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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   35955 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 3, 2022

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How hard would it be for a billionaire to take over a country like Haiti?

For those out of the loop, Haiti has slowly failed as a nation state and is currently controlled almost entirely by gangs: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/03/haiti-cholera-gang-violence-water/

As of today, Haiti still had no president (due to the last one being assassinated), no parliamentary quorum, and a dysfunctional high court due to a lack of judges. (https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/haiti/)

From a "going down in history" view, you'd think quite a few of the ultra-wealthy would love the chance to become an actual dictator of an internationally recognized sovereign nation. You'd have the added benefit of being able to set your own laws, have a seat at exclusive international clubs (UN etc), and having other countries have to deal with you and your existing private businesses be protected by the right of sovereignty (assuming you relocate them to the country). I wonder what's stopping ultra-wealthy from doing this. Haiti's not even the only nation, there surely some in Africa as well that could be taken over if enough money was thrown at the problem. Mexico is basically a case study of how running such a country through money and force can even work.

Obviously there would be logistical problems with actually buying and transporting the weaponry and private mercenaries you'd have to hire to do this, but it seems like a solvable problem. From a PR perspective, you don't even need to be facetious about going in for the benefit of the native people. You could, in all seriousness, be going in to improve the lives of the Haitians who are currently dying due to their dysfunctional country.

Being that billionaires are (for now) mortal humans who would prefer their blood remain inside their bodies, I imagine few would want to take a crack at a job that killed the last guy when they could instead enjoy a life free of being murdered.

Staying alive is just challenge number one, fixing a failed state is far from a solved problem and it's probably going to take more than Haiti's GDP plus n billion dollars to fix it.

I suppose this question has the unstated assumption that billionaires are all Bruce Wayne types who are as smart as they are wealthy, but while I'm sure there are a few of those, most were in the right place at the right time, and that's the exact skillset that keeps one out of Haiti.

Very hard because globohomo does NOT like that. In the before times private citizens/companies would fuck shit up all over the world

If your aim is to improve the long-term prospects of Haiti and you had that kind of money you might be better off starting some sort of underground fertility clinic experimenting with embryo selection to increase human capital slowly over many years. Distribute some unapproved nootropics and anti-aging drugs while you're at it and who knows, maybe some of them turn out to actually work and they'll be speaking Haitian Creole on Mars in a thousand years.

No the primary benefit should be personal to the billionaire, the benefit to the Haitian population is a great side benefit is all. An altruist ultra-wealthy wouldn't have dictatorial aspirations in the first place.

Not that I think this should happen at all, but if you can spring Frank Amodeo out of jail...

A relevant link to a highly memorable thread on this subject on the original motte.

Ignoring international blowback, the plan has a significant flaw. To establish a nation, and not a handful of disparate gangs battling for control over an area (which is what we have now), some social or cultural cohesion is required between the rulers and the ruled. It is highly likely that the hypothetical billionaire and his security force will be white, or at the very least Western, and thus appear to Haitians as the original french colonialists come again. The current gangs will proclaim themselves freedom fighters against this imperialist threat, and even if you overpower them in a conventional war they can go undercover in a decentralised war which the IRA and Taliban pulled off to great effect.

Huh. I didnt realize this exact idea was discussed before on themotte. Guess the idea is more common than I thought.

To establish a nation, and not a handful of disparate gangs battling for control over an area (which is what we have now), some social or cultural cohesion is required between the rulers and the ruled.

To abuse a quote, "a nation is a meme with an army". Of these, the army is the easier part. Trillions of dollars gave Afghanistan an army, but weren't able to establish a meme of national cohesion. Honestly, I would suggest you consider a soft power approach to convince Haitians that a better Haiti is a meme worth putting blood, sweat, and tears into. But even then, it's unclear how to improve your probably-still-questionable chances.

The problem is that no one has $1bn plus in cash, gold, or liquid assets that can be accessed without distorting the market. It is tied up in stocks, in companies, in financial instruments. Zuck or Elon or Bezos can't just sell all their Meta, Tesla or Amazon shares and access the full value. And by the time their plans became public, their digital wealth would be easily seized. And $1bn probably doesn't get you anywhere near where you need to be.

Now if you took the income and started a cult, that could get you somewhere. Start recruiting young followers, get them moving in the right direction, go to it.

$1 billion is a puny amount of money easily monetized. Musks has sold well more than that amount of stock multiple times this year to prepare to pay for twitter.

I do agree $1 billion is not enough. Musks could easily raise enough to do this though. I just doubt it’s worth it to him to make Haití a country versus go to mars.

How long does Musk have that in folding money vs digital assets easily seized by an unfriendly government? I'd guess never. Musk cannot raise that much money without the cooperation of the global financial/governmental system.

He can’t go to war with the US obviously. But in terms of raising cash for anything not against US geopolitical interests he can raise as much money as he wants.

He could raise $100 billion in 24 hrs even in this market if he had some good idea he could convince people to do.

The problem is that no one has $1bn plus in cash, gold, or liquid assets that can be accessed without distorting the market.

The total market cap of all listed US stocks is in the tens of trillions. Pulling out a billion dollars isn't going to tank the market. Bezos and Musk each sold $10 billion in stock last year.

This kind of thing used to happen, it was the original definition of the word "filibuster": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster_(military). It has been illegal under U.S. law de facto since the 1794 Neutrality Act, although it wasn't always enforced until the 1850s. So what would actually happen is that the billionaire would be arrested and would lose everything.

Also, what would the billionaire gain? Haiti is a country devoid of human and natural resources, that relies on international aid simply to feed itself.

Even if he wasn't arrested (which he would be), the P.R. for the billionaire would be terrible. The American press would go into a fury at the idea of a billionaire doing an authoritarian corporate fascist take over of a country. They would signal boost every bad thing that happened: Every Haitian killed, every repressive act, every mistake in rule, everything thing with bad optics on the island would be blamed on this billionaire and he would be made to look like a super-villain.

Haiti is a country devoid of human and natural resources, that relies on international aid simply to feed itself.

While I agree with your overarching sentiment (wouldn't work, arrests & sanctions to follow quickly behind etc.), it is worth mentioning that Haiti is actually overflowing with natural resources. It is estimated that Haiti may have the largest oil reserves in the world, surpassing even Venezuela. This is in addition to some $20bn in gold deposits, significant copper deposits, and massive tracts of perfectly fertile farmland. This puts Haiti in the unenviable position of many African countries. Namely, a pathetic (read: nonexistent) government, a shocking wealth of natural resources, and abject poverty.

Was that broken by Texas? Could maybe have selective enforcement constitutional issues (you did say 1850’s).

My strategy: Get $5 billion. Get a pliable Haitian frontman. Hire lots of non-white mercenaries who act as the army of my frontman. The mercenaries will know that I pay them. The mercenaries take over increasing amounts of territory. People in my territory get free cheap food. Expand. The frontman says his highest priorities will be whatever earns him the most praise from the New York Times so stuff about the environment, marginalized Haitians, and ending the horrible legacy of Donald Trump's influence on Haiti. Have a second frontman ready to take over if the first ever shows too much independence.

A billionaire probably couldn’t afford Haiti. 10 billion perhaps but instead of military means my guess it would have to be someone like an effective altruist who wants to be King. It would have to involve coming in and bribing a lot of people and then spending a bunch on aid. Call it $200 million a year to bribe gang leaders for support and $800 million in aid for half a decade. And then maybe they could establish a near kings power and try to establish sound policy of development.

And think you implied more of a Pinochet military coup with brutal oppression. That wouldn’t seem possible within the American sphere of influence. Though I’m a strong supporter of Pinochet I just don’t think it would as an outsider especially without having Haitian blood or the communists threat to encourage America to not pay attention to methods.

Right, that kind of coup is what I was envisioning but it wouldnt have to be how its actually gone about. The incentives for being the actual ruler (dictator or "prime minister with rigged elections", are the same.

Yea international attention I supposed from CIA and other more secretive international agencies I could see being a major concern.

Haiti as an asset is probably a net negative - it relies on international charity to stay fed and produces very little of value. Assuming this would-be king was liable for the debts and maintenance of the nation, he should not pay anything at all. If anything he should be paid, and extremely well.

How do you mean?

  1. A billionaire building a private army to conquer territory isn't going to be looked upon kindly by existing world governments, for obvious reasons.

  2. Haiti has a horrific colonial history, and it's going to be easy to credibly accuse an invader of colonialism and geocide.

  3. "Invade country with military to bring peace and prosperity" has a terrible track record. Pretty likely the billionaire just fails miserably.

Haiti has a horrific colonial history, and it's going to be easy to credibly accuse an invader of colonialism and geocide.

Worse than its own? Because if not, it will be generally considered justified.

Forgive me if I'm interpreting you uncharitably, but you seem to be arguing that public opinion would consider an invasion of Haiti justified because white people were killed in the Haitian slave revolt of 1804? And your support for this claim is the fact that Czech expulsion of Sudeten Germans after WWII was considered justified? As far as I can tell, these two situations are not remotely analogous, either in reality or in terms of public perception.

If you want to rule Haiti, the straightforward approach is going to involve people with guns to remove the gangs and re-establish a monopoly on force. Organizing that level of force would be quite expensive, but routing the locals would probably not be prohibitive... but the most likely outcome is that the US and its allies then accuse you of numerous human rights violations, and you spend the rest of your life in jail.

There's a phrase from the old country: "Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics". The US runs on a very corrupt and self-serving variant of the CIE. Leaving Haiti to devolve into a hellhole of misery and despair is totally acceptable. Any action taken to impose the order that the Haitains so obviously need will not be judged against the existing misery, but against the platonic ideal of a perfect, utopian outcome, and so will be judged to be irredeemably evil.

So if a billionaire did this, they'd go straight to jail with a high degree of certainty. And on the vanishingly slim chance they were not prosecuted, what would they gain? Haiti has been a dysfunctional hellhole for hundreds of years. Even if outside force smothers the violence and imposes order, it's still going to be dirt-poor with a horrible reputation, and every likelihood of sliding right back into the muck as soon as the external influence steps back or is removed. What's the upside for the billionaire?

Unless you did this with some substantial amount of subterfuge you probably wouldn’t get the international recognition you seek and would likely risk a significant portion of your wealth being hit by sanctions. The US government wouldn’t be terribly happy with the headlines of “Jeff Bezos Conquers Haiti.” You’d also have to live their which would be a big step down in quality of life, especially given the aforementioned sanctions. Now if you could support the coup secretly and get yourself invited to be president then maybe, but that’d be much harder.

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