emergency services, nor the technical knowledge to save lives in the event of a catastrophe.

And now, smaller government and deregulation have a body count of almost 250,000.   That equates to the approximate population of Lincoln, Nebraska.

The United States is a big country.  Somehow, one imagines the United States missing a city the size of Lincoln.

A 7.0 earthquake took out 3 of every 100 people in Haiti.  Twenty years ago, the same size earthquake took less than 100 people out of the San Francisco Bay area, population roughly six and a half million.

Twenty years ago, Chile was also in bad shape.  The Chileans were coming off the extended right-wing dictatorship of General Agustin Pinochet.  Much like Haiti, Chile was characterized by poverty and domestic structures designed to concentrate wealth in the hands of a few business interests friendly to the dictatorship.  Pinochet was removed from office.

The Chileans chose to embrace structures which would rebuild their middle class: education, health care, social security.  In twenty years, Chile became a well developed, prosperous country.  They had a good transportation infrastructure, Santiago’s modern downtown, a thriving economy.

And then the Chileans were hit with an 8.8 earthquake, 200 miles (330 km) from Santiago.  People felt it in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 690 miles (1120 km) away.

A little perspective on the size of this earthquake: It would be like an earthquake in Los Angeles shaking El Paso, Texas.  Had an earthquake this size hit near Paso Robles, California, there would be widespread devastation in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Fresno, and Bakersfield. Santa Barbara would be erased.

The Chilean earthquake was very much The Hand of God.

The preliminary death toll stands under 1,000 people.

One does not question that some business interests found building codes, inspections, hospitals, publicly-funded medical care (the Chileans have a strong single-payer system), and education to be extravagant.

These things were unnecessary.  Government was getting in the way of responsible individuals having their own money to spend. The Chilean people could trust private enterprise to look out for their interests. Large government and the Nanny State would destroy initiative and prosperity.

Average per-capita income in Chile: over US$14,000.  Average per-capita income in Haiti: US$ diddly-squat..

But the truth lives in a much more visible place.  While Chile was spending on shared responsibilities, the Haitians were letting technologically unsophisticated people have “individual responsibility” for their personal safety.

Not every shared responsibility is socialism.  Sometimes it’s just good common sense.  Consider the lesson of a quarter million Haitians. 

Pay me now or pay me later, the old saying goes.  Some things, if neglected too long, will return to a natural order as a shared responsibility.  But when they come back, they cost a lot more than anyone is willing to pay.