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.)
Is it possible that other factors led to the countries being wealthy or impoverished, and this allowed the wealthy to colonise or take the impoverished as slaves?
For example?
I recommend the book “Guns, germs, and steel” if you’re interested. I’m not sure it covers this specifically, but it does cover in depth the reasons for different areas of the world being more of less wealthy (it has nothing to do with the people and everything to do with the geographic area, climate, natural resources including flora and fauna, and proximity to other populations).It’s an interesting read, even if a bit heavy.Edit: it turns out the book is a bit contentious: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/historians_views/#wiki_historians.27_views_of_jared_diamond.27s_.22guns.2C_germs.2C_and_steel.22
I read it 10+ years ago. As I recall, its main point had to do with differences between Old World and New World populations.
Since Africa falls into the Old World along with Europe, I don’t think the book actually supports any conclusions about this topic.
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The industrial revolution for one.
Yes, and even accounting for those, wealthy countries that took slaves still hold an enormous amount of responsibility for what they did
The original OP argument is that those captors or slaves don’t exist anymore. Even the countries barely exist. Is this a matter of descendants being responsible for their ancestors crimes?
I think there’s a strong feedback loop argument here but I’m not sure that’s the point you’re making.
Do descendants have the same responsibility as their ancestors who actually owned slaves? No. But do they bear some ongoing responsibility as a benefactor of a system that was built around their ancestors owning slaves? Yeah they do.
All of this is incredibly messy, but approaching it at a governmental level is definitely something I support, because slavery was sanctioned and even encouraged by the government we’re talking about, which has existed continuously
That’s the feedback loop argument, right?
Some countries collonised others: crime of ancestor
But those countries used slaves and stole resources, making those countries wealthier. That wealth allowed them to develop better technologies, making them even wealthier.
So the argument is that while the original crime is not the responsibility of those alive today, the proceeds of crime should not be kept - they should be returned. In this case the proceeds are wealth, so a monetary reparation is appropriate.
Is my train of thought right? Because it seems to make sense to me.
Pretty much my take.
OPs position is based on the idea that the reparations are punitive, which they are not.
No one alive in England today was engaged in slaving, but everyone is the beneficiary of the practice.
Disclaimer that I’m not English and don’t particularly have a dog in this fight, and my opinions are a little mixed. On the one hand, I agree on the morality there, a lot of people were damaged in the very long term by slavery. But on the other, even if you can say that it’s an act to attempt to return the wealth to the wronged people, that doesn’t mean the wealth has simply been sitting there for nearly 200 years, waiting for return. That money has to come out of some budget, somewhere.
So where are they going to pull 18 trillion to give reparations from? Certainly, cuts will need to be made somewhere to make it happen, and often, those cuts are usually made along the lines of political agendas rather than things that are objectively bloated.
But the ability to pay reparations isn’t really considered in deciding whether reparations should be made.
You’re right that the money isn’t just sitting there, it’s embedded in the development of the nation.
This is true. Also, remember that some African kingdoms were the sellers of slaves. Modern countries there are not direct analogs, and they don’t really have any money, but they deserve some of the blame.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashanti_Empire
Yes, but the few dollars per slave that a trader would have received is nothing in comparison to the value a slave would generate through their lifetime.
Compensation is based on damages, not on how much money the crime made. People routinely owe damages for assault or vandalism that makes them no money.
Watch a video tour of the tourist sites of London. Or look what is in the imperial museum. Or the Victoria and Albert museum. The looted wealth of of their genocidal empire is still celebrated as a national treasure. India still has not recovered from British occupation, which only officially ended 75 years ago. And that’s like 20% of the entire current human population.
My comment is not about the validity of reparations. It was a direct reply to the one above it, which seemed to imply that reparations are because of the actions of past people, when in my view it’s about the proceeds of the crimes rather than the crimes themselves.
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I think they can and should be separated.
If they are not, then you are saying that you are making people responsible for a crime that was committed well before they were born.
By separating the crime from the proceeds, you can justify why reparations should be paid, without the defense of the crime being committed by someone else.
Guns?
Yes, definitely. But why they had guns is also another question. I recommend the book “Gun, germs, and steel” as a great look into how and why different populations formed as they did.Edit: it turns out the book is a bit contentious: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/historians_views/#wiki_historians.27_views_of_jared_diamond.27s_.22guns.2C_germs.2C_and_steel.22