Comment on How are slavery reparations fair?

Apepollo11@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

There’s a couple of things to consider when thinking about this.

Firstly, dividing the total by the number of tax payers and concluding that everyone should pay £569 is misleading. Wealthy people pay far more tax than most people (still not enough IMHO!) and as such the per-person cost is wildly different for everyone too.

Secondly, consider your position - your chances of success, and the possible range of success, depends hugely on your parents’ circumstances and those of other close people in your life.

So we have this clear chain of success breeding success - wealthy people can afford to give their children the kind of start in life that us poor spuds can only dream of.

A huge number of wealthy families used slavery to amass and increase their wealth massively. These families are still wealthy, still benefitting from the leg-up they were given on the backs of slaves.

These families are the ones who, ultimately through tax, would end up contributing the most. Us plebs would be paying relatively little.

Even if your family didn’t own slaves, or exploit them directly, they’ll almost certainly have benefited from their existence. I live in a mill town north of Manchester - the very reason for this town’s existence is cotton, ultimately picked by slaves abroad. The money came from businesses and trade that relied on slavery.

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