There was lots of lefty pointing-and-sputtering about the evil, depravity, and all-around badness of my post last week on the possible reasons for Haiti’s woeful lot, directed at my speculation that Haiti might have been a lot better off if it hadn’t gained independence in 1804. Obviously, Haitians at the time of their revolution had every right, even duty, to try to free themselves from their slave masters; but as with other revolutions in France, Russia, China, Cambodia, and Iran, the result was not necessarily to Haiti’s long-term advantage.

Anthony Daniels makes a similar point in the new dead-tree issue of NR, in a reflection on revolutions:

In the case of Haiti, continuing as a French colony, the slaves would have been emancipated in 1848, as everywhere else in French possessions. Haiti by now would be a department d’outre-mer of France . . . and it would have received massive subsidies from the French state to encourage at least the majority of the population to stay put. . . .
If only the heroes of the Haitian revolution could have hung on for another 40 or 50 years, how different would have been the standard of living of their descendents, and how much better placed the country to withstand natural disaster! But, of course, one cannot blame them: History is lived forwards, not backwards, and no one can see the long-term unintended consequences of his acts.