Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies
much greater degree from kinship-based networking than do
members of the lower classes.
The number of potential kin grows as an individual's net
worth increases. The successful are obliged as a matter of
course to bestow favors on a widely extended group of kin and
colleagues. Individual success in the political arena carries
along a host of hangers-on whose fortunes rise and fall with
those of their patron. The well-to-do try to limit the demands
of less illustrious kin and to obtain alliances with families of
equal or greater status. These ties permit the extended family
to diversify its social and economic capital.
The Middle Sector
The emerging influential middle sector, which includes the
three components of upper-middle, middle-middle, and lowermiddle
class, represents roughly 25 to 35 percent of the population
in the late 1990s. It is concentrated in the ranks of salaried
professionals in government and the private sector.
Members of the middle sector have almost no independent
sources of wealth and so are responsive to changes in the buying
power of wages and contractions in employment that
accompany economic cycles. The middle level follows the
racial stratification of the society as a whole: generally lighterskinned
as one proceeds up the social scale. As a group, the
middle sector differs in lifestyle, marital stability, and occupation
from the poor urban masses. Members firmly adhere to
the Hispanic ideals of leisure and lifestyle espoused by the elite
and consider themselves, at least in spirit, a part of la gente
buena. As with the elite, economic expansion based on the
growth of sugar production in the late nineteenth century
broadened the middle reaches of the social ladder as well.
Those of this new middle segment, however, are limited in
their upward mobility by dark skin and/or limited finances.
They are a diverse group that includes small shopowners,
teachers, clerical employees, and professionals. They lack a
class identity based on any sense of common social or economic
interests. Moreover, any sense of mutual interest is
undermined by the pervasiveness of the patron-client system.
Individuals improve their status by linking up with a more privileged
protector, not by joint political action for a shared goal.
The life strategy of middle-class families is similar to that of
the elite. Their goals are to diversify their economic assets and
to extend their network of political and social influence. As
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