Slavery has never been legal in California. But that didn’t stop the California Reparations Task Force. In its final report, issued on June 29, it suggested that the state government pay $1.3 million to Californians who can demonstrate that they are the descendant of a slave or a freed black person living in the U.S. prior to 1900. This payment is to compensate those whose ancestors suffered from chattel slavery and its downstream effects, such as racism and lower life expectancies.
Here’s the problem. The reparations being proposed will take money from people, the vast majority of whom gained nothing from slavery, and give it to people who benefited immensely from slavery.
Who suffered from slavery? The slaves themselves. They were brought from Africa against their will, and they were forced to work without receiving the full value of their labor.
Who gained nothing from slavery? Except for the rare person who inherited an estate that slavery enriched, every contemporary non-black American gained nothing from slavery.
Who gained from slavery? Americans of African descent.
The late economist Walter E. Williams said that slavery was the worst thing ever to happen to his ancestors, but the best thing ever to happen to him. Why? Because instead of growing up in Guinea-Bissau, Angola, Senegal, Mali, or the Democratic Republic of Congo, he enjoyed the opportunities, wealth, health, security, and freedom of the United States.
This is from David R. Henderson and Charles L. Hooper, “The Surprising Beneficiaries of American Slavery,” American Institute for Economic Research, July 14, 2023.
Read the whole thing. It’s quite short.
READER COMMENTS
Daniel Greco
Jul 15 2023 at 11:14am
I don’t think American descendants of slaves alive today would’ve been worse off–because they’d have grown up in poorer countries–if not for American slavery. Rather, American descendants of slaves alive today simply wouldn’t have ever been born in an alternate history where there was never slavery in the Americas.
If my father had never met my mother, I’d never have been born, right? Well if history for the last three hundred years had been substantially different, my great great great great…^n…grandparents wouldn’t have met, and so wouldn’t have had my great great great…^n-1…grandparents, and so I’d never have been born.
This doesn’t really change the point about reparations though; the upshot is that you can’t justify reparations to people alive today on the grounds that they’re worse off than they would’ve been had their ancestors many generations ago not been treated so unjustly. Anybody alive today wouldn’t have existed in an alternate history where their ancestors many generations ago had very different lives. Maybe reparations can be justified on other grounds, but those ones don’t work.
Robert EV
Jul 16 2023 at 11:36am
“the upshot is that you can’t justify reparations to people alive today on the grounds that they’re worse off than they would’ve been had their ancestors many generations ago not been treated so unjustly.”
This is a strawman of the justification for reparations. steve, below, covers it. A more detailed justification is outlined in articles such as this: https://theconversation.com/the-case-for-african-american-reparations-explained-114124
I’ll highlight two of its paragraphs:
“This reluctance seems puzzling in light of the fact that the U.S. government successfully pressured postwar German governments to pay Holocaust survivors $927 million – worth $8.84 billion today – in compensation as part of the 1952 Luxembourg Agreement.
And after the passage of a 1998 reparations law, the U.S. government also modestly compensated some 82,000 Japanese Americans who were discriminatorily incarcerated as “enemy aliens” during World War II with $20,000 payments made to each surviving person who had been detained.”
You can argue that those payments directly benefited those who were impacted, but in 1952 there were still some living former slaves (not to mention the Jim Crow disenfranchised blacks). And US law allows an estate to sue for compensation.
Robert EV
Jul 16 2023 at 11:37am
I did put carriage returns in. I wish econlib used a more modern text widget.
Mark Z
Jul 16 2023 at 7:29pm
That the compensation was payed directly to those who suffered the crimes, *not* to their descendants, is the whole point. My guess is most Americans 100 years ago didn’t think this was the federal government’s collective obligation. If it was anyone’s it was southern states, or more specifically southern slave owners. But compelling such reparations would’ve been politically inconvenient. But in any case, that the US could have paid compensation to former slaves in the past does nothing to make the case for paying their descendants today
Robert EV
Jul 17 2023 at 9:32am
There are still people who lived under “separate but equal” and other Jim Crow laws who have yet to reach retirement age. The 1965 Civil Rights Act was only 58 years ago, and it took some time for it to be fully enforced by local governments.
Daniel L Greco
Jul 19 2023 at 7:08am
I don’t think the argument I’m responding to is a straw man, as lots of people think of reparations as owed to ADOS, as such, because of what slavery did to their ancestors.
As for reparations to people alive now who lived under Jim Crow, that’s a completely different argument to which the arguments in the OP, and my comment, don’t apply. I, for one, would support reparations to black people alive now who lived in the US under Jim Crow.
Charles Hooper
Jul 19 2023 at 2:42pm
Two questions:
(1) If public policy before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was clearly anti-black, has the tide turned to the point where we can say that public policy since then has been pro-black? And, if so, how should all the Great Society stuff be factored in? And, further, have those programs generally helped or hurt black people? If they’ve helped, does that lessen the argument for reparations? And if they’ve hurt, wouldn’t the best thing to do right now be to stop them?
(2) If a group of people was clearly helped by some event, such as getting to live in the U.S. because of slavery, but was hurt by other events, such as anti-black policies since then, do we net them out or can we simply fall back on the argument that getting to live in a better country is enough?
Charles Hooper
Jul 19 2023 at 2:51pm
You are absolutely correct.
If Event A caused people to move from Place B to C, the babies that would have been born in B weren’t ever born, but there were different babies born in C.
The babies that would have been born in B never existed. The babies born in C would never have been born except for Event A. They literally owe their lives to Event A.
Andrew_FL
Jul 15 2023 at 1:25pm
I always tell people this: I would not exist if not for Communism and Fascism. Without Communism, there would be no Hungarian People’s Republic. With no Hungarian People’s Republic, there is no Hungarian Revolution against the Hungarian People’s Republic. With no Hungarian Revolution, there is no stomping out of the Revolution by the Soviets-indeed without Communism there is no Soviet Union. Without the Hungarian Revolution being put down, my maternal grandfather never flees to America, never marries my maternal grandmother, my mother is never born, I don’t exist
Without fascism, there is no fascist Spain under Franco. With no Franco, my paternal grandfather might never have left Spain for a better life in America. He’d never meet my paternal grandmother, my father would never be born, I’d never be born.
Now Communism and Fascism were terrible things. Slavery was a terrible thing. Many people were hurt by all those things, so it would be better if they hadn’t happened. But the fact that you and I exist to be better off than they were, is only possible in the world where those terrible things happened.
Ahmed Fares
Jul 15 2023 at 3:52pm
A quote from Brad DeLong:
Knut P. Heen
Jul 17 2023 at 6:46am
Good post. I agree completely with Brad DeLong. I may also add that the alternative to slavery in America was not freedom in West Africa. For example, The Sokoto Caliphate which dominated Western Africa had lots of slaves (half the population). Moreover, most of the slaves sold to European slave traders were captured in the many wars in the region. The Europeans did participate that much in the enslavement themselves due to malaria in the region.
Charles Hooper
Jul 19 2023 at 2:59pm
But those consumers in Belgium, London, and the Midwest only benefited if the reduced costs of production were shared with them. If the market price for a bushel of cotton was $X, a slaveowner might have been able to produce at $X/2 but still sell at the market price of $X, pocketing the difference.
A group that was definitely hurt by slavery was white manual laborers who faced competition from the artificially low-priced labor of slaves.
Ahmed Fares
Jul 19 2023 at 4:01pm
Competition drives price to cost. Anything that lowers cost lowers prices. The excess profits are competed away.
steve
Jul 15 2023 at 8:14pm
Is there a reason, a good reason, to forget the extended period of racial preferences in favor of white people and against black people after slavery ended? Is it your belief that as soon as slavery ended it was advantageous to have been a former slave or born to a former slave? If it was illegal to go to college because you were black wouldn’t that have been a gain for some/many white people? If you were excluded from better paying jobs, bank loans, easy travel wouldn’t that mean another group was benefiting from your exclusion? When that discrimination was outlawed did the people who had benefited give back the capital they had acquired from those benefits?
Walter Williams was born in 1936, clearly an extraordinarily bright man. However, Meredith wasn’t allowed to break the color barrier and attend the U of Mississippi until 1962. Riots ensued. Williams was able to attend college through extraordinary personal effort which few people could muster. He had marked “Caucasian” in the military knowing it would get him better jobs. It didn’t work and outside the military black people couldn’t declare themselves white and get entrance to the good schools and good jobs.
So if you were black and in the 98th percentile for intelligence, hard work and persistence you could take advantage of American freedom. For less gifted black people you had to wait a lot longer until you could be treated more equally.
Any idea how many white people had to risk their lives to go to college in the 1960s? Surely that doesn’t happen if not for slavery and should be considered part of its legacy.
Steve
vince
Jul 16 2023 at 1:57pm
How do you determine who benefited and by how much? And how do you determine who is owed that benefit?
steve
Jul 16 2023 at 2:52pm
Beats me. I think it’s clear that black people were owed reparations at some point. There is a history of reparations but only for white slaveholders. Property rights were more important than personal liberty. Clearly if 10% of the population was not allowed to have the better jobs than 10% of white people director benefited. There were probably secondary effects with their families benefiting. However, it is hard to know precisely who was advantaged. So our approach has largely been to tell black people “too bad”. We did make some small effort with affirmative action which made some sense as it was proximal in time to the harm. At this point I dont see a practical way to make up for the years of financial discrimination.
So I guess I am now in the camp also of telling black people “too bad, it’s too late”. However, I cant bring myself to claim that because a few black people of extraordinary intellect who made heroic efforts were able to achieve that means it was possible for less gifted or lucky black people in the 60s.
Steve
Robert EV
Jul 16 2023 at 3:32pm
“So I guess I am now in the camp also of telling black people “too bad, it’s too late”.”
I’m of the mind that legal right to compensation from an act of government ceases only when that government ceases. Unprivileged descendants of formerly enslaved or Jim Crow subjected peoples form a class which is entitled to legal remedies the same as members of a class action lawsuit. Damages can be statistically estimated, decreased through negotiations, and then spread out among the class. Maybe even in the form of coupons in addition to cash. Just like class-action lawsuits.
vince
Jul 16 2023 at 3:39pm
By government, you mean taxpayers.
Mark Z
Jul 16 2023 at 7:24pm
This is just an evasion the moral question. The government here means the people of the United States, who are alive today, as they’re the ones who fund the government. Institutional continuity across time is morally meaningless. For private enterprises it’s not a big deal since at least new shareholders buying into a company about to be sued are doing so voluntarily, but our stake in the federal government is not voluntary. You’re just taking standard racial collectivist/hereditary guilt-based reasons for reparations and laundering them through the illusion that the federal government somehow constitutes some immortal, coherent moral agent, which it obviously does not.
Robert EV
Jul 16 2023 at 9:01pm
Black Americans pay taxes too.
I’m not saying either of you are the type of person to say the first part of the following, but plenty of anti-reparations people also say it: If people can be limited from immigrating to say, the US, because of where their ancestors were born, then maybe being someone’s descendant isn’t always a good thing, and sometimes you have to suffer the consequences of the decisions of your ancestors. Tough break. That’s life.
vince
Jul 17 2023 at 1:20pm
Again, the government means the people. Mark Z explains this further.
If you want to pay reparations, do it. Why don’t you start a fund.
I would like our tax returns to include checkboxes for all sorts of voluntary donations that a taxpayer can make, on his own, without coercing others to satisfy the his own personal whims.
vince
Jul 16 2023 at 3:35pm
Consider a few more issues.
Maybe you are black. How much are you personally owed? Who owes it to you? Or maybe you are white. How much do you personally owe?
How much is a black person owed who came to the US after slavery?
Which ethnic groups came to the US and were not subject to discrimination including not being allowed to apply for jobs? How much are they owed?
At one time, Charles Barkley laughed about getting a minority business loan at a low rate. Was that a good reparation. Not just for him, but his biracial family, too?
Kamala Harris’ ancestors owned slaves. Is she owed reparations, or does she owe reparations?
Robert EV
Jul 16 2023 at 8:40pm
It’s not the descendants of slave holders who owe for the wrongs inflicted by their ancestors under the laws of a still existing government, it’s the still existing government that owes. How that government parcels out the taxes to pay what’s owed is a matter for debate (assuming said taxes are ever levied, given the US is a country that hasn’t been without public debt for over 100 years).
Charles Hooper
Jul 19 2023 at 3:30pm
This topic is actually quite complicated.
White laborers in the South had to compete with artificially cheap slave labor. They suffered from slavery. Should they have been paid reparations?
It’s hard to determine whether and how much consumers around the world gained from cheaper cotton. Should they have paid reparations?
Whites in the North fought the costly Civil War to end slavery (even though the argument was initially to keep the union whole). Should they have been paid reparations?
Non-slave-owning whites in the South fought in the Civil War to perpetuate a system that didn’t really benefit them. Should they have been paid reparations?
Taxpayers of all colors have paid for an expensive welfare system for decades. Would the welfare system have been so extensive had slavery and racist policies not created an underclass? Have these taxpayers already paid “enough”?
Let’s assume that a white person in 1850 was $100 wealthier due to slavery. We can’t say that their descendants owe $4,000 in reparations today (based on inflation since 1850). They didn’t put that $100 in a bank with a note to give it to their descendants in 2023. They spent some of it and saved some it. They earned, saved, and spent. And their descendants did the same, etcetera. The amount they have today is far more a function of their earning, spending, saving, and luck than that initial $100.
For example, my great grandparents owned a bank. Did I inherit a fortune? No. Their bank was wiped out in the Great Depression and then my mom spent a good chunk of what was left. Let’s change “owned a bank” to “owned a slave estate.” To ask me to pay because my great grandparents once had money because of slavery assumes that I directly benefited from that asset.
I think any honest assessment of slavery would come to the conclusion that most people suffered because of it.
Jose Pablo
Jul 17 2023 at 1:37pm
Is it your belief that as soon as slavery ended it was advantageous to have been a former slave or born to a former slave?
Yes, that is, precisely, Henderson’s argument in this post.
“As soon as slavery ended” it was better to be a former slave or born to a former slave in America than living (former free or born to a former free native) in Guinea-Bissau, Angola, Senegal, Mali, or the Democratic Republic of Congo
Let’s people enter the US today making illegal for them to attend college, work in wall street, ask for loans or marry Americans. You will see that the demand for this “deal” is huge all over the world. Particularly from the African countries mentioned in the post.
A “coyote” is a terrible thing to be, and yet, many people think it is way better than remaining in his/her country of origin. And they surely know they are going to be “discriminated” in the US and don’t expect to attend Harvard or being Boeing’s CEO
Jose Pablo
Jul 17 2023 at 1:48pm
As proof of the argument:
https://www.npr.org/2023/06/28/1184581187/migrant-deaths-mediterranean-crossing
Haven’t this people that have to risk their lives crossing the Mediterranean some basis for asking for reparations for the fact that their great great great grand fathers were not taken to America?
Or shouldn’t they ask European for reparations for the colonialism that ravaged the African continent and resulted in the underdevelopment that they suffer today?
Miguel Madeira
Jul 16 2023 at 10:23am
This is assuming the counterfactual is “not bringing Africans to work in Americas” instead of “hiring Africans to work in Americas, probably in a kind of fixed-term contract” (like British did to Indian workers in many places – Guyana, Trinidade, Fidji)
Robert EV
Jul 16 2023 at 3:37pm
“The late economist Walter E. Williams said that slavery was the worst thing ever to happen to his ancestors, but the best thing ever to happen to him. Why? Because instead of growing up in Guinea-Bissau, Angola, Senegal, Mali, or the Democratic Republic of Congo, he enjoyed the opportunities, wealth, health, security, and freedom of the United States.”
I’m curious in an alternate history whether his ancestors (or their proxies) might have voluntarily immigrated to the US, and partaken of a personal share of the “opportunities, wealth, health, security, and freedom of the United States”? Just like my European ancestors did. Walter Williams is assuming that African immigration to the US would have been either through slavery, or not at all. But there were merchant contacts through Europe and Africa that did not depend solely on the slave trade. And in a country without slavery, US immigration policy may have been open to free (or at least only indentured) African immigrants.
Mark Z
Jul 16 2023 at 7:16pm
” And in a country without slavery, US immigration policy may have been open to free (or at least only indentured) African immigrants.”
Why? Most European countries had few to no African slaves and most of them had negligible immigration from Africa until very recently. It’s actually a pretty safe bet that absent slavery, few Africans would’ve moved to the US.
Robert EV
Jul 16 2023 at 8:46pm
Why? For the same reason my Scandinavian and German ancestors moved to the US (despite it being a British former colony). They heard it was a great place to establish oneself, or recover from catastrophes at home.
Merchants traded between Europe and Africa for things other than slaves. Africans would have heard about the greatness of the US and immigrated as well. Maybe not in the same numbers, but it isn’t as if Africa was all that far away from the US compared to, say, Asia.
But with countries such as the early US that supported slavery and apartheid-like conditions, why would any Africans even think about moving to the US? And why would Africans have moved to Europe instead of the US? Even the non-slave countries weren’t that great for immigrants.
vince
Jul 16 2023 at 9:02pm
German? Do you owe reparations to the Jews?
Doesn’t the United States owe reparations to American Indians? Let’s keep going …
Robert EV
Jul 17 2023 at 9:46am
“German? Do you owe reparations to the Jews?”
These reparations were already paid by the government of Germany in 1952.
My last Germanic ancestors to immigrate did so in the 19th century (from the former Kingdom of Bohemia and from Switzerland – I’m using “German” in the broad ethnic sense).
Given how Jews were treated throughout Europe, I don’t think anything owed is morally limited to Germany proper. Even during WWII a bunch of other countries sold out their Jews to Germany.
“Doesn’t the United States owe reparations to American Indians? Let’s keep going”
See various treaties and Supreme Court rulings. Yes, the US does, and yes, at times it has.
This stuff is legislated, bargained, and ruled on. Just like Japanese interment. Other than Affirmative Action, why are descendants of former slaves singularly excepted?
Charles Hooper
Jul 19 2023 at 3:42pm
If anyone is owed reparations, it is American Indians. They’ve been horribly treated in the past and still are.
David Seltzer
Jul 16 2023 at 4:12pm
Please allow me to comment on this unfortunate Gordian Knot, regarding who pays reparations and in what amount. Are the descendants of abolitionists and those Union soldiers who died in battle exempt from payment? I’m impaled on the horns of a dilemma as as many of my family were murdered in the Shoah by the Nazi regime.
Robert EV
Jul 16 2023 at 8:54pm
When the government performs a wrong (making slavery and segregation legal), the government pays. Ideally from government-owed goods (such as seigniorage, or public lands), but from wherever it has to. We, as a people, allow this, even though it hurts us slightly as individuals, because the alternative (no one making the wronged party as whole as possible) is a worse outcome.
I follow a person elsewhere whose father is African-American, his Y chromosome is European, his great aunt spent years in Nazi concentration camps for being the wrong religion (other than Jewish), and whose German-equivalent-4-Fed grandfather made munitions for the Nazis.
The surviving members of your family were technically compensated (reparationed) by West Germany following the agreement with Israel in 1952.
David Seltzer
Jul 17 2023 at 9:50am
Robert EV said, “The surviving members of your family were technically compensated (reparationed) by West Germany following the agreement with Israel in 1952.” Yes. reparations were paid to survivors of the Shoah. The government paid reparations to Japanese-Americans who were wrongfully interned. Were descendants of those interned compensated? I don’t see where I as a descendant should be compensated with reparations.
Monte
Jul 18 2023 at 10:57am
From a legal standpoint, descendancy is the primary obstacle to overcome. Setting aside all practical considerations (by themselves, a daunting array of procedural and constitutional objections), reparations advocates must base their claim on the principle of vicarious liability – a claim by individuals against individuals who had nothing to do with the institution of slavery.
Precedent has been set. African-American Slave Descendents Litigation has been rejected by the court.
The window of opportunity has passed, the statute of limitations exhausted. It is time to move on. We must live life going forward and allow this wound to heal, not re-open it.
David Seltzer
Jul 18 2023 at 5:58pm
Thanks Monte.
Robert EV
Jul 18 2023 at 2:08pm
What are your opinions on reparations to those still living who were subject to Jim Crow laws?
California (Bruce’s Beach) now has a precedential instance of returning property to descendants of those who had it taken from them. I think this is also the case for heirs of those Jews killed by the Nazis.
If these lines have been drawn, there are still black Americans who have yet to be compensated under the already existing precedents.
Monte
Jul 18 2023 at 7:30pm
I certainly think a stronger legal case could be made for those living who were directly impacted by Jim Crow. But the bigger question before us is what Vince asked: Where do we stop?
Take, or example, the Philadelphia Plan. David Frum, in a 2014 piece entitled “The Impossibility of Reparations”, wrote:
“…preferences of various kinds were extended to women, Hispanics, and other groups. With any program of reparations, likewise, other claimants will come forward. If African Americans are due payment for slavery and subjugation, what about Native Americans, who lost a whole continent? What about Mexican-Americans, who were deprived by the Mexican-American war of the right to migrate into half their former country? Japanese Americans, interned during World War II? Chinese Americans, the victims of coolie labor and the Oriental Exclusion Acts? Members of these groups may concede that they were not maltreated in the same way as African Americans—and may not be entitled to exactly the same consideration. But if black Americans are entitled to almost a trillion dollars in compensation (Coates suggests a figure of $34 billion a year “for a decade or two”) surely these other maltreated groups must be entitled at least to something?”
This is one of many reasons I’m philosophically opposed to reparations. If we decide to venture down this road, we’ll become even further divided than we are today. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suggest this could ultimately result in another civil war and the destruction of America as know it (which I know many would love to see). IMO, forgiveness, not reparations, is the stitch and bandage needed to permanently heal the wound of slavery. Forgiveness heals the wounded heart.
The most beautiful and eloquent opinion ever rendered on the subject of emancipated slaves was written by Frederick Douglas: Our answer is, do nothing with them; mind your business, and let them mind theirs.
Charles Hooper
Jul 19 2023 at 3:51pm
This is a little different but I think it demonstrates an important point.
Consider the famous feud between the Hatfields and McCoys. Can anyone imagine some scheme to make the Hatfields or the McCoys forget their long list of grievances? Both sides would realistically want to be paid by the other. A forced payment by the Hatfields to the McCoys would be a new wound for the Hatfields. Ditto for the McCoys.
The historian J. Rufus Fears said that you can never satisfactorily resolve past grievances. You can’t aim for justice because everyone has a different idea of what that means. You can only stop current injustices, forgive, and move on.
Mark Brady
Jul 16 2023 at 5:37pm
I suggest that restitution is a relevant concept in this discussion, and that it is different from reparations. Consider the case of African-American slaves who worked the land and arguably acquired a right to the land, but upon their emancipation likely became sharecroppers on that land. It would surely not be that difficult to identify their descendants who are alive today and to transfer the ownership rights of the land to them. In some cases, the current owners are the descendants of the landowners / slaveowners who owned the land / slaves prior to emancipation. In other cases, the current owners can trace their ownership back to those who bought the land from the landowners / slaveowners who arguably had no right to sell the land but an obligation to transfer the land to their former slaves.
Does this argument make sense? And if so, what are the implications for policy today?
vince
Jul 16 2023 at 6:58pm
Why stop there? Let’s trace it back to the slaveowners in Africa who sold the slaves they owned. The original drug dealers themselves.
Robert EV
Jul 18 2023 at 2:03pm
You’d want to look up a similar scenario that took place recently. A search for “Bruce’s Beach” will find various reports on it.
Comments are closed.