The Principle of Reparations
Previous in Series: Racism without Racists?
During his now famous sermon at Trinity United, Father Michael Pfleger said the following:
We must be honest enough to address the one who says, “Don’t hold me responsible for what my ancestors did.” But you have enjoyed the benefits of what your ancestors did. And unless you are ready to give up the benefits, throw away your 401 fund, throw away your trust fund, throw away all the money that’s been put away in the company that you walked into cause your Daddy, and your Granddaddy, and your Great-Grandaddy… Unless you are willing to give up the benefits, then you must be responsible for what was done in your generation, cause you are the beneficiary of this insurance policy.
This comment, among others, has brought Father Pfleger in for a great deal of criticism. Yet while his statement was more than a little intemperate, at the core of his argument is a perfectly respectable philosophical principle, which for lack of a better term I shall call the principle of reparations. According to the principle, if a given act of injustice X results in A being better off than he would have been absent X, and B being worse off than he would have been absent X, then A owes reparations to B, regardless of whether A was in any way responsible for X. The advantage of the principle of reparations is that it allows us to explain how members of one group might have special obligations to members of another group based on historical injustices without having to invoke some notion of “sins of the father” or collective guilt which would be morally problematic to say the least.
I said that the principle of reparations was philosophically respectable. I did not say that it was right. In fact, I think the principle is at root nearly as problematic as the idea of collective guilt itself. To see why, take the most obvious case of white and blacks in modern day America. The argument made by many, is that since American whites are better off as a result of slavery while American blacks are worse off because of it, under the principle of reparations American whites owe a moral debt to American blacks, which can only be repaid by either improving the condition of American blacks to what it would have been absent slavery, or decreasing the condition of American whites to what it would have been otherwise.
Both premises in this argument are open to serious challenge. Take the first premise, that whites in American are better off than they would have been absent slavery. This is, at best, a highly debatable point. While slavery was certainly beneficial in the short run to slave owners, over the long term it tended to impede industrialization, to the ultimate economic detriment of society as a whole. Certainly if one were to compare those parts of the U.S. were slavery was once widespread to those where it was not, one would find higher levels of average income and standard of living in the latter than in the former, suggesting that the long term economic impact of slavery on American whites has been negative.
Likewise, the claim that American blacks are worse off than they would have been absent slavery, while plausible sounding, is false. For one thing, absent slavery, it is doubtful that any black American alive today would so much as exist. Taking people from Africa to America radically rearranged the distribution of these people, such that for any American black living today, the chances that there parents would have met and married (and their parents met and married, and their parents met and married, and etc.) absent the slave trade is virtually nil. And even if we were able to somehow sidestep this problem, the truth is that by any objective measure the standard of living of American blacks is higher than the standard of living of blacks in Africa (the fact that many Africans have and/or wish to move to the United States, while few if any Americans have or wish to move to Africa corroborates this). So, strange as it may sound, it would seem that to the extent there is even a fact of the matter on the point, the American blacks today are better off than they would have been had it not been for slavery.
Acknowledging this fact, of course, does nothing to justify or excuse (even partially) the horror that was slavery. Slavery was, and is, a monstrous evil. The reasons for its being evil, however, have very little to do with the effect it may have on the lives of the decedents of slaves several hundred years in the future. We can condemn slavery without having to deny that the standard of living of American blacks is higher than the standard of living of African blacks, just as a man might condemn the Holocaust as a great evil while recognizing that, if the Holocaust hadn’t happened, his parents would never have met and married.
That American whites today are worse off than they would have been absent slavery, and that American blacks today are better off than they would have been absent it are both at least debatable propositions. Unless both of them can be shown to be false, the case for reparations will not go through. Note though, what happens if both propositions are true. If American whites today are worse off than they would have been absent the injustice of slavery, and American blacks today are better off than they would have been absent that injustice, then according to the principle of reparations it is American blacks that would owe reparations to American whites. But that is absurd, and not just because one or the other of the propositions is doubtful. Even if slavery did retard economic growth in the U.S., leading to a lower standard of living for American whites than would have otherwise obtained, and even if slavery had the unintended consequence of improving the lives of the decedents of slaves, it still would not be the case that American blacks owed reparations to American whites. But if that is the case, then the principle of reparations must be false.
Blackadder – I’m enjoying this series very much, for both personal and intellectual reasons.
I really love this blog (however flame-saturated the comboxes may sometimes get…)
Thanks, Matt. The occasional dust ups in the comboxes are my least favorite part of blogging (to say the least). I have to say, though, that I’ve been very impressed with the way people have handled themselves in the comboxes to this series. Despite the controversial nature of the subject matter, it’s pretty much all been thoughtful and civil.
I agree on flame wars being least-favorite part of VN (that said: mea culpa…I’m working on it, really…)
In my life I’ve had some direct experience of racism – both experiencing and directly witnessing the pain caused – as some of my past comments on VN have indicated. I want to do more than tell stories, though. I feel in some way that my background has allowed me to have an unusual perspective (for an Irish guy, let’s say) on the emotional and spiritual landscape of racism: I’m just not sure where to take it, though. I just feel that it might be a cross that bears much fruit.
As the grandson of Eastern European serfs, to whom do I own reparations? And, more importantly, who owes them to me?
Unfortunately for us Mike and BlackAdder,
The companies who received benefit from free labor still exist. So why is it that white people feel that a payment of reparations will come out of their pockets? No on said that white PEOPLE had to pay. But the companies who benefited should pay. No one told the Jews that the companies that participated in the holocaust should not have to pay since it might be seen as the German people owing them a debt. So why is that? Why did we pay the Japanese, hey what was done was done, shouldn’t they have gotten an apology and a pat on the back?
People assume that just because the slaves are dead and the people who enslaved them are dead no one is to blame. The money didn’t die with these people. So if my grandfather stole your grandfather’s land you should have no recourse because hey everyone is dead in that situation. It makes NO sense. It only applies to slavery. If my son drinks and drives and kills your family members you will undoubtedly sue my sons estate for retribution. But, yet he and your family is dead so why should I have to now pay for his wrong doing. “I” didn’t drink and drive. Sure I am benefiting from his estate but so what, everyone involved in the crash is dead, right?
Thanks
Just waiting to see the impact of extending this to the transSaharan and Indian Ocean slave trade.
And also waiting to see the acknowledgement that race and American enslavement are not neatly congruent circles in the USA today. For example, in Massachusetts this decade, the percentage of black residents who are not the descendents of US slaves is expected to become greater than those who are. Unless one internationalizes this (see above, btw…), it becomes a muddle.
The companies who received benefit from free labor still exist. So why is it that white people feel that a payment of reparations will come out of their pockets? No on said that white PEOPLE had to pay.
Most proposals for reparations tend to have the government making the payments (which means we all ultimately pay through taxes). As a matter of moral principle, it’s hard to make much sense of that, but such is the nature of reparations proposals going back at least to King. There were a series of lawsuits a few years ago against insurance companies who had insured the lives of slaves, but these cases were dismissed.
if my grandfather stole your grandfather’s land you should have no recourse because hey everyone is dead in that situation.
Yes. It’s called adverse possession, and in my opinion it’s an eminently sensible policy.
If my son drinks and drives and kills your family members you will undoubtedly sue my sons estate for retribution.
I would likely sue your estate (not your son’s estate) for wrongful death, but the basis for my suit would my own personal injury caused by the loss of a family member. And I would not, for example, be able to sue you based on the fact that your grandfather had killed my grandfather.
Why would you sue my estate, all the people who suffered are dead so why bother? Also, like I said, I DID NOT DRIVE DRUNK!! So how am I responsible for an act that my family member did? This is the argument against reparations, right? That white people in general are NOT responsible for the acts of their families. Also, if you believe that people have the right to sue for a wrong to their ancestors then why should people whose ancestors have been wronged by slavery be exempt.
The reason why they are suing the government for reparations is because this government benefited and became extremely rich off of slavery, has the government died with those who ran it at the time? It shouldn’t matter, why do I have to pay for you to sue the government if you think they wronged your family member in some way? How come people don’t complain about that? How come I had to pay the Japanese? I didn’t put any Japanese people in an internment camp.
So if we make it OK for some then why NOT for everyone?
Why would you sue my estate, all the people who suffered are dead so why bother?
It’s not true that all the people who suffered are dead. I have suffered because the loss of my family member, and I’m still around. You’re right, though, that I would be suing your son’s estate, and not you. I got the example reversed. Mea culpa.
if you believe that people have the right to sue for a wrong to their ancestors
I don’t believe that.
The reason why they are suing the government for reparations is because this government benefited and became extremely rich off of slavery
I’m not aware of anyone suing the government for reparations. As I mentioned previously, a couple of people have tried to sue a few insurance companies, but their suits have been dismissed. And anyway, I thought you said you only wanted companies to pay? If you now think that the government also should pay reparations, doesn’t that contradict what you had previously said?
why do I have to pay for you to sue the government if you think they wronged your family member in some way?
You don’t. When did I say that you did?
How come I had to pay the Japanese? I didn’t put any Japanese people in an internment camp.
My understanding is that in the case of the Japanese internment the only people eligible to receive reparations were the internees themselves. To the extent that the reparations went beyond this they were, I think, problematic.
Well I and everyone of my ancestors before me have suffered from the enslavement of our other ancestors so who is to blame? Why am I told to shut up about it. I am still around and still suffering discrimination, racism and unwritten rules that came from slavery, so now what?
But you agree that you should be able to sue for your grandfathers farm. He is an ancestor not YOU, so why do you feel that you should recoup for his farm being bilked?
I would sue the companies who were involved. YOU were trying to tell me about the people who sued and lost. I am showing that there are PLENTY of culprits who are NOT dead or gone as you were saying in the post. The adage that no one is around who can be sued is false to me. There are plenty of people who should be sued. Not to mention those insurance companies if they are the ones that were insuring slaves SHOULD be sued. And they should have won. But of course not when slavery is involved.
I did not say you did, I am saying that if you felt that the government wronged your family you WOULD sue, hell you would sue my estate if my son wronged you. So why not the government? I am just saying that many people sue the government all the time and we are made to pay. If it is such a problem to you and the others who feel no one should be held accountable then why not put a stop to that as well.
They did go beyond the internees and whether it was a problem is moot since no one said no. Also, do you feel that it was OK for the U.S. to help the Jews get reparations from the German businesses? A lot of those people never saw the inside of Auschwitz or the like. So why did they deserve reparations? Reparations are paid the world over yet as soon as it is even mentioned in respects to American slavery is when people have a big problem. I watched on television not too long ago people praising how the Jewish people were suing more companies when they found out they were involved. Why is it such a good thing for them but not for us. I don’t think that you can pick and choose who has suffered and who didn’t. But that seems to be what people want to do.
What should happen? Should all those companies, government included get away with those ill gotten gains? I see the government decides that they will now snatch ALL the money from people they arrest for drug selling or other things. Shouldn’t they be allowed to keep the things they bought with that stolen or illegal money?
Well I and everyone of my ancestors before me have suffered from the enslavement of our other ancestors
In a wrongful death suit, a family member can get damages based on the loss that comes from not having that family member around in one’s life. That wouldn’t apply to one’s distant ancestors, who would have died long before one was born no matter what.
Why am I told to shut up about it.
Who told you to shut up about it? Certainly not me.
But you agree that you should be able to sue for your grandfathers farm.
No, I said exactly the opposite. The law recognizes what’s known as adverse possession – if you unlawfully take property from another and keep it long enough you gain legal rights to it. This is one of several features of the law (statutes of limitations would be another) that limits attempts to try and reach back into the distant past and untangle the threads of injustice from the weave of history. If your grandfather stole property from my grandfather, that is of course wrong. But if a century later I come and try to take your property as a result, that in my view is also wrong. The world doesn’t stop on account of historical injustice. It moves on, and if something isn’t done to correct an injustice, it will soon become impossible to do so without destroying or disrupting the lives of people who had nothing to do with it in the first place.
I am showing that there are PLENTY of culprits who are NOT dead or gone as you were saying in the post.
My post (which I admit was rather long) didn’t simply say that reparations were wrong because the slaveholders are all dead. That was merely its starting point.
do you feel that it was OK for the U.S. to help the Jews get reparations from the German businesses? A lot of those people never saw the inside of Auschwitz or the like. So why did they deserve reparations?
I don’t know the details of the cases you mention, so I can’t really say. It very easily could be the case that at least some of the people in question did not deserve reparations.
I see the government decides that they will now snatch ALL the money from people they arrest for drug selling or other things. Shouldn’t they be allowed to keep the things they bought with that stolen or illegal money?
I happen to think that drugs ought to be legal, and while I’m not familiar with the details of this new scheme, I’m inclined to think that it is liable to be seriously unjust, at least in application. I would note, however, that the cases are not really analogous, since in the case of the drug dealer who has his property taken away, it is the wrongdoer himself that is punished. If someone were to try and take all of Senator Kennedy’s money away, say, on the grounds that his father made his fortune illegally as a bootlegger during prohibition, I would consider that seriously unjust (and believe me, I have no sympathy for Senator Kennedy).
Ok then we agree on many things. I don’t agree that things stolen in ones past should be exempt from retribution. That law should be overturned. But it won’t be because then that gives people the right to sue for reparations. Even though it is not as if a president hadn’t already granted blacks reparations and then never followed through.
Anyhow when I was talking about people saying we should shut up about it. That was a general statement from things I have been hearing about slavery not YOU in particular. I am not necessarily pointing a finger your direction nor saying that every statement I make is with you in mind.
I also did not feel that your post in particular said that their were no culprits. I was merely stating that for reference to who should or would be sued for these things. I too think that the drug situation is a joke. We really need to rethink these laws.
Thanks
Sometimes, an injustice, which is real, can only be corrected/compensated by creating new and larger injustices.
I am not sure if there is any way, assuming all the other problems noted above are resolved, without creating a massive economic dislocation which would create many more injustices.
Legal remedies depend on the ready justiciability of claims. The law does not provide remedies for all injustices. It only provides remedies that government can be relatively efficient about identifying, among many other things, (1) the relevant parties, (2) the harm, (3) the magnitude of the harm, and (4) proximate causation of the harm. All four are indefinite in the case of reparations being discussed here. Therefore, the likelihood that government would ever seriously consider crafting a remedy is quite remote at best. That’s not to say there’s no injustice, merely to say the injustice is of the vast class of injustices that are not remedied in the courts of law.
As someone said before, I’m the son of immigrants who came to this country from Eastern Europe well after the Civil War or the legal practice of slavery. I do not owe anyone jack in “reparations” and I don’t think I deserve any such reparations from the Russians or anyone else who might have oppressed my people in the past.
Secondly, this whole issue would just be one horrid tangled mess. Who should get what and who should pay what would be practically impossibe to determine. Why not just let it all be water under the bridge? As I said before, I hold no grudges (monetary or otherwise) against people who historically oppressed me. My ancestors rose above that. My suggestion to the descendants of the slaves would be to do the same. Do not let yourselves be stuck in the prison of perpetual victimhood. No one owes you jack and you don’t need a handout.
Sounds good on paper. However in reality, I suspect that the percentage of white americans who are decended from slave owners and who inheritied any substantial money from their ancestors is very small. I don’t think too many plantation owners maintained their wealth through the civil war. Most white americans I know are, like me, decended from European immigrants who came to the USA within the last 150 years. Also should we take money from poor white americans who are decended from slave owners and give it to middle or upper class african americans who are decended from slaves. Also should we exclude poor african americans who immigrated from africa or the caribean since slavery was abolished. Probably the real problem is where do we stop. What about decendents of indentured servants, what about chinese immigrants, what about native americans, what about the Irish?
A couple of the commenters are suggesting that only a relatively few American families benefited from slavery, or that those descended from immigrants after the Civil War have derived no benefit. The implication is that few Americans today possess benefits from slavery.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The direct economic benefits of slave labor, primarily in the form of cheap cotton and other commodities, spread throughout the colonial and, later, the national economy (in the north and south). More importantly, those cheap commodities, and the surplus capital generated by slavery and the slave trade, fueled the nation’s early industrialization at a critical stage, permitting the U.S. to become the world’s leading economy rather than an also-ran, like so many other economies of the time.
Thus all Americans benefit significantly, to this day, from the economics of slavery. It’s in our jobs and in our high standard of living, compared with countries which weren’t able to industrialize until later.
Furthermore, immigrants after slavery ended came to this country primarily because of the jobs created by industrialization. When they arrived, they walked off the ships to face a two-tiered system. White immigrants might face mild discrimination, depending on their nationality, and have to work hard to succeed. But by and large, they had a basic education, often had job skills, and almost always had families, culture, and religion, and arrived into communities with basic social services and community institutions. Contrast this with black families, which usually faced legal, blatant, and often violent discrimination, were kept from equal education or community services, and were relegated to menial jobs without advancement opportunities.
It’s certainly true that many white Americans, despite the greater opportunities available to their ancestors, are not particularly well-off. Just as many black Americans, despite the obstacles their ancestors faced, are doing quite well. By and large, however, the current situation is not at all just, however, and derives primarily from the historic injustice of slavery and its aftermath.
It’s also true that undoing the injustices of the past in any meaningful way might not be feasible. But we can’t simply assert that as true. We would need to consider what could, and could not, be done, and how much injustice would be done in the process, if remedies were carefully designed. All of that, meanwhile, would have to be weighed against the current injustice. With taking all this into account, I don’t see how we woudl know whether or not the situation could be made better and more just.
There is also the issue of blacks, Native Americans, and free people of color who owned slaves. In the same black family there were instances of people who were slaves or owned slaves. How would that be detangled? I think reparations should have occurred during Reconstruction, when it would have been more or less obvious who was a victim and who was a slave owner. Today, that’s almost impossible to discern.
Leah, you might be interested to know that very few people argue for reparations in the sense you’re referring to, that is, as cash payments to individuals identified as the descendants of slaves.
It’s certainly true that there’s no way to disintangle the complications of history and ancestry, much less to attempt to prove issues of ancestry. This is one reason, along with basic fairness, that has caused most people to focus on programs addressing the lingering consequences of slavery, rather than attempting to do justice in terms of past events.
programs addressing the lingering consequences of slavery
Yep – I think that was Blackadder’s point. “Reparations = Payments to black people” (while it has been proposed) is something of a red herring.
If we assume that slavery led to a general economic benefit in this country which was primarily enjoyed by whites and primarily denied to blacks at the end of the period of slavery then I still don’t see how we can identify individuals or groups today who are benefactors or victims of this situation. This premise is also very suspect. European immigrants who came to the US during the industrial revolution, before labor laws, were frequently brutally exploited. I don’t see the point in arguing that they nevertheless had it better than the decendants of slaves. Certainly we still have problems with racial inequality and prejudice which are serious social justice issues. I suggest that we focus on correcting the present injustices, rather than trying to trace them to incidents in the remote past and trying to redistribute wealth on that basis.
Jim, I agree that there’s no way to identify how much particular individuals and groups today have benefited or suffered due to slavery. We know, in many cases, that they’ve benefited or suffered, but knowing precisely how much, or disintangling those effects from others, are generally impossible.
You say that you think the “premise” that all Americans have derived economic benefits from slavery is “very suspect,” yet you seem to quickly concede the point, arguing instead that you merely “don’t see the point” in comparing the immigrant experience with that of former slaves and their descendants during Jim Crow.
I think the point isn’t to try comparing how hard different groups have had it in this country, but merely to note that all Americans today have derived substantial benefits from our economic history, including slavery. The immigrant issue comes up because many white Americans raise it to suggest that their families didn’t benefit from slavery and racism.
There’s no question that European immigrants faced a much less hostile climate than black Americans did, until quite recently in our history. To suggest that immigrants often had it hard, that they often worked in exploitative labor conditions, for instance, hardly compares with being legally shut out of most jobs, neighborhoods, and schools. Then there are the massive government subsidies during the early and mid 20th century which created the middle class; blacks were generally excluded systematicaly from these programs, which benefited almost all white families in the country at the time.
I couldn’t agree more with focusing on present injustices, and not trying to trace them back specifically to their origins. However, many Americans simply try to argue that nothing should be done about present injustices: They argue that as long as the laws allow equal opportunities now, it’s not unjust (or, not their responsibility) that many Americans are impoverished, or at least far behind others, because of historic injustices which have benefited the rest of us.
So I think that correcting the historical record, and our understanding of its relationship to the present, is vital if we’re to have a meaningful discussion of these issues in this country today.
Everyone who lives here owes reparations to the Native Americans. End of discussion.