First-century economics and Haiti

According to New testament scholar, Reta Finger, this is what the socioeconomic situation looked like in Palestine at the time of Christ:

     For 90 percent of ancient Mediterranean people, survival issues were foremost.  Land was the most desired form of wealth in these agrarian societies.  But in Palestine as elsewhere in the first century, land was gradually accumulating in the hands of fewer and fewer people.  Living with just enough food for a day at a time, people had no cash reserve when drought struck.  Forced to borrow at exorbitant rates from wealthy landowners, their only recourse was to hand over the plot of ground that had been in the family for generations.  That meant sharecropping on other's land and keeping only a fraction for one's family.

Such was the situation in Galilee when Jesus announced the revival of Jubilee justice for the oppressed poor (Luke 4:18-19).  No wonder his message was received with enthusiasm in the Nazareth synagogue.

But this same Jubilee/kingdom of God message was seen as a threat by the Jewish religio-politico-economic elite.  This elite ran the temple and the rest of Palestine as "a den of robbers."  Or a religiously legitimated system of oppression.  Jesus' kingdom of God message was a major threat to the oppressive status quo; they did not want to see this Jubilee justice message operationalized.  Ultimately this religious elite was pushed to advocate the crucifixion of Jesus to eliminate this threat.

With historical variations, of course, a similar oppressive situation took place in Haiti.  The slave rebellion was successful, but soon a small Haitian elite took over.  Often they cooperated with a French and American elite to maintain political and economic power that exploited the masses, that created extreme poverty.

Next some quotations from the Book, Haiti: after the earthquake; from a well-educated Haitian, Leslie Voltaire:

     Haiti's slave revolution in 1804 set the country on a course like no other.  Since that time, political violence and the resulting instability have plagued Haiti. . . . When we had a colonial society, there was one set of infrastructure.  Then we had a rupture [rebellion, civil war], which destroyed everything; the institutional, the physical, and the economic platform of that colonial society.  So it reinvented a new society of free slaves, and organized the country around a few cities [controlled by an Haitian elite] with the vast majority of people living in the countryside without infrastructure. . . . [Today] Haiti needs to be self-sufficient in food and energy. . . . For these things to happen, Haiti needs institutional and physical infrastructure.

But past and current systems of oppression prevent Haiti's poor from progress.  Yes, outside aid is often unwisely given resulting in failure, but the fundamental problem is current systems of oppression often aided by a U.S. elite; this prevents progress.

So Timothy Schwartz comments: "I've spent a large chunk of the past twenty years living and working in Haiti as a part of the aid industry.  Like so many people who've worked here, a sense of frustration and failure haunts me.  I've watched the country sink ever deeper into a quagmire of misery and despair while I've accomplished nothing tangible to stop the process."

Another story of failure:  "the majority [one estimate is 80 percent]of Haiti's physicians and nurses had left the country altogether and those who remained were concentrated in the capital city."  Conditions are so bad that even well-educated people leave Haiti when the opportunity arises.  Coupled with education there needs to be taught that individual progress is not enough; all education needs to be infused with community development.

One example of doing things right can be found in rural Fond-des-Blancs, Haiti.  Google Haiti Christian Development Fund for the 30 year story of Christian Community Development.