Reparations for Slavery: a Libertarian Viewpoint

"there is usually no way to rectify or even slightly ameliorate the distant past"

reparations for slavery  First, consider the immediate ^*libertarian implication of ^*aggressive ^*slavery (i.e., where there is no ^*legitimate ^*contract or ^*rectification involved) according to the philosophical theory of this dictionary. The implication is that the slave should be immediately freed and given full rectification at the expense of the perpetrators. Full rectification—including any relevant ^*risk multiplier—will be what that person would plausibly have had to have been given to be a contractual slave in the same conditions or, at his option, the rectificational enslavement of his former owner (or any variation thereof).

What if the slave dies before his liberation and rectification can occur? Then that rectification is owed to his children, or to his heirs, or to any genetic relatives, or to the ^*charitable causes, etc., that he would plausibly have preferred to have it. But after only a generation or two, it becomes increasingly unlikely that anything will be owed. In particular, this is because most of someone’s wealth is usually consumed within his own lifetime with maybe a small remainder for only one more generation. This means that it is unusual for descendants of any slave-owners to have any current ^*property, or other advantages, that can be clearly traced back to slavery (but if they have, then there is a case for returning it to the relevant descendants, etc.).

What of the current call for “reparations for slavery”, especially in the USA? “Reparations” is inherently ^*moralised, implying a wrong-doing, rather than objective. The way it is used also appears to be involuntarily ^*collectivist. To keep matters clearer, we will stick with “libertarian rectification” (although this objective and individualistic analysis can be affirmed as morally desirable). There are various complicating factors that strongly militate against this idea; and which collectively refute it. The following list is undoubtedly not faultless or exhaustive. No ranking in terms of importance is attempted or implied by their order.

1) Given the long history of slavery around the world (continuing in many countries even today), it is likely that virtually everyone is descended from both slaves and slave-owners. If we are not to ^*privilege American blacks, then some—impossibly complicated—universal analysis is implied.

2) It would ^*initiate a new imposition to penalise innocent people solely because they happen to be descendants of slave-owners. Some enduring benefit needs to be proven.

3) Black American slavery is usually far too long ago for there to be any remaining inherited benefits that would constitute rectification from descendants of white slave-owners or black slave-owners (as there were even in the US) to descendants of black slaves.

4) All of the descendants of black slaves are better off as a result of their ancestors having been slaves: by living in the US. However, it is not relevant that they are mainly better off simply by existing, as those specific individuals would not have existed at all but for slavery (the non-identity problem) because any ^*legitimate ^*inheritance will go to whoever happens to be a descendant. “Rectification” for something in the distant past that makes one better off today does not appear to make much sense (although if someone were today to attempt an initiated imposition that has accidental beneficial results, then he could still be liable for the initiated imposed risk).

5) It is possible that, on average, black slaves in America were better off than free blacks in Africa; where life was much shorter and more brutal. And by contemporary accounts, freed-slaves sometimes bemoaned their new freedom: seeing their slave time as happier, better fed, and better protected. It is very likely that being slaves in America was better than being slaves in Africa, which was often the likely alternative.

6) What of the view that “the injustices U.S. blacks endured after emancipation have caused some of the injuries of the slaves to persist into the present” (“Black Reparations”, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)? This overlooks the fact that blacks were doing ever better up to the point that the ^*welfare-state undermined their self-reliance and progress (see, especially, relevant writings of Thomas Sowell; the brilliant, black, US economist)

7) Many of the original black slaves would themselves have been descended from both slaves and, black, slave-owners within Africa. For that reason, any relevant contemporary US blacks would have somewhat similar claims against themselves—including by themselves (at least, if we are not arbitrarily to limit claims to the US and to after the slaves arrive).

8) Most current Americans self-describing as “blacks” are partly white: up to being half or more white. Genetic testing might be needed to assess any relevant claims, including intrapersonal implications. Such people might claim that they are perceived and treated as black, and so should be treated as fully black for any “reparations”. But that claim has nothing to do with what people might be entitled to for having ancestral slavery.

9) Most of the whites and many of the blacks in the US are descended from people who never owned slaves or were slaves during the period in question, or they are descended from post-slavery immigrants unrelated to the slavery in question.

10) It is, of course, usually suggested that it is the American ^*government (or ^*state) that has the duty to pay the rectifications (“reparations”) because it was the ^*organisation that primarily made slavery possible. As we have already seen, it is not clear that any rectification is still due. In any case, the government can only raise money by ^*taxation (i.e., ^*extortion) from people who are innocent of any such initiated imposition. The claim against the government appears to be made primarily because it has the deepest pockets (or, rather, access to everyone else’s pockets through its ^*power).

The current call for “reparations for slavery” in America does not withstand scrutiny. It ranges from being, at one extreme, due to philosophical, economic, and empirical confusion (undoubtedly influenced by the fashionable zeitgeist of ^*wokeism, whether its virtue-signalling proponents realise it or not) to being, at the other extreme, a wokeist ^*fraud (and one that is probably intended to be insatiable). In addition, it is likely to stir up racial discord on both sides of the issue as each perceives “injustice” and “racism” in the attempted process. There is the terrible historical fact of slavery around the world, but there is usually no way to rectify or even slightly ameliorate the distant past. And any attempt to do so would inevitably involve new initiated impositions on innocent people in the present. If people really cared about the injustice of slavery, then they would be trying to eliminate it where it exists today.

(This is an entry from A LIBERTARIAN DICTIONARY: Explaining a Philosophical Theory [draft currently being revised]. Asterisks indicate other entries.)