The Power of the Market: Entrepreneurs in Haiti’s Tent Cities

It’s been almost three months since the devastating earthquake in Haiti, and a couple of recent videos highlight the important role being played there by entrepreneurs, who are starting businesses in the tent cities to provide needed services to their local communities.

In this video, National Public Radio’s “Planet Money” program reports on the Haitian “entrepreneurs who are kick-starting the local economy.” In February, a Reuters video highlighted how “tent cities in Haiti have become something of an incubator for entrepreneurs.”

The fact that small businesses are flourishing in Haiti’s tent cities after a natural disaster clearly illustrates the entrepreneurial spirit of the Haitian people and the economic concept of “spontaneous order”—the spontaneous emergence of order out of seeming chaos. And it’s also important to note that all of the entrepreneurial activity in Haiti is happening in an environment almost entirely free of government licensing, regulation, or central planning. It’s a great example of the “invisible hand” of the market at work in Haiti’s tent cities.