[lbo-talk] South & North/Reparations

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Thu Feb 10 09:35:33 PST 2005


John Thornton:
> What is dumb is using this reason to oppose reparations.
\

No, the dumb thing is to use this concept in a way that makes it meaningless. The argument was that "reparations" is a meaningful concept only in the context of specific, measurable damages to clearly identifiable parties - and the idea of "reparations for slavery" fails that test. To which Cmde Lacny replied identifying government as one such a party, which is pretty half baked for several reasons. Regressive tax structure can be one of them. Another one, and I believe more convincing, is that the government that actually supported slavery does not exist anymore - it was defeated and disbanded by the government to whose heir Cmde Lacny wants to send the bill. It is tantamount to holding the current Russian government accountable for Nazi crimes on the grounds that the Soviet Union occupied part of German territory. Pure lunacy.

Wojtek



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