Should the UK goverment pay reparations for the atroticies of the slave trade?

[RoryRory]

Hello, I was reading this article here: Guardian - UK sternly resists paying reparations for slavery.

Now firstly I was like.. well duh of course they should. But I was speaking to my uncle about this and he said it would be unfair to tax the average brit to pay for the crimes of an elite few who got rich off the exploitation of slavery and the exploitation of the workers during the industrial revolution. Most brits do not have family ties to slave owners or rich factory owners who profited from the export of their goods in exchange for slaves from africa. I know what people will say, that the slave trade helped fuel the industrialization of Britain and provided work for many people in factories etc. But was this not just another form of exploitation? Were the workers really benefiting from slavery or were they too being exploited to produce products to fuel the trade? So how can we justify taxing the descendents of the oppressed majority to pay for the ills of the minority who ruled over them and the slaves? What about those who have no descendents around at the time?

What do you think, should the british government be using tax revenues from the average brit to pay for the atrocities of the slave trade?

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I think the paradigm of reparations are problematic (who benefits - local business elites or the workers? and as you say, who pays the taxes for these reparations?), but I certainly think areas and populations left under developed because of slavery should be assisted socially and economically. I think we should look for a proletarian model, not the bourgeois model akin to lawsuit payoffs if we really want to fix the problem systemically.

[NoXiOuScRaSh]

I agree the idea of reparations does sound like they are just buying their forgiveness instead it would be much more effective and I feel a lot more well received if instead this that they simply show their commitment to an equal and united society by moving forward from their mistakes and make thing better for all the people, Reparations do nothing but strengthen the ideal of being a people separate from the rest of the nation segregation is not the answer it is Unity among all of the Proletarians that keeps the People strong and moving forward.

[TC]

I think any measure that redistributes wealth such that wealth is distributed more equally should be supported. If these payments would achieve that (very unclear if it would) then they should be supported simply on egalitarian grounds.

However, a belief that a government of descendants of a government that permitted slavery owe something in a legalistic sense to the government of a territory from which people were enslaved, is a version of corruption of the blood. If we could go back and time and give former slaves the wealth that they built from former slave owners who held it, of course that should be done - but that isn't the situation we have today in any really meaningful sense.

[NoXiOuScRaSh]

I see where you are coming from and it brings on the question of should we be responsible for what are ancestors did or didn't do and on the other end should people receive payment for work they themselves had no part of? It seems to me like the past is the past and instead of making up for past mistakes we should be thinking about the future and fixing things presently blame and forgiveness just seem like a wasted effort on a generation that didn't even experience the past atrocities of the slave trade. Now I do believe alot can be done about racism as it stands today but that is what I feel should be focused on, bringing up the past just really causes to much bad blood for it to be a progression towards unity. Also I would like to point out that I totally support the ideal of equal distribution of wealth But I don't see how reparations to a single part of society accomplishes that considering many of the people who's predecessor's were slaves are not in a position of poverty.(if thats what you meant by redistribution)

[Invader Zim]

Redistribution of wealth under the capitalist model of society is a half measure, though certainly to be supported nevertheless. So, I agree with TC (welcome back, btw) that it should be supported, even if it is 'worthy' out come for all the wrong reasons - I say that because the current British government, and its citizens, are not responsible for a an institution abolished 206 years ago.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Even if there is a move to pay reparations for past crimes, it doesn't change the structural exploitation that is still ongoing thanks to the legacy that colonialism inflicted on colonised peoples. Forgiving national debt would be an initial step but also demanding reparations from the companies and financial institutions that profited so much from colonialism and slavery and still exist much in the same form today and that wouldn't be taking anything from the working class of the coloniser country who never saw a penny from colonial exploitation but the capitalists who, to this day, maintain metaphoric chains of financial pressure over these post-colonial governments and peoples.

Of course, as Invader Zim points out, it's a half measure fundamentally and would probably only give more breathing room for the local capitalist class to exploit the working class of their respective country more thoroughly.

[TsarofAlltheRussias]

What would the damages be? And how could the descendents be determined?

Also, shouldn't reperations only be delivered to those directly harmed by something?:glare:

[SensibleLuxemburgist]

Yes, through subsidies to the Black British community in the UK. That is the best that I can think of.

[Psycho P and the Freight Train]

Hell no.

So the average worker in the UK should get punished for something their ancestors did a long time ago? Only nationalists believe in collective responsibility based on ancestry and nation-hood. Besides, who gets the reparations? I don't know much about the average black person in the UK, but in the USA they are oppressed not due to slavery but due to obvious institutional racism that takes place in the present day. Blaming slavery is pointless and ignores the current issues.

The average taxpayer in the UK is not responsible for paying randomly selected black people for slavery. That's absurd. What SHOULD happen is an end to institutional racism. But don't punish random workers for something that the elites of a particular nation did a couple centuries ago when the problems facing black people now have nothing to do with these stupid liberal "solutions."

[SensibleLuxemburgist]

Ace Steel, your logic has shaken me up. I stand corrected. Such events happened over 200 years ago and probably would not be practical in implementation with regards to some form of reparations.

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

I understand and appreciate the principle and why people would support it. However, the practicalities of what amount and where it paid and to whom seems like a minefield that I wouldn't envy anyone having to navigate. Plus, the right-wing populists and their tabloid press would have a field day (they hypocritcally hate that anyone receives any kind of benefits, let alone 'white guilt' reperations). It would definately open a shitstorm of worms and I can't envisage a decent outcome (though someone far smarter then me might find a way).
Ending capitalism and the racism and inequalities that go with it would do far more for black slave descendants than these reperations would, if they ever managed getting them paid out in an appropriate way (likely the money would end up with a company, a trust or a charity that might not put it to any good use or in the pockets of people who've been disadvantaged due to their ethnicity and background.)

[ProletariatPower]

I have to agree with this Bloody Peasant. We are far past 'Reparations' point. All such thinking needs to be abandoned in the end, we are united as Human Beings and cannot be held accountable for what our ancestors' states did in the past. That being said, I do of course recognise the full horror of these crimes of the past and if they were simply death tolls I'd say that it was simply a thing of the past, tragic, but the British people cannot change it. However I recognise the full extent of damage slavery did that lasts to this day. I therefore would say, as this bloody peasant did, that the true fix for these problems will be a recognition of the international ideals. An end to slavery, and a redistribution of the unjust level of wealth between nations. That would not simply 'serve justice' (which reparations would not, given the British people of today were not responsible), but it would actually repair the damage done to the nations damaged by slavery, and within Britain would allow the discriminated black community to be treated equally. This is not a race issue, this is a class issue. The justice to be served is by reverting the social and economic damage done against the communities people of African descent and the African nations themselves as a result of slave trade, however this should not be through reparations from the modern British , but through redistribution of the wealth, from the criminals who continue to maintain such an unjust inequality that was established through the Imperialist actions.

[MarcusJuniusBrutus]

Taxes paid by working people should not pay for the crimes committed against working people.

[CubanDream]

What do you think, should the british government be using tax revenues from the average brit to pay for the atrocities of the slave trade?

No way, because this is not logical or practical.

Where would it all stop? Should ALL countries pay reparations to anyone who makes a claim - who judges when it is right? The UN?

NO it's just not possible and how about the European families that had their farms taken off them in Zimbabwe and South Africa - should they get damages?

[CubanDream]

Yes, through subsidies to the Black British community in the UK. That is the best that I can think of.

That is basically saying that the 'Black British community' is a separate entity, and is veering towards racism.