Fatton's diagnosis is that Haiti has fallen out of the periphery of the world economy into something worse. He calls it the outer periphery: a zone occupied by states under international tutelage, where politics is zero-sum and catastrophe recurrent. Three forces put Haiti there, in his account, namely an externally imposed neoliberal order, a chronic crisis of governability, and the earthquake of January 2010.

Domestic actors are not spared. With production stagnant, closeness to state power becomes the readiest route to wealth for anyone outside the established elite, since the state still issues licences, collects taxes and controls force. The result is patronage, criminal arrangement and networks of banditry linking businessmen, politicians and officers.

Meanwhile aid dependence and the proliferation of NGOs have hollowed the state to the point of virtual trusteeship, leaving a country sustained by remittances and foreign assistance and confined to the cheapest end of global production.