Population Pressure and Agrarian Property Rights in Haiti

Abstract

Furubotn and Pejovich define property rights as t h e sanctioned behavioral relations among men that arise from the existence of things and pertain to their use , and argue that the prevailing sys­ t em of property rights in the communi ty can be described, then, as the set of economic and social relations defining the position of each individual with respect to the utilization of scarce resour­ ce s . 1 For a long t ime, property rights constituted a neglected field in economic theory presum­ ably, mainly as a result of the increasing mathematization of the discipline after the Second World War. During the past decade, however, the concept has played an increasingly important role in economic research, especially in a t tempts to link theory with empirical evidence. According to Furubotn and Pejovich, the aim of the property rights approach to economics is to establish ope­ rationally meaningful, i.e., empirically testable, propositions about the economy, given postulates on maximizing behavior and the sovereignty of individuals ' preferences or values in guiding eco­ nomic choice. For such an approach to yield fruit­ ful insights, the institutional environment within which economic activity takes place must be spe­ cified with great care. 2 The development of property rights and insti­ tut ions can itself be subjected to economic analysis. This paper attempts to link the concept of property rights with the degree of population pressure on the land in the setting of an underdeveloped agra­ rian economy: that of Haiti. It will be shown how changes in population pressure, and, hence, in re­ lative factor supplies, have constituted an impor­ tant determinant of the system of property rights in Haitian agriculture from the French colonial period up to the present t ime. In this context, the th ings referred to by Furubotn and Pejovich are not only land but also men those m e n who work the land. The major changes in population density have been linked to important changes not only in relations between the laboring and non-laboring classes, which pertain to the use of agricultural land, but also in the relations con­ nected with the use of labor. Property rights in both land and human beings have been redefined and the degree of population pressure has had an important role to play in this process. This has not been a role which could be unequivocally predicted from a known man / l and ratio or from a change in this ratio, but one which has differed as a number of circumstances exogenous to pop­ ulation growth have differed.