Slavery Reparations: Is it time?

[Disgustipated]

Speaking of Welfare, I was under the impression that Clinton abolished welfare, so I don't get that argument. From what I understand, they have a program with a different name that is only temporary.

 

[Ayn Rand]

Without wading in too deep here, I want to point out the wretched irony inherent in the West's plunder of the entire rest of the world followed sharply by "Hey, woah woah woah, that was our ancestors! We definitely don't owe our current prosperity to their actions! Asking us to pay anything to anyone is unfair!"

Every other race and culture on Earth also engaged in slavery and plunder.

So why aren't they all rich?

 

[amadeus]

Without wading in too deep here, I want to point out the wretched irony inherent in the West's plunder of the entire rest of the world followed sharply by "Hey, woah woah woah, that was our ancestors! We definitely don't owe our current prosperity to their actions! Asking us to pay anything to anyone is unfair!"

Our ancestors? My ancestors were all dirt poor, which is why they left their home countries in the first place.

 

[Traitorfish]

Paying reparations would be a form of slavery for the people who have to pay them.

That's true. When you get down to it, the slaves were basically free, they just had to pay a couple of extra percent on their taxes compared to the whites, so this would definitely be the same sort of thing. They only spent fourteen hours a day picking cotton while somebody whipped them because they enjoyed it.

Our ancestors? My ancestors were all dirt poor, which is why they left their home countries in the first place.

Nonsense. Everyone knows that impoverished immigrant ghettos grew fat from the slave trade. You couldn't move in New York c.1880 for Italian labourers in fur coats or Jewish street vendors in diamond-studded tiaras.

 

[FriendlyFire]

It's reasonable to assume that blacks receive more welfare, direct or indirect, per capita than whites. I doubt blacks receive more in absolute terms since there still are a lot more whites.

Is this question really about reparations, i.e. returning stolen property to its owners? Or is it about stealing from people today (blacks included) to set up a race-based wealth transfer scheme?

Why bother ?
Once the Teabaggers and Republicans gain power they will reverse the consitution admendment ending slavery. That will also solve the whole mexican immigration problem, talk about killing two birds with one stone.

 

[Cutlass]

Speaking of Welfare, I was under the impression that Clinton abolished welfare, so I don't get that argument. From what I understand, they have a program with a different name that is only temporary.

There are a lot of different programs that fall under the category of "welfare". Most are intact, just a lot cheaper than they used to be and not as effective.

 

[Dirichlet]

Morally I think it would be just. I find it very strange that the same people who would strongly oppose high inheritance taxes would disagree. Obviously you inherit obligations as well. So if you have a house or land that was in your family hands back then you profited from slavery in some sense, at least if it was in a region where slavery was an economic factor.

Practically I think it would be nigh impossible to do it fairly. Still think you could look at some of the major commercial profitors like above mentioned bank.

 

[luiz]

Morally I think it would be just. I find it very strange that the same people who would strongly oppose high inheritance taxes would disagree. Obviously you inherit obligations as well. So if you have a house or land that was in your family hands back then you profited from slavery in some sense, at least if it was in a region where slavery was an economic factor.

Practically I think it would be nigh impossible to do it fairly. Still think you could look at some of the major commercial profitors like above mentioned bank.

When you look at things that far in history it's very difficult to say who profited from slavery. Any given slave-owner (and every given slave!) may have several hundreds descendants, including illegitmate children, including poor people who were born to poor parents, etc. To say they owe anyone reparations is ridiculous.

And of course there's the issue that the vast majority of Americans, including the vast majority of white americans, does not descend of any slave owner. So why should they taxes finance reparations to people who were not even affected by slavery?

And then there are all the technical issues that have already been mentioned: mixed race people, blacks who do not descend from slaves, blacks who do descend from slaves but from American slaves, etc.

 

[luiz]

How is it in Brazil?

I've heard that more slaves were trafficked into Brazil than into the USA. When did that stop? When was slavery made illegal? Was there ever a residual racial affect from the whole mess?

Yep, more slaves came to Brazil than to anywhere. It's no wonder Brazil has the biggest black population outside Africa (and IIRC the second biggest worldwide, after Nigeria).

Slavery ended in 1888, through the Lei Áurea (Golden Law, or Imperial Law 3,353). It was already dying, as slave trafficking was illegal and the children of slaves were no longer slaves, but it was still a huge institution. In some senses, the Empire was slavery. It's no wonder the Empire itself died just one year after slavery.

Slavery was a much larger part of everyday life in Brazil than in the US (or anywhere else, really). Even poor white people had slaves. Foreign visitors were shocked to see white people living in a miserable condition and still refusing to do any work (physical work was considered something for slaves). It's the main reason why the country failed so miserably to advance in the 19th Century.

But racial tensions were nowhere as big as in the US, or in some other Latin American countries (where the tensions were indians vs. whites, not blacks vs. whites) because in Brazil slavery was not primarily about race. It was an economic institution, every bit as brutal as in other places, but it was not about race. There was never any law against marrying blacks. Mulattos were always born free (unlike the US). Several freed slaves would own slaves themselves (in fact some of the richest and most succesful slave traders were former slaves). There were black nobles in the Empire; in fact during the height of he slave trade, in the early 19th Century, the president of the Bank of Brazil was black.

It's rather ironic that racism was only a big thing in Brazil in the period following the Abolition (in fact the rationale of some abolitionists was precisely that we should deport blacks to Africa to save Brazil). The early Republic was far more racist than the Empire, as it was influenced by the "scientific racism" theories that were coming from Europe. It's no wonder several of Brazil's most prominent blacks and mulattos refused to accept the Republic, some even went into exile with the Emperor. There was a deliberate policy to whiten Brazil that lasted all the way to the 40's, and the ethnic makeup of the country, still predominantly black and mulatto in 1889, changed radiacally with the millions of Italians, Germans, Portuguese and Spaniars that came in the next 5 decades.

 

[Crezth]

Every other race and culture on Earth also engaged in slavery and plunder.

So why aren't they all rich?

Because they didn't engage in that behavior to the same massive, industrialized scale that the West did? it's not exactly a 1:1 comparison between Britain's systematic abuse of Africans and Indians and, say, the Mughal conquest of India.

I'm not trying to say "white men bad" but it should be understood that a lot of the wealth that the west accumulated was directly a product of massive amounts of exploitation on a level never seen before or since.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

The whole "reparations for slavery" thing is stupid. Welfare I can see, sometimes. Affirmative action, maybe. But reparations? Nope. Not only are there no living slaves or slave owners today, but I'd be willing to bet a majority in this country isn't even descended FROM slave owners. I know I'm not, I've traced my family history. We weren't even HERE at the time of the civil war. So why should we pay to feel guilty about slavery?

Me, descendant of German and Irish immigrants!

 

[JohnRM]

Only if I get to own a slave, first.

 

[Crezth]

The whole "reparations for slavery" thing is stupid. Welfare I can see, sometimes. Affirmative action, maybe. But reparations? Nope. Not only are there no living slaves or slave owners today, but I'd be willing to bet a majority in this country isn't even descended FROM slave owners. I know I'm not, I've traced my family history. We weren't even HERE at the time of the civil war. So why should we pay to feel guilty about slavery?

Me, descendant of German and Irish immigrants!

Most Germans weren't Hitler, so why should they feel bad about the Holocaust?

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

Most Germans weren't Hitler, so why should they feel bad about the Holocaust?

Yeah, you're right there. If a German wasn't alive during WWII, he really has no reason to feel guilty about something he never did. I hadn't even thought about it that way.

 

[Traitorfish]

I'm not trying to say "white men bad" but it should be understood that a lot of the wealth that the west accumulated was directly a product of massive amounts of exploitation on a level never seen before or since.

Who's "the West", though? You can't put dirt-poor farmers and labourers on the same level as plantation owners and industrial tycoons just because they're all white. Aside from anything else, it accepts the racists' premise that human beings are more divided by race than by class, which: no.

Most Germans weren't Hitler, so why should they feel bad about the Holocaust?

Is that a contentious suggestion?

 

[Lone Wolf]

Who's "the West", though? You can't put dirt-poor farmers and labourers on the same level as plantation owners and industrial tycoons just because they're all white.

U$A and the UKKK had been oppressing the masses of India and Afrika* for a long, long time.

*Never understood why they insist on spelling Afrika with a k. You'd think that that'd be too much like Amerika.

 

[Crezth]

Who's "the West", though? You can't put dirt-poor farmers and labourers on the same level as plantation owners and industrial tycoons just because they're all white. Aside from anything else, it accepts the racists' premise that human beings are more divided by race than by class, which: no.

Indeed, you are correct; but that the industrial might of Western nations, and the subsequent high quality of life that those countries continue to enjoy today owe largely to those nations' exploitation of foreign peoples and plundering of the wealth and natural resources of those peoples' lands.

I do not think that people are more divided by race than class, but I think that, often in history, it serves the interests of the ruling classes to turn the lower classes against one another, and we see this play out in the course of the 19th century.

Is that a contentious suggestion?

I was being facetious; it should be apparent that a good man who does nothing is akin to the villain himself.

 

[lovett]

Is this question really about reparations, i.e. returning stolen property to its owners?

As a libertarian, I am surprised that you think it isn't.

I hope you are acquainted with Nozick's libertarianism. He really is the best, brightest and most convincing writer in the tradition (which is not to say he is convincing simpliciter). If you follow any theory that resembles that which he lays out in Anarchy, State and Utopia (and there are no other cogent libertarian theories) you will believe that justice in transfer that flows from justice in acquisition is what justifies any current distribution.

Justice in transfer is just transfer of property. If trade is made freely, if property is transferred without coercion or other distortion, the resultant distribution (whatever it is) is just. Hence, if millions of people freely pay a few dollars to watch Wilt Chamberlain play baseball, that Mr. Chamberlain ends up fabulously wealthy is perfectly just (even if others are living in abject poverty).

But this obviously depends on justice in acquisition; that people acquire their property justly. If property is stolen or in some other way unjustly acquired, it cannot be justly transferred. You cannot sell stolen property because it is not rightfully yours; the original property owner still holds the rights to it.

We can say, at the least, that all the property produced by the institution of slavery was unjustly acquired. That is because the labour expropriated to produce it rightfully belonged to the slaves; violent coercion does not justice in acquisition make. Probably the best way to parlay this fact is to conclude that most (if not all) of the property produced by that labour rightfully belongs to those slaves.

Unfortunately, the slaves are (as has been noted) dead. One cannot return this property to its rightful owners. However, that does not make the holders of this property its rightful owners, or the holders of property derived (through, for instance, investment) from this property its rightful owners.

Who are its rightful owners? The most reasonable conclusion seems to be that its rightful owners are those the slaves (rightful owners) would have given it to were they able. If someone steals a family heirloom from my home, and I die, the thief does not become rightful owner. The person I would of given it to seems like the rightful owner; one of my descendants. Similarly, one can assume that the slaves would have given much of their rightful property to their descendants. That makes their descendants its rightful owners.

But, if that is true, surely we should return this property to those descendants After all, we should return property to whoever rightfully owns it. Now, obviously their are logistical problems here, but that is a weak excuse. We can see that the descendants of slaves are generally much poorer than the descendants of slaveholders. We can reasonably assume that much of the (inherited) wealth of the latter in some way derives from property rightfully owned (on this theory) by the former. Therefore, reparation are a moral necessity. Precisely, reparations in the form of some re-distribution from the descendants of slave-holders to the descendants of slaves. This reparation is simply the return of property to its rightful owners.

The above is a libertarian defence of reparations. It is a defence that flows from the framework developed by the most plausible libertarian theory. I do not believe this theory nor its conclusion. But for one who does, things start to seem a little problematic, I dare say.

 

[Traitorfish]

Indeed, you are correct; but that the industrial might of Western nations, and the subsequent high quality of life that those countries continue to enjoy today owe largely to those nations' exploitation of foreign peoples and plundering of the wealth and natural resources of those peoples' lands.

It's a bit more complex than that. The West also exported hugely to these countries, and indeed, it had to; plunder may be a viable basis for some Assyrian despotate, but not for a modern capitalistic state. The problem wasn't "plundering", but the development of an industrialised core and a backwards periphery, the former possessing all the accoutrements of modernity, the latter almost none of them. (In fact, it was often the very opposite of plunder: a process of careful economic cultivation, such as developing Egypt as a major producer of cotton. It was just development in a way which suited Western capitalist ends, rather than local ends.) And that's not something that "the West" did, collectively, it's something deliberately pursued by Western capital, embodied in the Western capitalist class. If it just so happened that the concentration of capital in this manner also left it vulnerable to the Western working class, who were able to carve for themselves a halfway equitable piece of the pie, why should they be held responsible? The most austere poverty on their part would not have improved the lot of the colonial subjects one iota- and we have a century of just that arrangement to prove it- so to cast aspersion upon them for trying to alter their lot is to do them a serious injustice.

I do not think that people are more divided by race than class, but I think that, often in history, it serves the interests of the ruling classes to turn the lower classes against one another, and we see this play out in the course of the 19th century.

By asking one set to pay questionable "reparations" to another, for example?

I was being facetious; it should be apparent that a good man who does nothing is akin to the villain himself.

How so?

 

[amadeus]

Now, obviously their are logistical problems here, but that is a weak excuse.

It isn't an excuse. If you are going to be consistent in applying libertarian theory, then people are entitled to restitution for past wrongs done by the Romans and the Mongols. The lack of practical application of libertarian theory here justifies my rejection of the idea that we should start what would amount to be a wild goose chase.