"Practicalities" of Reparations (was Re: Defacing Websites, "Stealing" Free Papers)

[Gordon Fitch]

Justin Schwartz:
> 
> >Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> >
> >>Mat & Justin have already made an argument that practicalities are
> >>not the problem.  What's your objection to them?
> >
> >1) Defining race.
> 
> Elibigity has to be on the basis of descent from a slave, not on the basis 
> of race.
> 
>  > 2) Defining eligibility after defining race.
> 
> Not a big deal. Anyone who can show to some reasonable standard that she or 
> he had at least some % of slave ancestry, something like that. You wouldn't 
> have to require that people produce papers; race might be a presumptive 
> indicator.
> 
> >3)
> >Defining the mechanism of reparation (America's plan reinforces
> >capitalist logic; you want to undermine it.
> 
> Send out a check to the eligible.
> 
>  > 4) Deciding whom
> >to
> >exclude - if you include the descendants of slaves, why not Indians?
> >Why not the Latin Americans we've bled for eons?
> 
> Because reparations for slavery is not intended to right all wrongs.
> 
> >  5) Deciding how to
> >fund them - should working class whites be taxed, or just bourgeois
> >whites?
> >
> 
> In the real world, obviously yes.
> 
> This is just a dodge for avoiding _political_ discussion, Doug.

Doug's remark about "capitalist logic" is both
political and relevant.

The business about race and eligibility comes in because many
of the proponents of reparations do not wish to limit the
claim or the payment to the descendants of the slaves.  I
think this will make it more difficult to proceed.

In reference to (5), it seems to me that a tax on property,
rather than income, would be more appropriate, because that
is where most of the wealth stolen from the slaves wound up.
It's old money now.   And the payment is not supposed to be
an ongoing, year-to-year expense, like most of the
government's expenditures.