This message is in response to the question "How do property rights and the rule of law work together and why are they important when it comes to eradicating extreme poverty?"
The status of property rights and rule of law in places like Haiti are a founding principle as to why they have not been able to get out of the poverty that they have been stuck in. In my opinion, there are two leading principles in correlation with property rights and the rule of law that are the most pressing. The lack of boundaries and the free-for-all mentality.
The lack of boundaries is the principle that I believe creates the idea that there's no point in working for something of substantial value. For example, a Haitian worker is able to work really hard and save enough money to legally buy a hut/house. On paper, this land and house is theirs, but the state of the community doesn't respect that. The houses are very literally on top of each other and people's things are very often overlapping. What is the push for a member of the community to work so much harder than others to purchase something that is only going to be overtaken, trashed, or shared with people who did not work for it. When said worker goes off to work that day, what is keeping others from entering their home and taking anything they please? Ultimately, nothing. There is no upstanding law that the people respect enough not to do so out of fear of persecution, so they do.
Secondly, their free-for-all mentality plays a huge role in the state of property rights. This point ties more directly to the point being made by Poverty Inc.. Tying back to Haiti, they have become accustomed to a majority of necessities being donated and retrieving those necessities being a first-come-first-serve situation. It is expected, that a large amount of food being eaten and clothes being warn have been received for free. This takes away any regard for the idea that the people eating/wearing these things put in time and effort to earn them. As a community, they know these items were given and therefore what's the harm in taking it from the people that took it first. Items are stollen and passed around time and time again because ownership is not a respected idea.
In order to make some kind of change to the state of poverty in places like Haiti, clearly, some adjustments need to be made. The two most pressing things being implementing law that is enforced strictly and will then be respected by the community and the halting of dumping resources into the country. These two things together have created the situation that Haiti is in right now and making adjustments to one or both of those things will start them on the road out of poverty.
