How are slavery reparations fair?
How are slavery reparations fair?
This relates to the BBC article [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66596790] which states "the UK should pay $24tn (£18.8tn) for its slavery involvement in 14 countries".
The UK abolished slavery in 1833. That's 190 years ago. So nobody alive today has a slave, and nobody alive today was a slave.
Dividing £18tn by the number of UK taxpayers (31.6m) gives £569 each. Why do I, who have never owned a slave, have to give £569 to someone who similarly is not a slave?
When I've paid my £569 is that the end of the matter forever or will it just open the floodgates of other similar claims?
Isn't this just a country that isn't doing too well, looking at the UK doing reasonably well (cost of living crisis excluded of course), and saying "oh there's this historical thing that affects nobody alive today but you still have to give us trillions of Sterling"?
Shouldn't payment of reparations be limited to those who still benefit from the slave trade today, and paid to those who still suffer from it?
(Please don't flame me. This is NSQ. I genuinely don't know why this is something I should have to pay. I agree slavery is terrible and condemn it in all its forms, and we were right to abolish it.)
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You've gotten loads of replies on where the number comes from, but much fewer on why reparations should be paid.
Besides the obvious showmanship, diversions and international horse trading, there is one reason seldom mentioned:
Absolution.
You pay the reparations to clear your conscience, and to feel like you can move past an evil part of your history. You paid a pittance that went to all the wrong people, but at least you did a more-than-symbolic thing and can let it go.
I have no idea if this has ever actually worked or even been tried before, but imagine if your society could get rid of all the guilt connected to the slavery parts of history. All that emotional energy freed to enjoy, empathise and connect with current issues, and also finally be able to pick up the older issues that got overshadowed by the big looming Evil in the middle of the room.
I mean that, and also the fact that countries that were plundered for slaves basically lost on a lot of progress due to that, and countries that got slaves were built off of that, basically for free. Sure, it's not exactly fair to say that the plundered countries would have gotten to where slaver countries are today without that, but it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to see that Europe basically fucked Africa for a century, Africa is worse off for it, Europe is not, and they probably should be giving back not just for their conscience but as what it's called: reparations.
What I'm trying to get at is that after WWI, Europe (and especially France) decided now-germany did a lot of damage to them, and it wasn't fair that they could get to bomb your country to hell and not pay to fix it. So Germany had to pay reparations (which was a factor for WWII but we'll not get into that), as a way of helping those countries build back what they had bombed.
Of course, all the economic rationeles are valid.
They are also not very compelling. If slaver Europe fucked over Africa for a century, should we compensate them only for stolen labor? How about stolen resources? Caused suffering? Lost progress? Lost standing? Lost lives?
How about all the exploitation that has happened since, due to slaver Europe having the upper hand? African labor and resources are still valued lower than in richer countries as local working conditions are still poor and exploitative.
Also, could paying reparations as a lump sum ever measure up to the slow development of infrastructure, knowledge, culture and national pride/trust/stability that comes with building your own wealth?
We have plenty of experience with aid getting stolen by warlords, and grants commonly get lost to corruption, cronies and other misappropriation, even without the warlords.
For the fiscal compensation to make sense, we're talking orders of magnitude larger sums, and they would have to be given together with labor, knowledge, supportive relations, etc. over decades. And also with much fewer strings than our current economic system allows.
I find that there is no satisfying way to fiscally compensate for a century of exploitation, suffering and oppression, and have found that the sums and arguments are more compelling as an absolution. It's about the slavers wanting to clear their conscience more than making it right.
It's not the most noble reason for it, but it seems do do more for that than for the exploited people. Either change what we're talking about, or face that your reasons are about you, not them.
I am against reparations because it trivializes the immense harm that was done, and makes it seem like it can be made up for with a cash payment, like when someone wrecks your car. I feel the harm was so immense that the guilt can't properly be bought off in indulgence payments, and any attempt to try will fall short of the goal, while cutting off all further debate in the topic among overly transactional people. After the reparation payment, some people can say "See, racism is over! We paid it off and are debt-free!"
And then we get a situation like exists in much of the US South right now, where the Supreme Court pronounced racism over and ended the Voting Rights act, then State GOP Majorities picked right back up doing a lot of things that the act prohibited.
The debt won't truly be paid until the descendants of those slaves are truly treated as equals to the descendants of the slave holders. A cash payment simply isn't enough, we need to improve society. Investing that money into education, and ensuring that regressive policies don't infest our local education system, is a start.