Haitians in DR

[cobraboy]

Where DR appears to me to be incongruous, is that you have a broadly socialist government that appears to be leaning towards a free [labour] market economy by not implementing the existing laws? Do they (at government level) or the people generally, see it as a 'problem' having Haitian workers? As I understand it (and I'm happy to be shot down on this point) there are 'simmering' racial tensions regarding Haitians?

Broadly socialist government? Other posters have complained that the government is exactly the opposite.

The "problem" is not nearly as complex as you've outlined. It's simply there are more people than the current resource level (use GDP loosely) can, in and of itself, can support.

The answer to the problem is how to increase the resource level. Do that, and the migrant/domestic under/unemployment situation will solve itself by market forces.

Imagine the economic situation in the DR if the remittances from the US dried up.

When you put more rats in a cage beyond the ability of the cage to support them, the rats also get "tense".

 

[NALs]

Just one question, Nals:

Have you even seen a batey... from a distance...from the comfort of a rented yipeta...as you increase speed to 120 mph?

Yes, I've not only seen bateyes, I have been to a few to see conditions with my own eyes and they are as heartbreaking as the ramshackle slums that are found on the riverbanks and outer edges of all major Dominican cities.

But, what does your question has to do with anything of this thread?

-NALs

 

[NALs]

Kyle, every single Dominican will not head back to the farms because:

1. Mechanization will drop the demand for labor, thus the current amount people needed to run a farm will be less under mechanization.

2. It's easy to say that no amount of money will influence a person's desicion, and yet you secured a higher level of education for yourself. Why did you went past basic education? Are you going to deny that the monetary aspect did not influenced your decision to get higher education? Even if you were forced by your parents (lets take that assumption), don't you think your parents were influenced by the monetary aspect of what a college education would mean for your future? your life?

Come on now, you and I know the answer.

Even when you say you will never go back to a farm, if the wages were high enough you will begin to think about it. Especially if its work which you have the skills for or can easily develop such skills.

Plus, in order for farm wages to be high, there will be needed much mechanization. So working in a farm will not be the same as it is before mechanization, because prior to mechanization farm work is very physically intensive. After mechanization, its a matter of using machinery which is alot less physically intensive than bending yourself down to chop some crop under the hot sun all day.

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I'll be waiting for Maco's response. He is making some assumptions which I had already suspected he was making, but his last post simply made it even clearer that in fact he is making such assumptions.

-NALs

 

[macocael]

NALS you have a peculiar dispensation for fixed ideas and they are always abstractions, I have noticed. I dont think you understand human nature very well, or perhaps you havent made a study of it. Here is one example:

"Why did you went (sic) past basic education? Are you going to deny that the monetary aspect did not influenced your decision to get higher education?"

Are you really serious? Is there really no way you can understand a person's decision to seek higher education except if it be for monetary gain? Most higher education of the post-grad type does not lead to higher salaried jobs, but it does lead to other satisfactions, and I thought Keith's post spelled all that out pretty clearly.

Look we are all in agreement that wages are an incentive and a motive force. No doubt about that, but let us not ascribe to them more power than they in fact have. People will certainly seek out better wages, particularly if they are on the bottom rung and just looking for a way up to the rung above. But they also have other motivations and any analysis of the situation of the Haitian migrant laborers, their effect on the Dominican economy, and the putative competition they present to Dominican workers needs to be undertaken with more than one tool or concept. You can claim that you were simply trying to clarify how one motive element works and no more -- fair enough, but even there I find fault with the exposition, and I have outlined that clearly enough.

Actually I dont think I have more to add really in terms of the basic argument. My last post pretty much sums up the point I was trying to make, perhaps a bit heavyhandedly in my initial post. I would quibble over some points and others I find quite intriguing.

(1) For example, "The change for such firms to be more capital intensive has been slowed or prevented completely precisely because of the flow of migration which has increased the labor supply in segments of the population where such labor supply should had dropped, pressuring such firms to invest in machinery and new technology." I dont think this is the whole reason, but it certainly is a factor. So long as there is cheap labor, and it is cheaper to use the labor than to invest in machinery, there will be no machinery. I would add that this has consistently been a problem here, long before Haitian migrant labor became an issue, and it continues to retard development in a variety of important ways.

But this is where the argument for State Capitalism comes in. Market forces work, they do indeed, but not always to the benefit of the people upon whom they work or even to the benefit of the nations or employers -- in the long run. So the argument runs that it is necessary for enlightened legislature to guide the market along more ethical and, ultimately (or so the argument goes), more profitable lines.

(2) Your response to my Villa Trina example: "example of a short term problem that if it would not have had the influx of illegal immigrants returning, would have been solved by capital investment in machinery which would lower the amount of labor needed." Coffee harvesting cannot be mechanized, as I understand it. It is not like cane, it cannot be mowed down and threshed. It requires carefull handpicking. Anyway, my example was intended merely to point out that the idea that Haitians are taking jobs away from Dominicans is a canard.

(3) Your point about Dominican firms being based in DR. The sugar firms were not based in DR. They operated here, but they were not based here. They were not owned by Dominicans, controlled by Dominicans or identified as Dominican. Their bases were all overseas, and that was intentional. Your argument, like many others, is based on an attempt to play with words, but they have no grounding in the reality of the matter.

(4) "Plus, in order for farm wages to be high, there will be needed much mechanization. So working in a farm will not be the same as it is before mechanization, because prior to mechanization farm work is very physically intensive. After mechanization, its a matter of using machinery which is alot less physically intensive than bending yourself down to chop some crop under the hot sun all day." Good point -- or so it would seem. But not all agriculture can be mechanized. Many crops cannot be processed in this manner. The farmer at the end of my lane in Sonador cannot use machines to cultivate his eggplant and vainitas (long green string beans) --these plants must be carefully tied to stakes and then trained along rows, then they have to be hand picked and sorted. Mechanization works for cane, but coffee, beans, lettuce, eggplants and many other crops simply wont allow for it. So farm work, even on a large scale, will remain in many ways unmechanized and dependent on cheap labor. We see this even in the states. what machine can pick apples? Oranges? strawberries?

Ok, enough. NALs, your turn, expose my assumptions and tear them up. Good hunting.

 

[macocael]

additional news: mechanization

Interesting titbit in the news today, germane to our discussion:

" Foreign Relations Minister Carlos Morales Troncoso, a former sugar cane industry executive, highlighted the fact that the trend is for increased investments in farming mechanization that will eliminate the need for Haitian labor in sugar cane fields. Dominicans reject the hard work of sugar cane cutting, which has led to thousands of Haitians being allowed to migrate to the country to take their place. These Haitians live in settlements called bateyes, many languishing today as the number of jobs declines because farms are being mechanized. Likewise, while Haitians used to start out working in sugar cane fields, nowadays most come to work in construction work, which is better paid. As reported in Hoy, Morales said that this move would make the country less vulnerable to accusations of slavery and abusive living conditions for the Haitians who come to work in the sugar cane fields and live in bateyes."

well, except for the bit about mechanization eventually leading to the diminution of Haitian labor in the cane fields, the rest of the report is so full of erroneous statements, I hardly know where to begin: First of all, it makes it sound as though the Haitians are in the sugar fields because the Dominicans reject that harsh labor, whereas in fact they are there because of contractual agreements that stretch back a whole century. secondly, it states erroneously that the bateyeros are lacking work because of mechanization -- this is an outright lie as the mechanization hasnt really occurred yet. They lack work because the mills are not functioning any more -- only a handful still do -- and no one has bothered to retrain the workers and help them find other jobs. Thirdly, it is unclear that they have switched to construction work over plantation work simply because the former is more lucrative. the wages are not necessarily better, and the fact that there isnt enough work on the plantations could be what is really compelling them to search elsewhere. Moreover, the new wave of haitian migration is very different in character from the previous form which was definitely defined by plantation work and was overseen by authorities, while the new wave is largely unregulated and more dispersed. Fourth and finally I dont see how Morales can claim that the winnowing of Haitian labor away from the plantations will lead to fewer accusations of slavery and abuse on the part of the Dominican govt, when in fact the new form of migration and how it is being handled by various economic sectors and the govt has led to increased criticism by international organizations and govts. what a crock!

I sometimes wonder why DR1 doesnt vet its new summaries more thoroughly, but I guess it only purports to be a summary of what is found in the papers. Still, these egregious statements ought to be analyzed and not merely reproduced as though they were manifestly true.

 

[samana3]

Nals makes some correct points, from a economic market model perspective.

(edit) This situation is common around the world in markets surrounding illegal immigrant communities. The US is suffering with the problem with 12,000,000 illegal Mexican immigrants right now. The market is usually distorted in the unskiiled labor job market.

It's not only illegal Mexicans, Many other people from different country's are illegaly in the U.S including dominicans.

 

[Kyle]

very true...mexicans are not the only ones coming in through Mexico. i understand Asians are coming in at an alarming rate through mexico as well. Canada has the same problem but on a smaller scale. what is interesting is where illegals are winding up in the US these days. states like wyoming, minnesota have seen a large influx due to the illegals taking jobs noone else wants.

 

[shadInToronto]

No can do ....

Sorry Nals, none here will grade your dissertation but I think "ctrl+c" followed by "ctrl+v" don't qualify you for a passing grade .... ever heard this adage or something similar? ... those who don't know teach while those who know do :ermm:

 

[cobraboy]

i'm 30-ish, what else is there to think about ?[/QUOTE]http://www.dr1.com/forums/431816-post54.html

Really?:ermm:

 

[Kyle]

yes really. only Kyle knows for sure. i think cobraboy "depends" is a little too tight. anyone can manipulate a thread to read anything...


nice try

 

[Kyle]

so let's just stick to the thread..handle your personal gripes outside the thread. where were we ?


thanks

 

[NALs]

NALS you have a peculiar dispensation for fixed ideas and they are always abstractions, I have noticed. I dont think you understand human nature very well, or perhaps you havent made a study of it. Here is one example:

"Why did you went (sic) past basic education? Are you going to deny that the monetary aspect did not influenced your decision to get higher education?"

Are you really serious? Is there really no way you can understand a person's decision to seek higher education except if it be for monetary gain? Most higher education of the post-grad type does not lead to higher salaried jobs, but it does lead to other satisfactions, and I thought Keith's post spelled all that out pretty clearly.

Data shows the complete opposite of what you claim.

People with post-grad education tend to earn more than those who don't posses such.

Take a look here, which is only one of many examples:
Educational Attainment and Synthetic Estimates of Work-Life Earnings

Monetary incentive is an underlying factor in the decision people make or are encouraged to make, particularly concerning higher education attainment.

Sure, most people will supplement such underlying factor by claiming other satisfactions that comes with attaining a higher level of education.

Such satisfaction varies from personal goals and feelings of accomplishment to simply gaining new knowledge and being satisfied with such.

However, underlying all those satisfactions, the desire of accomplishing higher education has an underlying factor that most people refuse to come to terms with and that is monetary gain.

If there was no return on the investment of higher education, most people attaining such would rather focus on other means of increasing the worth of their labor or future labor productivity.

I've heard it plenty of time, people claiming that they do things because they love doing such. That certainly is a main reason why they are, for example, teachers. But, when a group of teachers want an increase in their pay (even when their pay still gives them an adequate lifestyle), their "love of the profession" goes out the window and if they can, they would go on strike.

What about their "love for teaching"? What about their students? What happened? I thought monetary gain was not part of the equation?

This appears time and again.

People always undervalue the influence monetary gains have on their decisions, particularly when it comes to higher education and their labor productivity. But, when they get the itch for an increase in pay, even when their current levels still give them a comfortable lifestyle (it's not always the case, but plenty of times it is), suddenly their love of their vocation takes a second seat and what sets forth is mere monetary interest.

And yes, I read Keith's response and he also made it clear that there is a threshhold where he won't accept a job paying less than that X amount.

Why not accept a job that will fullfill you in every aspect, except monetary?

For people who claim that monetary gains does not impacts their decisions to gain higher education, they should have no problem settling for a position which gives them gains in everything else and nothing more.

(2) Your response to my Villa Trina example: "example of a short term problem that if it would not have had the influx of illegal immigrants returning, would have been solved by capital investment in machinery which would lower the amount of labor needed." Coffee harvesting cannot be mechanized, as I understand it. It is not like cane, it cannot be mowed down and threshed. It requires carefull handpicking. Anyway, my example was intended merely to point out that the idea that Haitians are taking jobs away from Dominicans is a canard.

See the last quote below and my response.

(3) Your point about Dominican firms being based in DR. The sugar firms were not based in DR. They operated here, but they were not based here. They were not owned by Dominicans, controlled by Dominicans or identified as Dominican. Their bases were all overseas, and that was intentional. Your argument, like many others, is based on an attempt to play with words, but they have no grounding in the reality of the matter.

Explain to me the following:

Jose Ginebra's founding in 1893 of the ingenio Las Mercedes in Puerto Plata. Later converted to a ranch and afterwards the terrain was used for cultivating sugare cane which was sold to ingenio Montellano. Was that not a Dominican firm?

In 1918 the Hermanos Bentz owning various ingenios, including Amistad. Was that not a consortium of various Dominican sugar refinery firms?

In 1909, Andres Brugal Montane founds the ingenio Cuba in Puerto Plata, along with a string of businesses in liquors, haciendas, ingenios, trains, and banks. Later in 1920 with a RD$350,000 he founds Brugal & Co. which exist to this day as one of the premier Dominican rum companies. Were those not Dominican firms?

Not to mention that Andres Brugal Montane moved from Santiago de Cuba to Puerto Plata in 1897, bringing along his Brugal y Sobrinos sugar producing firm to the Puerto Plata area.

Those are only a few examples.

Sure, American bankers controlled and initiated the trade of sugar, particularly to the number one export market being U.S., but to say that sugar firms were not based in the DR, when in fact many were, is just incorrect.

(4) "Plus, in order for farm wages to be high, there will be needed much mechanization. So working in a farm will not be the same as it is before mechanization, because prior to mechanization farm work is very physically intensive. After mechanization, its a matter of using machinery which is alot less physically intensive than bending yourself down to chop some crop under the hot sun all day." Good point -- or so it would seem. But not all agriculture can be mechanized. Many crops cannot be processed in this manner. The farmer at the end of my lane in Sonador cannot use machines to cultivate his eggplant and vainitas (long green string beans) --these plants must be carefully tied to stakes and then trained along rows, then they have to be hand picked and sorted. Mechanization works for cane, but coffee, beans, lettuce, eggplants and many other crops simply wont allow for it. So farm work, even on a large scale, will remain in many ways unmechanized and dependent on cheap labor. We see this even in the states. what machine can pick apples? Oranges? strawberries?

I beg to differ on your quote that "... farm work, even on a large scale, will remain in many ways unmechanized and dependent on cheap labor". The market economy is highly inventive and flexible when it comes to fixing problems which hinders efficiency.

You say "will remain", well that implies into eternity or at least for a long time.

That is simply not true, with time and effort machinery which would in fact harvest such products will be invented. In fact, they have been invented already and only need further modifications as can be read in this document created by the US Department of Agriculture:

Havest Mechanization Progress and Prospects for Fresh Market Quality Decidous Tree Fruits

BTW: In Italy they already use robotic harvesters to harvest olives. Who would have thought olives could be harvest with machines?

-NALs

 

[Chris]

Data shows the complete opposite of what you claim.

People with post-grad education tend to earn more than those who don't posses such.

I'll be sure to tell the next illegal Haitian immigrant this fact when I see one next Nals.

 

[shadInToronto]

NALs, DR1 sage - wisdom from Google, ctrl+c, ctrl+v :ermm:

 

[macocael]

NALs that was better -- but what happened to ripping up my assumptions? Your dissertation on monetary incentives still misses the point, and the bit about Dominican firms does not deal with the fact that the main sugar producers were all foreigners, not Domincan based. Interesting, however, that your examples all center on Puerto Plata, which raises a good question: were the individual Dominican owners concentrated in that area while bigger foreign concerns in the south (Barahona, San Pedro, La Romana)? I am intrigued, and I will have to investigate.

Meanwhile, let us pose an example of higher education. Doctors, contrary to common belief, do not have expectations of earning much money, and often struggle to pay back the enormous debt they incur while studying in medical school. Private practice can be lucrative, depending on the practice, but much medical work is low salaried work at hospitals and clinics. The model is changing, with the creation of HMOs and so on, but I know plenty of docs who cannot really be said to earning money commensurate with the level of their education if we argue on the basis of a correlation between post-grad study and expected higher earnings. Let us take another example: science. Most scientists do not earn appreciably higher wages for all the extra years they spend studying. Even in the practical application of science, that is, engineering, where one would expect to find such higher wages, many engineers end up as salaried employees at various companies, Verizon, Bell Labs, Pfizer, and while they certainly earn well enough, they are middle class, their earnings are actually not so high as one would expect. Then of course there are all the Humanities students, none of whom can be said to be profiting notably from the extra years they spend in grad school. To sum up, I dont doubt that money plays a role in the decisions we make, but we dont necessarily make career decisions solely on the basis of expected wages. Btw, your example regarding teachers does not in any way prove your thesis, and I am surprised you dont see that.

Harvesting olives is not at all like harvesting coffee or beans or eggplants. Perhaps it could be done as well in the case of the latter examples, but I doubt it. And while the market does provide an incentive for improving efficiency, your idealization of the process leaves out all the other determinant factors. Overdetermination, NALs, is the key to figuring out motive forces in history or in the economy. The article you cite is nothing more than a theoretical piece intended to explain the drawbacks of current attempts to harvest certain fruits like cherries and apples and to outline the steps that need to be taken in order to make mechanical harvesting possible, but the steps are not concrete, they are just a vague outline of a hope. Again, cherries and apples are not beans, eggplant or coffee, and there is no way that this kind of technology is coming here anytime soon, if ever. In all fairness, I know you are just trying to prove a theoretical point, but the ideas exist in limbo, they are abstract, it comes down to broad generalizations again, such as "the market forces will conspire to make such technology possible, and with such technology in place, a, b, and/or c will happen." possibly so, possibly not. But it has little bearing on the specific context we are discussing. Anyway, if you have more information about the mills, I would be curious to read it. Thanks.

 

[cobraboy]

NALs that was better -- but what happened to ripping up my assumptions? Your dissertation on monetary incentives still misses the point, and the bit about Dominican firms does not deal with the fact that the main sugar producers were all foreigners, not Domincan based. Interesting, however, that your examples all center on Puerto Plata, which raises a good question: were the individual Dominican owners concentrated in that area while bigger foreign concerns in the south (Barahona, San Pedro, La Romana)? I am intrigued, and I will have to investigate.

Meanwhile, let us pose an example of higher education. Doctors, contrary to common belief, do not have expectations of earning much money, and often struggle to pay back the enormous debt they incur while studying in medical school. Private practice can be lucrative, depending on the practice, but much medical work is low salaried work at hospitals and clinics. The model is changing, with the creation of HMOs and so on, but I know plenty of docs who cannot really be said to earning money commensurate with the level of their education if we argue on the basis of a correlation between post-grad study and expected higher earnings. Let us take another example: science. Most scientists do not earn appreciably higher wages for all the extra years they spend studying. Even in the practical application of science, that is, engineering, where one would expect to find such higher wages, many engineers end up as salaried employees at various companies, Verizon, Bell Labs, Pfizer, and while they certainly earn well enough, they are middle class, their earnings are actually not so high as one would expect. Then of course there are all the Humanities students, none of whom can be said to be profiting notably from the extra years they spend in grad school. To sum up, I dont doubt that money plays a role in the decisions we make, but we dont necessarily make career decisions solely on the basis of expected wages. Btw, your example regarding teachers does not in any way prove your thesis, and I am surprised you dont see that.

Harvesting olives is not at all like harvesting coffee or beans or eggplants. Perhaps it could be done as well in the case of the latter examples, but I doubt it. And while the market does provide an incentive for improving efficiency, your idealization of the process leaves out all the other determinant factors. Overdetermination, NALs, is the key to figuring out motive forces in history or in the economy. The article you cite is nothing more than a theoretical piece intended to explain the drawbacks of current attempts to harvest certain fruits like cherries and apples and to outline the steps that need to be taken in order to make mechanical harvesting possible, but the steps are not concrete, they are just a vague outline of a hope. Again, cherries and apples are not beans, eggplant or coffee, and there is no way that this kind of technology is coming here anytime soon, if ever. In all fairness, I know you are just trying to prove a theoretical point, but the ideas exist in limbo, they are abstract, it comes down to broad generalizations again, such as "the market forces will conspire to make such technology possible, and with such technology in place, a, b, and/or c will happen." possibly so, possibly not. But it has little bearing on the specific context we are discussing. Anyway, if you have more information about the mills, I would be curious to read it. Thanks.

^^^All of this is qualitative, subjective anecdotal analysis.

Got numbers? I'm not ~necessarily~ saying you are wrong, but I see little hard fact to support your assertions.

 

[Mirador]

^^^All of this is qualitative, subjective anecdotal analysis.

Got numbers? I'm not ~necessarily~ saying you are wrong, but I see little hard fact to support your assertions.

Cobraboy, sorry to sound discouraging, but everything you can read is "qualitative, subjective, and anecdotal". "Numbers" don't help either, since you've got lies, big lies, and then numbers (or statistics). Macocael doesn't have to support his assertions, since assertions are only opinions, and you can never go "wrong" by asserting an opinion. "Hard" facts are only those you can touch, smell, taste, see, and hear...

By the way, how's the weather outside?... Is it nice?

 

[macocael]

Cobraboy, no need to blockquote the whole thing. I assume you are referring to the argument about wages and higher learning, because the rest of the passage doesnt deal with anything that requires factual evidence -- my point about harvesting is simply that the article that NALs cited was nothing more than an outline of an idea that technology might one day, depending on the fruit and certain other factors (all identified in a summary heading up the piece), make harvesting mechanically possible and profitable. As such it proves nothing and doesnt really support his argument. I dont need "numbers" to make that argument.

As for the bit about the cane producers that also doesnt require numbers, but it does require a list of the various owners in ALL the regions to see what the general makeup was. To my knowledge such a list is not available in any one place, but NALs might have some sources, so I asked. All very logical and sensible. to my knowledge, there were two principal north American companies whose holdings far exceeded their competitors.

Now as to the doctors, engineers, humanities scholars, etc.--well certainly one could produce stats, but I dont think that the argument suffers terribly from a lack of them here, since we are grouped here informally and what I have said is pretty common sensical. However, technically you are quite right, it is anecdotal. Well, take it or leave it, I am not about to waste my time on more of this, ha!

 

[cobraboy]

Now as to the doctors, engineers, humanities scholars, etc.--well certainly one could produce stats, but I dont think that the argument suffers terribly from a lack of them here, since we are grouped here informally and what I have said is pretty common sensical. However, technically you are quite right, it is anecdotal. Well, take it or leave it, I am not about to waste my time on more of this, ha!

Sorry about the backquoting. I thought I had deleted portions. Can't go back and edit after a short time.

Everyone has an opinion. But some opinions are more valid than others. One can get a whiff of validity by sourcing the factual base of their opinions. That is why I asked. If one has stats, one can usually cite the stats.

I'm not trying to be obtuse. I'm just trying to understand the factual basis of folks opinions, either by sources or edumacation.

I am impressed when someone CAN back up their opinions (not that me being impressed should be a top priority).

There is a lot of BS thrown around. It's nice to know which is solid, and which is just BS.

 

[Mirador]

so let's just stick to the thread..handle your personal gripes outside the thread. where were we ? thanks

Where were we? according to the OP, we should de discussing "Hiatians" in the DR (Argh! I hate bad spellers ;-).

From my own native perspective, and observations in the field, notwithstanding all the rhetoric in the media, the situation is as following:

Haiti and the DR have open borders. There's absolutely nothing to stop a Haitians from crossing the border into the DR. There are no clear cut markers in the 360 kilometers of border, except for the Masacre and Artibonite rivers. On the DR side there are no military controls against migrants except at the custom entrances in the towns of Dajabon, Jiman? and Pedernales. After crossing the rivers on foot, Hatians take the regular bus and motoconcho routes to the main cities. There is absolutely no ill will or feeling against Haitians among the native DR population. Most Dominicans are hospitable to Haitians and arre more than willing to help Haitians in need.
Haitians readily adapt to Dominican customs, including language (both spoken and body), dominicanizing their names, and do not tend to ghetto for very long, before merging into the regular Dominican culture. It is very difficult in most places to tell apart darker Dominicans from Haitians, unless through the official I.D. (c?dula). The identification process is complicated by the fact that over 30% of the DR population does not have a c?dula, plus it is not compulsory to carrry your c?dula on your person at all times. When raids are carried out, the authorities have a difficult time differentiating "legals" vs "illegals", and many Dominicans are bused to Ouanaminth (Juana Mendez) along with the obvious Haitians.