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.)
I mean that, and also the fact that countries that were plundered for slaves basically lost on a lot of progress due to that, and countries that got slaves were built off of that, basically for free. Sure, it’s not exactly fair to say that the plundered countries would have gotten to where slaver countries are today without that, but it doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to see that Europe basically fucked Africa for a century, Africa is worse off for it, Europe is not, and they probably should be giving back not just for their conscience but as what it’s called: reparations.
What I’m trying to get at is that after WWI, Europe (and especially France) decided now-germany did a lot of damage to them, and it wasn’t fair that they could get to bomb your country to hell and not pay to fix it. So Germany had to pay reparations (which was a factor for WWII but we’ll not get into that), as a way of helping those countries build back what they had bombed.
Of course, all the economic rationeles are valid.
They are also not very compelling. If slaver Europe fucked over Africa for a century, should we compensate them only for stolen labor? How about stolen resources? Caused suffering? Lost progress? Lost standing? Lost lives?
How about all the exploitation that has happened since, due to slaver Europe having the upper hand? African labor and resources are still valued lower than in richer countries as local working conditions are still poor and exploitative.
Also, could paying reparations as a lump sum ever measure up to the slow development of infrastructure, knowledge, culture and national pride/trust/stability that comes with building your own wealth?
We have plenty of experience with aid getting stolen by warlords, and grants commonly get lost to corruption, cronies and other misappropriation, even without the warlords.
For the fiscal compensation to make sense, we’re talking orders of magnitude larger sums, and they would have to be given together with labor, knowledge, supportive relations, etc. over decades. And also with much fewer strings than our current economic system allows.
I find that there is no satisfying way to fiscally compensate for a century of exploitation, suffering and oppression, and have found that the sums and arguments are more compelling as an absolution. It’s about the slavers wanting to clear their conscience more than making it right.
It’s not the most noble reason for it, but it seems do do more for that than for the exploited people. Either change what we’re talking about, or face that your reasons are about you, not them.