tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post5063256837497182427..comments2024-03-06T06:34:42.881-05:00Comments on EconoSpeak: ReparationsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-61530414849167991662009-04-15T02:07:00.000-04:002009-04-15T02:07:00.000-04:00The sins of the father are not to be visited on th...The sins of the father are not to be visited on the sons. But that also works for wealth and station. So long as reparations are paid specifically by estate taxes I have no problem with it. But don't send me the bill for what my grand pappy did unless I have benefited from it. I had no inherited wealth and I have no inherited obligations.TheTruckerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10346127768102862741noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-45508705087341100872009-04-14T13:58:00.000-04:002009-04-14T13:58:00.000-04:00The question is unanswerable under your economic f...The question is unanswerable under your economic framework, which only sees reparation operating as a contractionary force. That is, taking capital from successful ventures and redistributing it to the unsuccessful. The outcome will not be better under your plan.<br /><br />There was a proposal a while back from the editor of blackelectorate.com. He focussed on reparations that would be growth-inducing, such as offering black americans low priced land in the west which they were denied, or offering black americans a zero income tax such as which americans were able to use to build up their wealth. Such a buildup would benefit both black and white, and also has a chance in hell, unlike a redistribution.wellbasicallynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-87373350981582877842009-04-14T09:41:00.000-04:002009-04-14T09:41:00.000-04:00Reparatins is only one more device which immediate...Reparatins is only one more device which immediately sets the have nots against the have nots. The issue would become mute if the have nots would learn how their proverbial bread could be buttered.<br />Wealth distribution is the unholy grail of all these seperatist issues, economic, political, religious,etc.Jackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12971442888151627894noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-12743804222941533912009-04-14T00:09:00.000-04:002009-04-14T00:09:00.000-04:00I think the very form of the question neglects som...I think the very form of the question neglects some important considerations. Slavery and colonization, in settler societies like the U.S., have done the propertied classes an immense benefit in obscuring the class struggle behind a layer of racial obfuscation; they've benefited also through the "divide and conquer" effects of granting white skin privilege to a subset of the laboring classes and undermining class solidarity.<br /><br />Still, even though black slaves and their descendants are at the bottom of the class ladder, the class divide still cuts across racial lines. The descendants of an evicted cottager who was transported for stealing bread should not be put in the same category as David Rockefeller.<br /><br />To borrow a phrase from Peter Tosh, it's been a pretty lousy "Four Hundred Years" for the white laboring classes, as well. The rates of shipboard deaths of transported convicts and indentured servants were comparable to those of black slaves. And indenture itself wasn't the "slavery lite" of only seven years that it's simplistically made out to be. The owner of an indenture contract could extend the term of service pretty much at will for a whole range of real and imagined "offenses," and dying from hard usage (poor food and corporal punishment) wasn't exactly rare. A majority of indentured servants actually died in service. So much for the "seven years."<br /><br />The descendants of black slaves should be at the head of the line when it comes to reparations, because their experience was the worst. But we need to consider not just slavery but the Enclosures, the nullification of copyhold, and all the other expropriations of the Old World peasantry as part of the overall picture. And we need "forty acres and a mule" for everyone who got a raw deal over the past Four Hundred Years.Kevin Carsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07525803609000364993noreply@blogger.com