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And looking at Africa today, I honestly think the vast majority of african americans are extremely lucky to have had ancestors suffer so they can be vastly better off today. They have overcome. Obama is proof of that. But he's also shaping up to be a terrible president so maybe they finally have their revenge. Let's just call it even.
We can also turn the tables on your argument: The US would not be a rich superpower today had it not been for the slave labor that it had exploited at its inception. $20 trillion of capital (or whatever the number is) that slave labor infused to this country, to get it up and going, is not something you can sneeze at. That amount of free capital (or free labor) was the jet fuel that propelled our country to great wealth. That gave us our head start.
Whenever I hear jingoistic Americans snidely compare the prosperity of the US to the abject poverty of the Third World (often implying that Americans are somehow blessed by God and are superior to other people), I am always reminded by the fact that our wealth was not exactly attained through pure laissez faire entrepreneurship. The seed of our success was our exploitation of African slaves. (Well, I suppose you can call slave trading an entrepreneurial venture, but this is not the kind of entrepreneurship that American jingoists preen about and are proud to admit).
Without the seed capital of slavery, where would we be today? Would we still be a superpower?
I actually don't hear too many blacks talking about reparations or compensation to ancestors of blacks slaves. Most people are too busy working and living their lives to think of their past. It is usually a Liberal White (typically a far left Democrat) whose thinking is warped by white guilt that bring up the subject.
The reparations thing has always infuriated me.....NOBODY alive in America today owned a slave and there are no blacks alive today who were slaves so why would this issue even be discussed by anyone????
While I have never been an advocate of reparations in the form of direct in kind payments, from a theoretical point of view, your argument files in the face of both tort law and common law practices in that the death of the defendant doesn't immunize their estate from a judgment.
As for the sue the Africans canard, I find it strange that you propose that collectively American slave owners should be exempted while out of the other side of your mouth you argue that individuals or groups even father down the tree of liability should instead bare the sole burden for compensatory judgement.
We can also turn the tables on your argument: The US would not be a rich superpower today had it not been for the slave labor that it had exploited at its inception. $20 trillion of capital (or whatever the number is) that slave labor infused to this country, to get it up and going, is not something you can sneeze at. That amount of free capital (or free labor) was the jet fuel that propelled our country to great wealth. That gave us our head start.
That "free labor" was helpful, but actually made slave owners, not the US, richer than it otherwise would have been. Imagine that slaves were paid the pittance wages "enjoyed" by poor white laborers doing the same work. Would that REALLY have stunted the economic growth of the nation, or merely made the plantation owners less wealthy themselves (controlling for cost savings in feeding and housing the slaves).
Slavery's biggest crime was the "ownership" "abuse" and "lack of freedom" aspects.... not the "uncompensated labor" aspect. Slaves were basically in the same economic position as poor white laborers who worked for "slave wages" but whites had the priceless intangible advantage of "freedom."
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Originally Posted by ndfmnlf
Whenever I hear jingoistic Americans snidely compare the prosperity of the US to the abject poverty of the Third World (often implying that Americans are somehow blessed by God and are superior to other people), I am always reminded by the fact that our wealth was not exactly attained through pure laissez faire entrepreneurship. The seed of our success was our exploitation of African slaves. (Well, I suppose you can call slave trading an entrepreneurial venture, but this is not the kind of entrepreneurship that American jingoists preen about and are proud to admit).
At some point, you have to STOP tracing back who did what to whom. Northern Africans colonized and subjugated MY ancestral homeland, yet I'm not exactly getting out the calculator to wonder how my economic position today would have been different had they never done so.
America (and the West) have jumped lightyears ahead of a lot of the "third world" not just because of exploitation, but because of the social advances of 1) capitalism, 2) gender equality, and 3) government stability/guaranteed protections of law that make business and risk taking possible.
Other societies that have adopted the same basic model have flourished, including African nations such as Kenya and South Africa.
As for "third world," had the Europeans never made it to Subsaharan Africa, chances are they would still be "third world," because there's no indication that they would have wanted to willingly change their lifestyle to that of the Europeans and Asians that had managed to trade with up until that point. In some countries, colonial railways are STILL the only railways built in the country. Maybe Africans would have chosen to keep a traditional lifestyle had Europeans fairly traded with them (remember how we bought Manhattan for some shells that were worthless to us but valuable to the Indians?), but it would still be "third world" by our standards.
Then again, you cannot blame colonialism for all of Africa's ills. Many countries, including the US, Canada, Australia, India, and all of South America, were "colonies" and subject to colonialism. Then you have examples in the Carribean, where some countries cast off colonial bonds sooner than others (Haiti), but do not enjoy the prosperity of colonies that did so later (Jamaica, Bahamas, etc.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by ndmnlf
Without the seed capital of slavery, where would we be today? Would we still be a superpower?
Have you been reading essays by Cornell West and Ogeltree?
The "seed" capital of slavery would have been replaced by the "seed" capital of exploited, underpaid white and native labor. Every society and nation is built by a tenuous dance between the intellectual and governing class that dreams "it", and the exploited labor class that "builds" it. The two cannot exist without one another, because contrary to what the great leftist writers would like to think, people are different and better suited to some roles over others. Labor owning the modes and means of production sounds good, but is a lot harder to implement.
But I digress....
I submit that without slavery, the "costs" of dealing with slavery's legacy these days in the form of set asides, affirmative action, welfare, inner city crime, racial tensions, riots, .... have made us a POORER nation on many levels than what we otherwise would have been if slaves were never brought to the United States. Of course, we're richer in other ways, culturally, but at some point, the picture gets so big that the question is probably unanswerable.
Yeah, but on the somewhat questionable authority of Sherman. Still, there were some that got it, and there were a number of black colonies that grew up along the coast from that sort of start after the war, a few of which did become rather successful. The death of Reconstuction didn't help any, and much of that whole lifestyle, black or white, started to erode anyway with migrations west and the spread of the industrial revolution in the east.
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Originally Posted by ovcatto
I'll just take 4 blocks and a Range Rover.
I hear Range Rovers are good for plowing...but I'm not sure how they're going to handle asphalt and concrete...
As a black male, I think the black community can do something more productive than reflect back on slavery and ask for compensation. In my view, the black community is evolving before my eyes. More blacks in college, living in nicer neighborhoods, and creating nicer neighborhoods.
Dont tell me that me and Roland Martin are the only blacks who think that the black community should stop holding our breath for reparations before we turn into the blue community.
Well said Alanboy........I just wish all black Americans felt the way you do.
As for the sue the Africans canard, I find it strange that you propose that collectively American slave owners should be exempted while out of the other side of your mouth you argue that individuals or groups even father down the tree of liability should instead bare the sole burden for compensatory judgement.
Strange, but not surprising.
I'll go even further. You cannot sue someone for engaging in a practice that was not illegal at the time.
Imagine someone who used to work 80 hours a week for ten years suing their former employment for overtime AFTER overtime laws were passed.
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Originally Posted by Ovcatto
I'm not that greedy.
Freedman were promised 40 acres and a mule.
Yeah, but by someone who didn't exactly have the authority to promise that. As Saganista points out, many blacks did take up land on the outerbanks of the South, but many also were kicked out when the original dispossed white land owners came back for their land.
Yeah, but by someone who didn't exactly have the authority to promise that. As Saganista points out, many blacks did take up land on the outerbanks of the South, but many also were kicked out when the original dispossed white land owners came back for their land.
Yeah, the promise undone. Which is why the phrase has come to stand in one sense for that very thing.
Sherman probably did have the authority at the time he made the promise, but there was nothing left of that after Lincoln was shot and Andrew Johnson took over. The fate and effect of those colonies had Lincoln lived has long been one of those What If? questions in my mind. Might have just petered out anyway, but on the other hand...
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