Co-blogger Bryan Caplan’s post this morning on collective guilt and the subsequent discussion in the comment section reminded me of something that happened my first day of a microeconomics class in 2001. At the end of the opening class, a number of people came up to ask questions. One was a young black woman who said, “Professor, what do you think of reparations for slavery?”
I answered, “I promise I’ll answer but first I want to know what you think.”
She said, “I favor them.”
“And those reparations would be paid for by white people?”
“Yes,” she answered.
I turned to a white guy who was waiting to ask a question, and I took a risk.
“Where are your grandparents from?” I asked.
“The Netherlands,” he answered.
I then turned back to the woman who had asked and said, “I’m ready to answer you. His grandparents came to this country well after slavery had ended. I think it’s wrong for the government to tax people who didn’t even inherit wealth from slavery to give to the great, great grandchildren of former slaves.”
Note: Of course it’s possible that his grandparents inherited wealth from their predecessors having had slaves in the Netherlands. I don’t know the history of slavery in the Netherlands. But the odds that they gained big time and came to the United States as wealthy people were probably pretty low.
READER COMMENTS
Ross Levatter
Feb 11 2021 at 4:30pm
You also assumed your black student descended from slaves.
David Henderson
Feb 11 2021 at 6:14pm
True. And my assumption was correct.
JFA
Feb 11 2021 at 7:05pm
I think this is probably the weakest argument against reparations. The US government is (presumably) an ongoing concern that can make lasting promises, much like most companies. Let’s say the shares of a company change hands enough such that those who had owned them 5 years ago no longer owned any shares. Presumably the company is still liable for the debts it incurred.
You can make the argument that we cannot actually repay the harm because the victims of slavery are no longer with us and that we are sufficiently removed in time that it does not make sense to gives reparations to those 4 or 5 or 6 generations removed. But presumably if there was an argument that reparations were due then the United States government would be held liable.
Jon Murphy
Feb 11 2021 at 9:12pm
Problem: The United States government was not the slaveholder.
JFA
Feb 11 2021 at 10:24pm
That’s a fair point, though the US government did utilize slave labor in many context. It just happened to have leased slaves rather than owned them. The US government also did support (in very material ways) a system that denied liberty to millions of people. I don’t think it’s inconceivable that the US government bears some moral blame for the slavery that occurred within its borders. I’m just not sure that reparations are in order because the people who were directly affected are no longer around.
I will note that your argument is that the US government does not owe reparations because it is not at fault (i.e. didn’t own slaves). David’s argument is that the US government does not owe reparations because there’s been population turnover. Those are very different arguments.
Philo
Feb 13 2021 at 6:49pm
When I read that “the US government did utilize slave labor in many context[s],” I immediately thought of the military draft. Reparations for the descendants of slaves should be paired with reparations for the descendants of draftees. (Usually draftee-reparations will be smaller, though not for those draftees who were killed during their service.)
But many non-draftees who joined a military service did so under duress, knowing that if they did not “volunteer” they would be drafted; their descendants should, in justice, be compensated, too. On the other hand, some of these volunteers did so out of other motives besides fear of being drafted, such as patriotism; their descendants should not be compensated.
Slavery and the draft are only two of many practices by past U.S. administrations that are now seen to have been unjust, calling for compensation of descendants. (Of course, the judgment of injustice for practices that, at the time, were legal may be controversial, but it must not be shirked.)
The funds for these reparations are to come from the present U.S. government. The burden thus falls on all Americans, including those who are to be paid the reparations. (In the case of slavery there may be additional compensation owed specifically by the descendants of slaveholders.)
Gathering the historical and genealogical evidence required for reparations for long-past injustices would be a formidable task; setting the amounts due would also be challenging, if such a program were instituted.
nobody.really
Feb 12 2021 at 12:26am
Clearly the US did things to defend slavery, such as enforce laws for the return of fugitive slaves. That said, I surmise that the states had laws for recovering stolen property of all kinds; escaped slaves were regarded as a kind of stolen property. Thus, the problem arguably arose not from enforcing laws for the return of stolen property, but from the idea that slaves should be property.
And where did that idea arise from? Not the US. Slavery was thoroughly ensconced by 1776 when the US was founded. Indeed, the Constitution provided for the END of importing slaves by 1806(?). Thus, when we study the trans-Atlantic slave trade, we find that the great majority of slaves went to Central and South America, not the US.
Arguably, if I wanted to identify the nation that is responsible for slavery north of Central America–it’s the United Kingdom. So maybe THEY should pay reparations.
john hare
Feb 12 2021 at 4:23am
You make one of the critical points. The US inherited slavery in a world where slavery was normal, it didn’t invent the institution.
JFA
Feb 12 2021 at 7:09am
As BC makes the point below, several northern states were early practitioners of making slavery illegal. But if you want to keep the moral blame until there’s more international movement, then just calculate the damages for after 1838 when slaves were emancipated in the British empire.
JFA
Feb 12 2021 at 7:44am
Also, has the “everyone else was doing it” defense attained greater weight than when I was a kid? I’ll have to have a talk with my mom about where she went wrong in deciding to discipline me for my antics following group behavior.
nobody.really
Feb 12 2021 at 11:40am
I was wondering about this, too. I’d like to ask my mom about it, but she passed away. Alas, she saw Johnny’s mom jumping off a roof and concluded that she should do it, too….
Nicholas Decker
Feb 12 2021 at 3:34am
Slavery cannot exist without state intervention. The United States was responsible for enforcing slavery, and then later for enforcing Jim Crow. This is a sin not expiated by time, but by redress.
BC
Feb 12 2021 at 4:23am
We always talk about slavery being legal in the US, which it was. But, some States were free and others were slave States. Many northern States ended slavery between the Revolutionary War and the ratification of the US Constitution as they migrated from British law to US Constitutional law. If States determined their slavery laws, then wouldn’t the natural political unit for reparations be States, i.e., state governments could pay reparations to descendants of slaves in that state? Slavery was legal in North America, yet no one calls for a US-Canada-Mexico pact to pay reparations to North American slave descendants. Race-based slavery was legal in some parts of the world, and hence legal in the World, yet no one calls for race-based global reparations for slavery.
Canada ended slavery very early around the same time as New England States did. Yet, Canada tolerated slavery in other parts of North America as part of its recognition of US sovereignty and Canada-US relations. Similarly, New England States tolerated slavery in other parts of the US as part of its recognition of other States’ sovereignty as enshrined in the Constitution, which defined States’ relations with each other. If Canada is not responsible for North American slavery, then why would free States be responsible for slave States’ slavery? Note that, eventually, Northern free States did use force to stop slavery in slave States, while Canada never did so. So, actually Northern free States eventually became less tolerant of North American slavery than Canada was.
If the NYPD committed some wrong against a citizen, then NYC might have to pay damages to that citizen. We would not say that because that wrong also occurred in the US, then the US government should actually be held responsible for tolerating NYC sovereignty over its police force.
JFA
Feb 12 2021 at 7:40am
Maybe the US isn’t liable but the southern states are. I don’t know. After 1789, the US took on all the debt issued by the separate states, so it seems more of a contractual issue. The US also instituted the Fugitive Slave Act and determined which territories (that later became states) would be slave and free. Seems pretty close to having your fingers in the pie. Just imagine: one state (say, Alabama) has legalized kidnapping and another (say Massachusetts) has not. The kidnap victim runs to Massachusetts. The federal government says, “No, no. Because kidnapping in Alabama is legal, you have to go back to your captor.” Sounds pretty morally blameworthy. The US also enforced contracts ungirded by slaves used as collateral. Not a good look.
“no one calls for race-based global reparations for slavery.” I’ve always thought European powers, Arab groups, and African polities bear lots of moral blame for slavery. They were the ones who enslaved the individuals in the first place.
Your argument is just how far to take the moral blame, but (it seems) you’ve accepted that once we find that scope, then reparations should be paid. David is saying that the continuity of responsibility of governments over time does not exist (whatever the scope of blame) because the people who constitute those polities are not the same as when the sins occurred. I think David is on more solid footing if he just argued against taxation in general, rather than arguing against current taxation to pay for past transgressions. It would seem odd (though not inconsistent) to argue that a 29-year-old’s taxes should not be used to payoff the principal due on 30-year bonds because he wasn’t born at the time of bond issuance.
zeke5123
Feb 12 2021 at 9:25am
Presumably the company is still liable for all debts it actually owed to people who have legal claims. But I am unaware of a contingent liability lasting 6+ generations of a corporation. At a certain point, finality is needed to progress: whether as a corporation, an individual, or a country. Reparations today; what tomorrow?
There is also the tricky part of asking whether slavery harmed slave descendants today. I’d be right there with you arguing that former slaves deserved some kind of recompense. They were harmed.
But it seems hard to argue that descendants today were made worse off by slavery. That is, it is on balance better to (i) exist and (ii) live in the US compare to (iii) not existing or (iv) living in Africa.
Now a smart rhetorician would argue that the comparison isn’t between slavery and no-slavery; it is between freed slaves with no compensation and freed slaves with compensation. I am not sure why one would cut the analysis off at that point when asking what the consequence of slavery was to descendants today. Moreover, it would seem almost impossible to calculate (e.g., how much wealth actually survives 6+ generations). Finally, it gets back to our finality problem.
JFA
Feb 12 2021 at 10:01am
There are many example of 100-year bonds that have been issued by governments and corporations. There are also examples of perpetual bonds (such as consols).
I think you are correct about the thorny issue of what is owed to current day descendants of slaves.
nobody.really
Feb 12 2021 at 12:00pm
Oh, we have not yet begun to thorny.
Given the general libertarian flavor of this blog–with the obligatory discussions about whether to attribute actions to groups in addition to individual actors–we might expect people to argue that only those who engaged in the wrongful behavior should compensate only those who were wronged. If we want to extend this to descendants, then we might argue that the descendants of slave owners should pay the reparations to the descendants of slaves.
Given the sexual practices among slave owners, however, there would be a substantial overlap between these groups. NOW we’re talking thorny issues….
zeke5123
Feb 12 2021 at 2:14pm
But with the 100 year bonds, you would have a clear case of Person A passing a non-contingent liability to Person B. There is a chain of custody.
Here, the liability was largely contingent (i.e., the argument is that we have grown to see there should have been remuneration; I think Andrew Johnson’s actions make it clear there was no express claim at the time). There hasn’t been a passing of this claim from Person A to Person B.
What I was trying to get at is I am unaware of any situation where Corporation A commits a Tort against Person B, and Person B’s great-great-great-great-grandkids sue Corporation A and win an award.
JFA
Feb 12 2021 at 3:10pm
Gotcha.
Lawrence
Feb 15 2021 at 10:23am
You cannot connect the actions of individual people to responsibilities that must be undertaken by the US government. Here are some additional reasons why reparations are absurd:
You need to know who captured the human being in Africa and traded it to a slave trader. If the captor was black, as most were, does that make a difference? Should the descendants of black slaves first demand reparations from Africans who remained in Africa and captured them and traded them as slaves? This is just as absurd as the idea of paying white-to-black reparations.
Thomas Sowell has made a case even that aggressive actions taken at the time of the Roman Empire redounded to the benefit of people living in conquered territories — culturally, economically, etc. over time — as these people became part of a civilizing trend. I differ with his understanding of this phenomenon in many instances, but in the case of slavery, this would mean that captive slaves did better in North America than they would have if they had remained in Africa. Does that meant that the descendants of these captives should pay reparations to white people because they are better off in North American than in Africa? It is not more absurd that white-to-black reparations.
The practice of slavery was ended in the West because of the culture of the West — some say, in part, because the impact of Christianity was that the individual soul is a sacrosanct embodiment of divinity (bear the imprint of God). This concept flowered into the concept of individual rights (even if expressed negatively as a prohibition on aggression, the non-aggression principle). That is why the practice of slavery was abolished first in the West, not in Africa or elsewhere. Moreover, the term “slave” itself derives etymologically from the word “Slav.” Why is this important? Because white slavery was just as endemic in the world as any other kind of slavery. Consequently, do the descendants of former black slaves owe reparations to the descendants of Western European culture — most of them white — because they now enjoy the freedoms that stem from this tradition?
Similarly, forms of servitude practiced in Europe into the 19th century — as in the case of “serfs” of one designation or another — applied to many immigrants from Eastern Europe and elsewhere. Do descendants of these serfs — people who migrated to the United States — owe black people reparations even though they themselves may have been in a state of servitude worse than or equal to that of black people who were freed earlier?
Perhaps most conclusively, the attempt to justify reparations of any kind assumes access to total knowledge in a Hayekian way. This “knowledge problem” applies to the calculation of and even the positing of the need for a payment. The “knowledge problem” makes it impossible to even know if a payment must be made and who would be responsible for paying it and receiving it and how much it should be if should exist at all. We simply do not and cannot know all of the relationships and causation factors — positive and negative — that led to the enslavement of people or even who caused them or if they ultimately resulted in a benefit or penalty. Again, I refer to Sowell’s arguments here.
Frank
Feb 11 2021 at 10:35pm
Slavery was legal in the United States. It can be argued that the slaves that were freed owe the freers compensation for their misery.
Kevin Erdmann
Feb 11 2021 at 10:50pm
Would your answer be different if she had asked about reparations for redlining, Jim Crow, 20th century massacres, the destruction of black neighborhoods with 20th century transportation infrastructure projects, etc.?
Do you think that question would be on stronger standing or weaker?
James
Feb 12 2021 at 12:23pm
The problem comes from treating this as some kind of class action suit where the classes are defined by melanin levels. There are people who immigrated to the US from Haiti and from Russia in the last year. How much do you think the ones from Russia owe the ones from Haiti?
Thomas Hutcheson
Feb 12 2021 at 7:15am
Another problem is that slavery harmed not just slaves but everyone who would have benefited over the centuries from the additional output of a non-slave economy.
Lawrence
Feb 12 2021 at 9:19am
In episode 54 of the Bob Murphy Show, economist Murphy explains that all white people that did not own slaves were damaged economically by the practice of slavery, so by the logic of reparations, they, too would need a bailout. Money, money, and more money! Where does one stap?
https://www.bobmurphyshow.com/episodes/ep-54-how-the-left-and-the-right-move-the-goalposts-in-economic-arguments/
Toby
Feb 12 2021 at 9:35am
I don’t think that follows.
Take a drunk driver for example. They hit you with their car, you’re harmed, but their car is also damaged. The drunk driver is harmed, but it’s a consequence of their own actions. They only have themselves to blame.
JFA
Feb 12 2021 at 9:46am
He already clarified this in the qualifier “all white people that did not own slaves”. The benefits accrue to the slaveholders, but not to everyone else.
JFA
Feb 12 2021 at 9:44am
Again, the fact that almost everyone was hurt by slavery just addresses the scope of reparations. This is, however, not an argument against reparations, per se. You could argue that reparations should be paid for more direct harm (i.e. that the degrees a person is removed from the harm, the smaller share of reparations he deserves (if I’m not mistaken, this is usually how tort claims work)). But this is very different from David’s argument that (even if the rightful claimants of reparations can be identified and even if the US government at that time can be held responsible), the current US government cannot use current taxes to pay for past transgressions.
Lawrence
Feb 15 2021 at 10:28am
See my longer statement (in the thread from your initial comment) about the absurdity of reparations from a historical viewpoint and as part of the “knowledge problem.”
Toby
Feb 12 2021 at 9:30am
Couldn’t the argument be made simpler? That someone is harmed by X or that someone has benefited from X is premised on the counterfactual without X. There is no such counterfactual for these people: The descendants of slaves and slave-owners wouldn’t exist without slavery. Therefore it seems that they can’t be harmed by it or have benefited from it.
Knut P. Heen
Feb 12 2021 at 9:39am
The governments around the world can start by paying reparations to every soldier who has been drafted since the birth of civilization. That is slavery, and the governments have really been the slaveholders.
James
Feb 12 2021 at 12:19pm
Why not a cash transfer from the American descendants of slaves to the African descendants of those who sold other Africans into slavery? Many descendants of those Africans who were sold are US citizens right now. Many descendants of those Africans who did the selling are living in Africa right now. When the selling happened, clearly the sellers benefited at the great expense of the sold. Today, the descendants of the sellers generally might wish they were the descendants of the sold.
Of course this is rhetorical, but any argument for reparations should start by defining how much worse off the descendants of slaves are compared to how well off they would be if their ancestors had never been enslaved at all.
Toby
Feb 12 2021 at 4:47pm
The point seems irrelevant: they wouldn’t exist!
It’s not like the counterfactual of going to MIT or a state school for undergrad. Those are actual options open to you. The option not to have your ancestors enslaved isn’t an option. You exist because your ancestors were slaves.
Vivian Darkbloom
Feb 14 2021 at 1:27pm
Is “affirmative action” (as applied to African Americans) a form of reparations? One of the stated goals of affirmative action is to remedy past discrimination.
robc
Feb 15 2021 at 11:08am
Wouldn’t reparations be an ex post facto law?
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