Discussion Post: Poverty Inc.

In the movie "Poverty Inc." the biggest aspect that stuck out to me the most was how the unseen. Haiti used to produce rice regularly and that was how many people worked and got the money they needed to provide for their families. The president thought it was a good idea to send a lot of cheaper rice to Haiti, but instead of helping them, it caused more poverty because people in Haiti lost their jobs. Many people who lived in Haiti had to move to Port-au Prince and they overbuilt slums. This is so interesting to me because it shows us how important it is to notice the unseen. Seeing how the unseen aspect of the president's choices affected Haiti shows that not all choices and regulations that seem positive are. They could have many negative impacts that weren't expected from that particular rule, choice, or regulation. The unseen aspect that affected Haiti was very negative. its intentions weren't evil but it did not help Haiti out of poverty at all. "I'm not saying they were wrong. I'm not saying it was and it wasn't- it certainly wasn't evil, but the side effects of this plan, this social engineering that came from the North, was massive slums built with concrete and poorly constructed" (0:15:19). It made them much worse off than before. it is important to pay attention to the unseen ripple effects of past choices so that we can determine whether or not a certain choice would have positive or negative outcomes. Any society that experiences any of the ripple effects from choices authority makes will probably not support it if it is anything like the case in this documentary. Haiti was not happy about the president sending in rice because it caused many of them to lose their jobs. many of them struggled to even have those jobs in the first place. Although many people did not support the president's choice, there were still some people that were thankful for it because it opened up opportunities to start new businesses and jobs. Jean-Ronel Noel is a cofounder of Enersa and was one of the people that didn't necessarily support it but was thankful for the changes. "This is where we started. Now, we have like big contracts and we have 62 employees right now, so we think we found the right trade" (0:19:44). It is crazy that regulations, laws, and decisions made from so far away can have such large impacts on places far away. Negative effects aren't the only effects these decisions had on people though. It may have been completely unpredictable but some people still positively benefitted from it, like John-Ronel Noel. It is important to think about the unseen even when it is not talked about. Most people would assume that giving more rice to Haiti would just be very helpful when it wasn't. In class, we read about Rashid in professor Bylund's book "The seen, The Unseen, and The Unrealized". "The 'unseen' analysis of sweatshops focuses instead on the trade-off as it exists for workers like Rashid and consequently concludes that the sweatshop offers higher income and better working conditions that all existing alternatives" (pg. 166). For entrepreneurs, it is important to think about the unseen even when no one else is.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.scientificamerican.com%2Farticle%2Fthe-true-haiti-earthquake-death-toll-is-much-worse-than-early-official-counts%2F&psig=AOvVaw0NkfLY8KUoFDZvf4Wv7g9t&ust=1668646693015000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CA8QjRxqFwoTCJCb-7y_sfsCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE