James says:

James==there’s no “Home” or Contents/Menu on the link you gave.

I’m sorry if that made it harder to browse the site, bobbo. It’s set up with the typical layout of a WordPress blog, with recent and featured posts along the side, and the home page accessible by clicking on the blog’s title. I guess I should think about making it easier to navigate from a particular post to the home page or an index.

closely related is that whole “whites/society is still benefiting from the institution of slavery.” Very debatable.

I guess I don’t see what you consider debatable here, bobbo.

Economic historians don’t debate, for instance, that slavery was responsible for much of the wealth created in early America, north and south, or that without slavery, it’s doubtful the U.S. would have been able to industrialize in time to become a world economic power. So they agree that much of our present standard of living would be unlikely to exist without our history of slavery, just as without the wealth derived from slavery in colonial times, we probably wouldn’t have been able to rebel against Great Britain and become an independent nation. (So said, for instance, President John Quincy Adams.)

So I guess it seems clear to me that our society as a whole is still benefiting from the effects of our slave-owning past. If you’re focused more on the idea that whites specifically benefit from slavery, then I’d want to clarify that all Americans, regardless of race, enjoy such benefits. We do so, of course, to varying degrees, and on average, blacks enjoy far less of those benefits, as a result of our long history of slavery and discrimination.

I’m afraid James is a flyby troll. Ready to dump some garbage on this one topic then to never return.

Well, as you can see, Mr. Fusion, I’m still here and not rushing off anywhere. 🙂

As for my ideas being”garbage,” after I read this blog post, I simply pointed out a couple of facts which I thought would be interesting and non-controversial. Those are still available near the top of the page. You may not like those facts, but they’re hardly “garbage.”

hard to tell with nicknames, but I think James has been posting for a while? Why so negative? By posting a link to “his” blog, isn’t he inviting as full a discussion as we wish on his specialty subject?

Thanks, bobbo. I appreciate that you’re willing to be considerate and open-minded, even with someone you’re inclined to disagree with.

And, Mr. Fusion, you might consider that I didn’t post a link to my blog until after many, many comments on this page, when I was being asked directly whether there really were all of these legislative initiatives on apologies and reparations. I don’t apologize for linking there, I’m just saying I was clearly in no hurry to do so.

Wretched Gnu says:

As with most angry whites, Marc Perkel falsely asserts that the reparations debate is about whites paying blacks for “the sins of the past”.

I have no opinion on the question of reparations; but I find it amusing how many whites like to spin the issue to make themselves feel better.

The debate has nothing to do with “the sins of the past.” It has to do with real, historical and material consequences of generations of enforced poverty. Despite what “libertarians” would have you believe, there is no such thing as a historical moment — i.e., the emancipation of slaves — where the economic legacy of slavery was wiped clean and we were suddenly all on a level playing field.

Poverty is inherited and passed on exactly as wealth is. And that chain of inheritance did not get “interrupted” because of the civil rights movement, or whatever.

That doesn’t necessarily mean reparations make sense. But that is the issue that angry whites and libertarians will never address — and which is why they want to portray the issue as whites being made to pay for “the sins of the past” that they themselves took no part in.

bobbo says:

#64–James==too easy to get lost in the weeds when using words of conclusion rather than actual data. Using references to books is ineffective on a blog. A quick google turned up this review of the number of slaves by State:

http://slaveryinamerica.org/history/hs_lp_CHydra.htm

Always good to be reminded just how pervasive slavery was.

#65–James==I think some WordPress Blogs do make navigation to the home page/index “more obvious” than yours. Maybe I was just sleepier than normal and have not yet learned that every website can be navigated? Hmmm, thats not true is it?

BUT—-EXCELLENT—how “objective” an analysis can be made about “the benefits to society” from any given input? Easy to “say”—hard to prove. How is proof offered up beyond the mere assertion of the same? Your argument “sounds like” another form of “trickle down” economics. How much does “society” benefit just because a very few Southern Planters and Northern Slave Dealers and Northern Shipping Owners got rich? VERY LITTLE I will assert.

So–all a matter of degree and continuing effect? Why should the reparations based on CONTINUING economic benefit be applied federally rather than State by State? How did California benefit measurably from the cotton trade? Is there any applicability of a Statute of Limitations? If not, what other cases of reparations for the benefits CONTINUING to be relevant should be considered?

Don’t repeat whats on your blog if you have gone thru this already, but I do find the issues interesting enough to search around if you don’t have a link but affirm it is there?

The same “sense of a debt owed” is being ignored even more relevantly TODAY!! I’m thinking of our veterans killed and maimed in conflicts today–many of them minorities. I’m NO FAN of hero worship and I’m quite negative about a lot of jingoism, but we can’t do enough for wounded veterans==education, rehab, not charging for meals in the hospital, etc should be our highest concern and if we have to tax a CEO’s bonus package to balance the budget, I think that is a sacrifice all CEO’s should be made to accept. Let the wealth trickle down after that bit of social engineering.

bobbo says:

#70–Fusion==there are always MANY reasons for war–not one or two.

Also, you present conflicting “facts.”

“The North” fought to save the Union but there was rioting in NYC against dieying to free the black man.

What was the “State Right” being advanced?==the right to own slaves. Seems to me slavery is inextricably entwined.

Foolish to take simple pronouncements as an explanation for complex issues.

Paddy-O says:

# 71 bobbo said, “What was the “State Right” being advanced?”

The right for a sovereign state that freely joined, to be free to leave the Union.

Paddy-O says:

# 74 bobbo said, “Free to leave the Union in order to do what?”

That’s not relevant to the legal question at hand.

bobbo said, ““The House” would still be divided. Better a civil war NOW than a War of Conquest a decade later because of border intrustion from a slave nation.”

Umm, no. The “House” consists of those in the Union. Those who leave are not part of the country or “House”. What “border intrusions”? Again, not a relevant statement.

bobbo said, “Amazing you Southern Bigots think you can parse something so that the real intent gets lost—only on a retard.”

Umm, I’n not from the “South”. So again, not relevant. And, what is the “real intent”?

Paddy-O says:

# 76 bobbo said, “Paddy-oh-Dumbshit==a legal analysis of a War of Agression?”

I can that once again, when your arguments are shot full of holes you resort to name calling.

Your responses paint an appropriate picture of your “mind”, such as it is…

Ted Hayes says:

Wow! What a great and long overdue discussion and one that is not going away, but rather will increase. GOD Willing we will all remain civil.

At this time, the issue is not whether you accept the precept of Reparations or reject it, what is most important here, is that dialog is around it is certainly beginning.

The precept of Reparations is not just about what has occured in the United States, but in reality it is a universal-generational matter that will have epic meaning in our sudden unprecedented, gigantic-global “humam bubble”.

It as though all the deeds – good and bad- of past generations has come to a consumation in our time.

You will see that Reparations has great and long “legs” in the destiny of the whole human race.

As discussion continues and grows, we will find ourselves conjoined in a “vally of descion” where we collectively will chose for the blessing or cursing, health or sickness, peace of war, life or death for future generations.

It appears in our world of ever increaing communications technology,we the children (descendants)of our fathers (ancestors)have inherited what they have thrust upon us.

Just as our ancectors and fore parents left us the world that we now have, we must ask ourselves the question, “What kind of a world will we leave our descentdants?

This is great discussion and on that whole world will soon join and we will come to a conclusion or closure of this generational matter.

Essentially, Reparations is everybodies chickens (including Blacks in America)coming home to roost.

Thanks for talking.

GOD Is Blessing us.

James says:

is that demonstrably clear/unavoidable enough to become part of a reparations discussion? Maybe.

That sounds fair to me, bobbo. Whatever economic historians believe or don’t believe, you don’t have to be convinced that you’ve seen enough proof of a cause-and-effect relationship.

No one can disprove that without slavery America would have just had more immigrants from Europe, indentured servitude, delay everything that happened by “x” years==etc.

Certainly you’re right that a counter-factual is impossible to prove with certainty.

On the other hand, as you obviously realize, the argument is far more than merely saying that slavery was, in fact, an essential part of how the nation industrialized.

It’s an argument that it’s hard to think of a way in which industrialization could have happened in the U.S. at that time without the impact of slavery, and that without industrialization at that time, it’s hard to envision a way in which the U.S. could have industrialized later.

This is hardly iron-clad proof, but it’s not nothing, either. We know that timing was everything with industrialization. Countries which were able, for whatever internal reasons, to start industrializing early were generally able to finish that process. Countries which missed that chance, for whatever combination of reasons, were rarely, and only in highly unusual circumstances, able to industrialize later, once global markets for manufactured goods, agricultural products and commodities had become fixed.

More immigrants from Europe, as free laborers or indentured servants, is an intriguing idea, by the way. I think the problem is that it was an expanding economy, due to slavery, which drew those laborers over time.

Without slavery, the problem isn’t that the South would have lacked workers. It would have, yes, meaning that cotton and other products would be more expensive, and much production would have been shifted elsewhere. But the problem would be that the colonial economy in the North would have been vastly weaker (with much of the actual demand for northern exports being for slave plantations, and thus gone in this hypothetical).

It’s not clear that the American colonies would have become free (President Adams said that this trade was “an essential ingredient in our independence”), but certainly we can’t see how the young U.S. could have made those massive investments in industrialization in the coming decades. So I don’t think the problem would have been a lack of laborers.

Speaking of “wealth”–the first Million Dollar business in America was whaling?

Whaling was big business in New England for a while, yes, but later on. Whaling’s golden age in this country took place after the War of 1812, long after our colonial economic successes and after the textile industry began to take off.

I would also think that a “great” impetus to industrialization would be lack of a labor force

It’s more about cost savings and the speed of production. Consider that industrialization arose in Europe, and flowered primarily there. (The whole point is that the U.S. was one of the only non-European countries to be able to industrialize at this time.) Europe, as we know, had a labor glut, not a shortage. The Industrial Revolution was a huge success because it made more efficient use of those workers.

There are quite a few websites listing the number/positions of slaves.

Yes, there were some very interesting facts raised by the links posted in that thread. Such as the fact that slaves were more often owned singly, or in small numbers, not on the large plantations we tend to think about.

Slavery had pro-growth and anti-growth aspects to it. Seems ambiguous enough so that anyone can pretty much draw/project whatever attitudes they have?

Well, I don’t see history in quite that way, bobbo. For instance, I think we can say important things about the effects of slavery in the South (generating tremendous wealth, but only by building an economy limited to producing certain agriculture commodities, thus restricting future growth) and in the North (where being unable to raise valuable, slave-produced cash crops forced northerners to rely on exports to slave regions and to specialize in maritime, financial, and industrial pursuits directly connected to those slave regions, thus building the foundation for later, more advanced economic enterprises).

RASTERMAN says:

Not quite sure why this never got posted. I submitted it two days ago. It would have been post #30 or #31.

Cheers!

—RASTER

Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Blacks is a Bad Idea for Blacks – and Racist Too
By David Horowitz
FrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, January 03, 2001

One

There Is No Single Group Clearly Responsible For The Crime Of Slavery

Black Africans and Arabs were responsible for enslaving the ancestors of African-Americans. There were 3,000 black slave-owners in the ante-bellum United States. Are reparations to be paid by their descendants too?

Two

There Is No One Group That Benefited Exclusively From Its Fruits

The claim for reparations is premised on the false assumption that only whites have benefited from slavery. If slave labor created wealth for Americans, then obviously it has created wealth for black Americans as well, including the descendants of slaves. The GNP of black America is so large that it makes the African-American community the 10th most prosperous “nation” in the world. American blacks on average enjoy per capita incomes in the range of twenty to fifty times that of blacks living in any of the African nations from which they were kidnapped.

Three

Only A Tiny Minority Of White Americans Ever Owned Slaves, And Others Gave Their Lives To Free Them

Only a tiny minority of Americans ever owned slaves. This is true even for those who lived in the ante-bellum South where only one white in five was a slaveholder. Why should their descendants owe a debt? What about the descendants of the 350,000 Union soldiers who died to free the slaves? They gave their lives. What possible moral principle would ask them to pay (through their descendants) again?

Four

America Today Is A Multi-Ethnic Nation and Most Americans Have No Connection (Direct Or Indirect) To Slavery

The two great waves of American immigration occurred after 1880 and then after 1960. What rationale would require Vietnamese boat people, Russian refuseniks, Iranian refugees, and Armenian victims of the Turkish persecution, Jews, Mexicans Greeks, or Polish, Hungarian, Cambodian and Korean victims of Communism, to pay reparations to American blacks?

Five

The Historical Precedents Used To Justify The Reparations Claim Do Not Apply, And The Claim Itself Is Based On Race Not Injury

The historical precedents generally invoked to justify the reparations claim are payments to Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, Japanese-Americans and African- American victims of racial experiments in Tuskegee, or racial outrages in Rosewood and Oklahoma City. But in each case, the recipients of reparations were the direct victims of the injustice or their immediate families. This would be the only case of reparations to people who were not immediately affected and whose sole qualification to receive reparations would be racial. As has already been pointed out, during the slavery era, many blacks were free men or slave-owners themselves, yet the reparations claimants make no distinction between the roles blacks actually played in the injustice itself. Randall Robinson’s book on reparations, The Debt, which is the manifesto of the reparations movement is pointedly sub-titled “What America Owes To Blacks.” If this is not racism, what is?

Six

The Reparations Argument Is Based On The Unfounded Claim That All African-American Descendants of Slaves Suffer From The Economic Consequences Of Slavery And Discrimination

No evidence-based attempt has been made to prove that living individuals have been adversely affected by a slave system that was ended over 150 years ago. But there is plenty of evidence the hardships that occurred were hardships that individuals could and did overcome. The black middle-class in America is a prosperous community that is now larger in absolute terms than the black underclass. Does its existence not suggest that economic adversity is the result of failures of individual character rather than the lingering after-effects of racial discrimination and a slave system that ceased to exist well over a century ago? West Indian blacks in America are also descended from slaves but their average incomes are equivalent to the average incomes of whites ( and nearly 25% higher than the average incomes of American born blacks). How is it that slavery adversely affected one large group of descendants but not the other? How can government be expected to decide an issue that is so subjective – and yet so critical – to the case?

Seven

The Reparations Claim Is One More Attempt To Turn African-Americans Into Victims. It Sends A Damaging Message To The African-American Community.

The renewed sense of grievance — which is what the claim for reparations will inevitably create — is neither a constructive nor a helpful message for black leaders to be sending to their communities and to others. To focus the social passions of African-Americans on what some Americans may have done to their ancestors fifty or a hundred and fifty years ago is to burden them with a crippling sense of victim-hood. How are the millions of refugees from tyranny and genocide who are now living in America going to receive these claims, moreover, except as demands for special treatment, an extravagant new handout that is only necessary because some blacks can’t seem to locate the ladder of opportunity within reach of others — many less privileged than themselves?

Eight

Reparations To African Americans Have Already Been Paid

Since the passage of the Civil Rights Acts and the advent of the Great Society in 1965, trillions of dollars in transfer payments have been made to African-Americans in the form of welfare benefits and racial preferences (in contracts, job placements and educational admissions) – all under the rationale of redressing historic racial grievances. It is said that reparations are necessary to achieve a healing between African-Americans and other Americans. If trillion dollar restitutions and a wholesale rewriting of American law (in order to accommodate racial preferences) for African-Americans is not enough to achieve a “healing,” what will?

Nine

What About The Debt Blacks Owe To America?

Slavery existed for thousands of years before the Atlantic slave trade was born, and in all societies. But in the thousand years of its existence, there never was an anti-slavery movement until white Christians – Englishmen and Americans — created one. If not for the anti-slavery attitudes and military power of white Englishmen and Americans, the slave trade would not have been brought to an end. If not for the sacrifices of white soldiers and a white American president who gave his life to sign the Emancipation Proclamation, blacks in America would still be slaves. If not for the dedication of Americans of all ethnicities and colors to a society based on the principle that all men are created equal, blacks in America would not enjoy the highest standard of living of blacks anywhere in the world, and indeed one of the highest standards of living of any people in the world. They would not enjoy the greatest freedoms and the most thoroughly protected individual rights anywhere. Where is the gratitude of black America and its leaders for those gifts?

Ten

The Reparations Claim Is A Separatist Idea That Sets African-Americans Against The Nation That Gave Them Freedom

Blacks were here before the Mayflower. Who is more American than the descendants of African slaves? For the African-American community to isolate itself even further from America is to embark on a course whose implications are troubling. Yet the African-American community has had a long-running flirtation with separatists, nationalists and the political left, who want African-Americans to be no part of America’s social contract. African Americans should reject this temptation.

For all America’s faults, African-Americans have an enormous stake in their country and its heritage. It is this heritage that is really under attack by the reparations movement. The reparations claim is one more assault on America, conducted by racial separatists and the political left. It is an attack not only on white Americans, but on all Americans — especially African-Americans.

America’s African-American citizens are the richest and most privileged black people alive — a bounty that is a direct result of the heritage that is under assault. The American idea needs the support of its African-American citizens. But African-Americans also need the support of the American idea. For it is this idea that led to the principles and institutions that have set African-Americans – and all of us — free.

bobbo says:

#84–me==always dangerous to start arguing with oneself==but James, because you have avoided the invitation a few times already, my own answer would be “No, as long as the benefit to a society can still be measured/ascertain the objective basis for reparations recovery are still present.” So, again, skip your conclusionary restatement and state the measurement of the reparations due? What were they in 1869 and what are they today? Has it been declining over time (I assume with no basis?) or have they in fact somehow compounded over the years?

And again out of interest–are there any other examples of justified reparations due to ancestors of those who were directly wronged?

James says:

Too often Horowitz is a bit nutty for my tastes although I relate to his underdog status?

I’m with bobbo here. I think Horowitz is a bit nutty, but he raises some excellent objections to reparations (although focusing on an old version of the idea, so some of his arguments aren’t relevant anymore).

James–to restate my last post, and Horowitz not withstanding–assuming there was a benefit to America because of Slave Labor==how long will the benefit last so as to justify reparations?

Again, I think that’s two questions.

In terms of how long the benefits of the early U.S. economic successes will last, how long will the U.S. exist? How long will its economic strength be largely based on the foundation created by the colonial and early U.S. economic developments, and not by, say, a complete revamping of the world economic order that gives all nations a shot at economic success without regard to their past histories?

In terms of the second part, however, none of this necessarily justifies reparations.

doesn’t the complexity/chaos/variability/pros and cons of “life” make reparations a theoretical issue for maybe the affected generation plus 25 years and thats about it?

In many cases, I do think that length of time is enough to effectively wipe out harm to an affected group. Think of, say, Irish immigrants in the 19th century, or Indian immigrants in the 20th or 21st century. They faced discrimination and disadvantage, but before long were able to take advantage of many opportunities and find discrimination rapidly disappearing.

In the case of black Americans, however, slavery was followed by a century of brutal, widespread discrimination which has only gradually been disappearing in the last 40 years. We can show that black American families have never been given the chance to fully recover from these historical experiences (in fact, socioeconomic progress has been slight), while Irish-Americans do not bear the signs of the past in this way.

state the measurement of the reparations due? What were they in 1869 and what are they today?

I don’t believe that any reparations are due, bobbo.

If you want to measure the harm suffered by black Americans today due to our history of slavery and discrimination, I suppose you could go about it in one of two ways: either calculate what their families should have had in 1865 (say, reasonable compensation for slavery) and what they should have been able to accumulate over time without discrimination; or look at the disparity today between whites and blacks.

This doesn’t mean that reparations are due, of course, and if they are, what measure is appropriate. I’m just trying to suggest ways to estimate the harm done, since that seems to be what you’re asking. This is also different from the benefits derived by other Americans from that history, which is mostly what we’ve been talking about here, but presumably wouldn’t be the right measure of any reparations.

Has it been declining over time (I assume with no basis?) or have they in fact somehow compounded over the years?

I would think that any reparations amount has been declining very gradually over time, since we know that black citizens have been very, very gradually closing the racial inequality gap with whites.

are there any other examples of justified reparations due to ancestors of those who were directly wronged?

Well, presumably reparations were justified for the descendants of Japanese-Americans interned in concentration camps by the U.S. during WWII, since President Reagan and Congress gave them $1.6 billion in reparations.

I would think that there might be other such examples, but I can’t think of any off the top of my head. And, again, I’m not arguing that any reparations are due for slavery and discrimination.

I think it’s also important to note that most advocates of reparations for slavery and discrimination don’t want compensation for harm done to their ancestors. They want something to be done about the harm suffered by Americans today as a result of that history, which I think is quite different, at least in principle. Few of us would even think about paying someone today for the suffering of people centuries ago, but any harm endured by our fellow citizens today is at least something worth talking about.

James says:

I think adding the continuing discrimination as the main basis for reparations today is a stronger argument than reparations for the earlier slavery.

I agree, bobbo, which is why I’m glad to see more and more people focusing on the legacy of slavery today, rather than simply on the sins of the past.

why would that not fill the bill?

If you’re suggesting that the Great Society programs of the 1960s were reparations, under another name, then we disagree about that. Those programs benefited whites more than blacks, for instance, and did little to address the legacy of slavery and discrimination for modern black families.

The Japanese reparations were to those directly affected or their kiddies==not the example requested.

I realize you don’t think that example is pertinent enough, bobbo, but it does involve reparations paid to the victims’ descendants, as requested. I’m not sure whether that particular scheme (victims are paid, if alive; otherwise, the money goes to their recent descendants) is significantly different from the one which would apply to blacks (victims aren’t alive, so the money goes to their distant descendants).

Any Reparations older than that? Any other groups that might qualify?

Hmm. I’ve never really thought much about other examples of reparations; as I’ve said, I’m not much for that whole concept.

Alfred Brophy, in his book Reparations Pro & Con (2006), lists twenty-seven examples of reparations proposals, not all of which resulted in payments.

For instance, Massachusetts paid £20 for each person unjustly prosecuted as a witch in Salem in the 18th century. The money was paid to the families of the victims.

Illinois paid up to $5,000 per person and family member to victims and their families, for mob violence in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

And, of course, this fall it was announced that many of the Mexican braceros (guest workers) in the U.S. in WWII would be paid $3,500 each, and where dead, their descendants would receive the money.

Included in Brophy’s list are other groups which haven’t received reparations, but for which claims have been made.

James says:

Why would such a program not be reparations whether it was called that or not and whether it was even intended for that purpose or not?

Because any program which benefits primarily whites, and which does little to redress the lingering consequences of slavery and discrimination today, simply can’t be reparations for the latter history, by anyone’s definition. Can it?

I’m not necessarily criticizing those programs, and I’m certainly not arguing for race-based programs. I’m just saying that reparations would have to address the legacy which those reparations are intended to address (almost a tautology, isn’t it?).

I thought we were talking about reparations for specific benefits that were still being received today?===or how would you define what we should focus on?

I would think that reparations would need to focus on specific harm experienced today, with benefits enjoyed today being used to help justify reparations.

And in all cases==again==how do we measure it?

How do we measure the benefit? Or the harm?

I think, personally, that reparations would need to be calibrated in terms of the harm, not the benefit. Measuring harm could probably best be done by measuring racial inequities, which has been done extensively. Did you want to get into the various types of racial inequality in our country, and how to quantify each one? We could certainly do that, if you’d like.

But I don’t think reparations could or should aim at eliminating the harm, so I’m not personally worried about the measurement of it.

Is that what you want?

Do I want people’s lives to fall apart after they win the lottery, or are granted reparations? No, I don’t — but then, I’m not in favor of lotteries or reparations, either.

I’m not sure it’s fair, though, to refer to measures to compensate people for unjust harm they’ve suffered as “money they didn’t earn.” They may not have earned it, but almost by definition they’re entitled to it, and receiving it merely grants them what other people already have. Or something’s gone horribly, horribly wrong.

bobbo says:

91–James==actually, I said this before too (and maybe Horowitz did as well?), why wouldn’t any general welfare program that helped any disadvantaged person be reparations?

Poor whites (disproportionate or not) are helped because they need it. Their family history could be of many sorts like having roots in the coal mines of Kentucky or some gawd forsaken religious commune in Oklahoma. Blacks of course could find their disadvantages in the same situations and even perhaps more often because of slavery===but if they get help from society because of their disadvantage why isn’t that reparations? Why is it reparations only if it is called that and only if it is above and beyond what other disadvantaged groups get?

Do you sense any kind of “race to the bottom” going on here?