– Su terremoto attuale di Haiti:
– la magnitudine del recente terremoto non ne fa uno dei più potenti, ma supera anche quello di Lisbona per perdite di vite e danni economici. È ormai chiaro che uno dei maggiori fattori della tragedia è la povertà. Un disastro di queste dimensioni avviene solo quando gli spostamenti tettonici avvengono sotto una città mal costruita, con strutture e servizi sociali inadeguati.
– I danni peggiori sono stati nelle baraccopoli sulle colline attorno alla città, la maggior parte degli haitiani ha un reddito non superiore a $1/giorno, estesa la disoccupazione, la fame e l’analfabetismo.
o Il bisogno di combustibile ha causato il aglio indiscriminato degli alberi, che difendono da frane e inondazioni.
– Quale le soluzioni?
– Tesi contrastanti:
o 1. James Roberts, ricercatore alla Heritage Foundation, riprende la tesi del disastro occasione per un intervento USA “determinato e decisivo”, per imporre riforme democratiche ed economiche, che facciano di Haiti un paese ed un partner commerciale stabile.
o 2. I critici del neo-liberismo: il disastro è il risultato dello sviluppo capitalistico, come voluto dalla comunità internazionale:
o secoli di schiavitù, acquisizione delle sue risorse da parte delle metropoli imperiali, occupazioni internazionali, dittature; dagli anni 1980 Haiti dipende dai prestiti FMI, che dettano però condizioni. Haiti un tempo autosufficiente per al produzione di riso è stata costretta ad eliminare i dazi al riso dei produttori americani, che godono di forti sussidi.
– à decimazione degli agricoltori locali, emigrazione dalle campagne ai centri urbani, superaffollamento di Port-au-Prince … Il recente aumento dei prezzi degli alimentari ha sprofondato gli haitiani ancor di più nella povertà, costretti in una dipendenza economica che ha contribuito alle dimensioni della tragedia in occasione del terremoto.
● I disastri naturali storicamente sono sempre stati motori di sviluppo e crescita economica. Le città sono state ricostruite, e spesso migliorate, come accadde per Londra dopo il grande incendio del 1666.
– Lisbona, 1 novembre 1755: terremoto, incendio e inondazione. La capitale portoghese distrutta completamente, 15 000 vittime (i rapporti parlano per errore di 50mila); distrutte 17mila delle sue 20mila abitazioni.
– I preti dell’Inquisizione parlarono del disastro come un gesto di Dio, un giudizio dei peccati della popolazione. I pensatori alla moda come di una benedizione dissimulata, parte di un benevolo disegno divino, in cui tutto ciò che accade accade per il meglio.
– Il filosofo francese Voltaire denunciò entrambe le posizioni: come potevano essere consolari i sopravvissuti pensando che gli eredi delle vittime avrebbero accresciuto la propria fortuna, che i muratori avrebbe guadagnato con la ricostruzione delle case?
– Voltaire espresse la propria compassione per le vittime, l’unica risposta etica al terremoto era l’azione, riparare i corpi ed gli edifici, e studiare meglio la natura per proteggerci contro le sue insidie.
o Il suo era un progetto di modernità: una civiltà per essere chiamata tale deve imparare dagli errori rivelati dai disastri, e usare intelligenza, scienza e simpatia per rendere più sicuro il mondo.
– Il marchese di Pombal trasformò il disastro di Lisbona, uno dei peggiori disastri naturali della storia europea, in occasione di modernizzazione.
o Utilizzando il potere assoluto della monarchia e le risorse dell’impero, costruì una nuova metropoli con edifici a prova di terremoto, ampi viali e un sistema di fognature.
– Nei secoli successivi, in America ancor più che altrove, i disastri urbani vennero visti come motori di sviluppo e crescita; i puritani li videro come utili “correzioni”, punizioni inviate da Dio per richiamare i peccatori …
o 1676, Boston viene distrutta da un incendio, e ricostruisce viali diritti e più ampi, attua regolamenti anti-incendio; dopo altri incendi nel XIX, Boston si espande commercialmente, mette le fondamenta per la prosperità e la crescita che le verrà dal porto marittimo con la forte espansione del commercio transatlantico.
o 1871, Chicago distrutta da un incendio, il reverendo Beecher dichiara che gli americani non avrebbero potuto fare a meno dell’incendio di Chicago. Si descrissero gli “indiscussi vantaggi materiali” che si sarebbero potuti avere lasciando che le “leggi naturali” del mercato potessero guidare la ricostruzione della città. Chicago divenne infatti la città a più veloce crescita dell’Occidente.
o 1906, terremoto di San Francisco: forte aumento delle azioni dopo la distruzione, un giornalista parlò di “mercati della catastrofe”, e scoprì che
o i grandi progetti di ricostruzione post-catastrofi mettono capitale in circolazione, producono enormi profitti per alcuni e consentono innovazioni economici che accrescono la produttività.
– Metà del XX secolo, la storia dei disastri faceva concludere a molti americani che progresso = sviluppo economico; la distruzione è un meccanismo essenziale per questo progresso; per l’economista Joseph Schumpeter, il capitalismo è un “ciclone di distruzione creatrice”.[1]
– 1999, il Wall Street Journal: le grandi calamità come l’uragano Hugo del 1989 e il terremoto Northridge del 1994 in California avevano generato benefici economici a medio e lungo termine, che superavano di molto le perdite iniziali.
– Posizioni queste non erano esclusive degli USA:
o Il Centro di informazione e ricerca statale cinese sostenne che il terremoto del maggio 2008 nella provincia di Sichuan, che aveva causato 80 000 vittime, avrebbe innescato un boom edilizio che avrebbe fatto aumentare il PIL cinese dello 0,3%.
– Altri precedenti in Cina: il terremoto del 1976 di Tangshan, importante centro industriale,
o che aveva distrutto il 78% degli edifici industriali, demolito il 97% delle abitazioni ed ucciso almeno 240mila persone
o In due anni venne ripresa la produzione industriale, e nel 1986 Tangshan venne presentato al mondo come un simbolo del successo della modernizzazione della Cina attuata da Deng Xiaoping.
– Uragano Katrina, 2005; l’ottimismo diminuisce, (anche se il presidente di Merryl Lynch ricordò agli investitori che i disastri storicamente promettono opportunità che compensano le perdite).
– molti osservatori rimarcano i costi sociali ed ambientali della calamità. L’evacuazione mal organizzata dei residenti afro-americani poveri simboleggiò i costi sociali dello sviluppo capitalistico; …
– La tesi predominante dei disastri strumento di progresso è sempre stata contestata, i disastri risultano spesso davvero disastrosi per i poveri.
o ad es. per Chicago 1871: a causa della mancata osservanza delle misure di sicurezza da pare degli imprenditori, nella ricostruzione della città morirono mediamente 12 lavoratori al giorno, complessivamente più vittime di quelle causate dall’incendio stesso.
Il libero fluire degli investimenti e degli aiuti governativi hanno incoraggiato gli affari, gli imprenditori edili e i proprietari di case a rifiutare gli insegnamenti degli innumerevoli uragani in Florida e nel Golfo del Messico, espandendo insediamenti in aree costiere vulnerabili, e in questo modo accrescendo il rischio di future distruzioni.
[1] Nel suo libro “Capitalismo, Socialismo e Democrazia” (1942), l’economista Joseph Schumpeter affermava che “il capitalismo è, per sua natura, una forma od un metodo di cambiamento economico”, di sostituzione del vecchio col nuovo, che denominava “distruzione creativa” (nuovi consumatori, nuovi beni, nuovi metodi di produzione o trasporto, nuovi mercati, nuove forme d’organizzazione industriale, ecc.). La guerra sarebbe la forma più drastica di “distruzione creativa” connessa al capitalismo. Altre forme di “distruzione creativa”, di cui beneficia il grande capitale, sono le grandi catastrofi, come lo tsunami ed i cicloni.
Natural disasters have been engines of development and economic growth throughout history. Kevin Rozario on the lessons of past catastrophes, and why Haiti might be different.
By KEVIN ROZARIO
– The Great Fire of London, 1666.
The earth shuddered. According to an American observer, "every Building rolled and jostled like a Ship at Sea; which put in Ruins almost every House, Church, and Publick Building, with an incredible Slaughter of the Inhabitants." Fires broke out all across the city, and the river rose 20 feet, breaking its banks and engulfing the lower elevations.
– It was Nov. 1, 1755, and without warning, Lisbon, capital of the Portuguese empire, became a wasteland. Earthquake, fire and flood left 15,000 people dead (reports at the time mistakenly put the number at 50,000); 17,000 of the city’s 20,000 homes were destroyed.
Although food, medicine and water has yet to reach most of Haiti’s people, the cities are filled with stoic determination but the threat of violence looms in the air. Video courtesy of Fox News.
– The scale of the calamity shocked the Western world. It demanded a response, and an explanation. Aid arrived from many nations; explanations were harder to agree upon. Clerics in this Age of the Inquisition described the calamity as an act of God, a judgment for the sins of the people. Fashionable thinkers attempted to explain the earthquake as a blessing in disguise, part of God’s benevolent design wherein everything happened for the best.
– But the French philosopher Voltaire denounced both views. Could any survivor be expected to be consoled by the fact that "the heirs of those who have perished will increase their fortune; masons will earn money by rebuilding the houses"?
– He cared nothing for divine designs, his sympathy lay with the victims, and the only truly ethical response to the Lisbon earthquake was to act, to repair bodies and buildings, and to study nature all the better to protect ourselves against nature’s harms.
– Like London after the great fire of 1666, cities had been rebuilt, and often improved, after past calamities. But Voltaire turned this into a modern moral imperative. A civilization worthy of its name should pay special heed to disasters, learn from the mistakes they revealed, and intelligence, science and sympathy to make a more secure world. This was the project of modernity.
– What he did not expect was that Lisbon would itself rise so triumphantly from the rubble. Employing the absolute power of the monarchy and the resources of empire, the Marquis de Pombal built a new metropolis with earthquake-proof buildings, wide thoroughfares and a sewer system. Merchants had braced themselves for businesses failures and the decline of their fortunes. But Pombal turned one of the worst natural disasters in European history into an occasion for modernization. The lesson was clear, and it was one that would resonate down through the centuries: With the right intervention, catastrophes presented extraordinary opportunities to make improvements.
– Indeed, over time, and nowhere more so than in America, urban disasters came to be understood as engines of urban development and economic growth. Puritans had viewed calamities as useful "corrections," afflictions sent by God to call sinners back to the path of virtue.
– But the material benefits of destruction were soon apparent, too. After a fire wiped out much of Boston in 1676, the town took advantage of the destruction to build wider thoroughfares and implement new fireproofing regulations. Such measures, repeated after subsequent fires into the 19th century, equipped the city for commercial expansion, laying the foundations for the seaport’s subsequent prosperity and growth at a time of burgeoning trans-Atlantic trade. Disasters demanded a response that was often impossible to muster in ordinary times.
– With the establishment of credit networks, insurance coverage, new technologies and systems of industrial production over the next two centuries, successful reconstruction became so predictable that it became a truism of the modern age that disasters were instruments of progress.
– When most of Chicago burned down in 1871, prominent clergyman Henry Ward Beecher made the extraordinary statement that Americans "could not afford to do without the Chicago Fire." The official account of the conflagration enumerated the "unquestioned material advantages" that were sure to be realized if the "natural laws" of the market were allowed to guide the reconstruction of the city, encouraging readers to look beyond the destruction to the bigger and better metropolis that would rise from the ruins. And, indeed, Chicago became the fastest growing city in the Western Hemisphere over the next two decades, staging the colossal World’s Fair in 1893 to celebrate the economic forces, technological developments and political values that had ensured the great fire would become a source of prosperity.
– By 1906, one newspaper correspondent was so struck by soaring stock prices after the decimation of San Francisco by earthquake and fire that he launched an investigation into what he called "catastrophe markets."
o What he discovered was that the enormous reconstruction projects demanded after catastrophes put capital into circulation, produced enormous profits for some and enabled economic innovations that increased productivity—a combination of circumstances that fueled investor confidence.
– By the mid-20th century, the history of disasters had taught many Americans to equate progress with economic development and to view destruction as an essential mechanism for achieving that progress. Hence the broad resonance of economist Joseph Schumpeter’s famous description of capitalism as a "gale of creative destruction." As Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan explained in the 1990s, this metaphor aptly captured the dependence of a capitalist economy on the continual obliteration of outmoded goods and structures to clear space and make way for innovation, new efficiencies and greater productivity.
Disasters, it seemed, were good for business in a dynamic, expansive, capitalist economy. In part this was so because investors believed it to be so.
– In 1999, The Wall Street Journal reported that major calamities like 1989’s Hurricane Hugo and the 1994 Northridge earthquake in California had generated intermediate- and long-term economic gains that more than offset initial losses; "anthill economics" illustrated the general principle that disasters promoted economic growth. And this was a conviction that was by no means exclusive to the U.S.
– The Chinese State Information Research Center claimed that the earthquake that killed 80,000 people in Sichuan Province in May 2008 would trigger a building boom that would boost national economic growth by 0.3%.
o Whether or not this figure is reliable, there were ample precedents here, not least the response to the Tangshan earthquake that destroyed 78% of industrial buildings, demolished 97% of residences and killed at least 240,000 people in 1976. Economic production from this important industrial center was restored within two years and, after careful planning and investment, a new-and-improved Tangshan was completed in 1986 and presented to the world as a symbol of Deng Xiaoping’s success in modernizing China.
– In the U.S. such confidence has taken a hard hit in recent years, and perhaps nothing speaks to the possibility that we may be entering an age of diminishing expectations than the difficulty we have in seeing disasters as opportunities. Such optimism seemed to evaporate after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
– Certainly, the president of Merrill Lynch reminded investors that disasters historically promised economic opportunities that would compensate for any losses. And New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin promised "to bring our city back bigger, better and stronger." But the optimists, for once, were outnumbered.
– From the beginning many observers emphasized the social and environmental costs of this calamity. The mismanaged evacuation of poor and African-American residents from New Orleans symbolized the social costs of capitalist development. Commentators noted the deleterious effects of developing the wetlands and barrier islands upon which New Orleans depended for natural protection against storm surges, and explored the links between industrial production, carbon dioxide emissions and the increased ferocity of hurricanes. Development was not the solution, the inevitable happy outcome, but the problem.
– In truth, the dominant narrative of disasters as instruments of progress has always been contested. Disasters have often been truly disastrous for the poor. The emergency conditions introduced by calamity have often encouraged a disregard for the rights of citizens; a fervent commitment to economic development often discouraged attention to social costs.
– Because employers disregarded safety measures, more died—as many as 12 workers per day—in the rebuilding of Chicago than during the 1871 fire itself. And free-flowing investment and government aid has only encouraged businesses, developers and home owners to refuse the lessons of endless hurricanes in Florida and the Gulf Coast, rebuilding and expanding settlements along vulnerable coastal zones, and thereby increasing the likelihood of future destruction. Voltaire would despair.
– For the most part, the social and environmental costs of development have been rendered invisible by dominant articulations of American progress. But after Hurricane Katrina, this buried history surfaced with a vengeance. The timing is key here. In an age of energy crises, terrorist attacks, global warming and global financial instability, progress no longer seems quite so inevitable. Disasters increasingly present themselves as manifestations of a catastrophic world rather than as instruments of improvement.
– All of which brings us to Haiti, and last Tuesday’s earthquake. At a magnitude of 7.0 it was by no means one of the more powerful earthquakes on record, but it dwarfs even the Lisbon earthquake in terms of property damage and lives lost. Much of Port-au-Prince is in ruins. An unknown number are dead; Red Cross estimates suggest the toll may be close to 50,000. Corpses litter the streets. Many are still trapped under the rubble, while many more injured suffer for the lack of medical attention. There is no electricity, little clean water and the threat of disease and further deaths from epidemics is high.
What lies ahead? Voltaire, the man of sympathy, would no doubt have been moved by the quick and compassionate response of the international community to Haiti’s plight—donations of money, food, supplies and skills.
– But what are the lessons of the disaster? It is becoming clear that a major contributing factor was poverty. The earth moves; that much is unchanging. But a disaster on this scale only happens when plates shift underneath a city with poorly constructed buildings, failing infrastructure and inadequate social services. Poverty played a central role here.
– The worst damage and suffering occurred in the shanties that cling precariously to the city’s hills. Most Haitians earn no more than $1 per day; there is widespread unemployment, hunger and illiteracy. A desperate need for fuel has led to massive cutting of trees that inhibit floods and bind the soil together to prevent landslides.
– This disaster, like all disasters, then poses a question. What is the lesson here? What is the opportunity? Unsurprisingly, there is little agreement in our polarized world. One argument holds that the solution to both the poverty and the disaster is integration into world markets: more International Monetary Fund loans and structural adjustments. On the day after the earthquake, James Roberts, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, laid out an expansive vision of the prospect this disaster presented for a "bold and decisive" U.S. intervention to impose the democratic and economic reforms that would turn Haiti into a stable state and trading partner. Disaster, once again, figures as agent of progress.
– At the same time, critics of neo-liberalism are arguing that the disaster was the result of capitalist development, as mandated by the international community. The country—impoverished over the centuries by slavery, the extraction of its resources to imperial metropolises, international occupations, dictatorships—has been dependent on IMF loans since the 1980s, but these have come with strings attached. Haiti, once self-sufficient in rice production, was forced to remove barriers to heavily subsidized American rice.
– This led to the decimation of local farming and the migration of country-dwellers to the city in search of work, contributing to overcrowding in Port-au-Prince. With recent escalating world food prices, Haitians, unable to grow their own food, have sunk deeper into poverty, locked into a cycle of dependency that contributed to the scale of the destruction and loss of life in the wake of the earthquake.
Perhaps this is a time to listen to Voltaire. First, the obligation to help the victims. Then, time to study, to learn, to discover the particulars of history, to ponder which type of development is best for Haiti.