12596: Re: 12581: In defense of the critics: Richter replies to Corbett and Corbett responds

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Philip Richter <philipcrichter@hotmail.com>

Bob:
Of all people!! An admirer of Fass, on top of it!! The best way to find the
"causes" of poverty is to talk to the people who are poor, who are
experiencing the "causes" first hand and navigate the dynamics of those
causes. There are externals to the Haitian economy, but you can grasp those
in about 30 minutes reading any number of people. Virtually all the  rest is
all known accurately by the aggregate  population of the poor.  The best of
the experts and critics who have written volumes about poverty in Haiti and
Haitian 'reality' invariably realize that they've got to talk to those
people who live what they write about to both test their conclusions and to
acquire solid knowledge.

Philip Richter

====================

Philip, your second sentence says it all:  "An admirer of Fass on top of
it."

PHilip, I agree with your notion of where the data comes from.  But, like
many, many others, I am not a skilled gather of that data, nor do I have
the language skills, the time and the contacts.  So I learned a TREMENDOUS
amount from the book of Simon Fass, The Political Economy of Haiti.  Simon
is not a poor Haitian, but an American scholar who teaches at a university
and produced this wonderful book.  He used, as the source of his data and
his critical insights, conversations and direct experiences with very poor
people struggling to make a living in Haiti. Yes.  A great source.  Many
of us rely on folks like him to create that knowledge and then we grow
from it.

Again, I find myself deeply indebted with the critics and scholars who
produce ideas.

Bob Corbett