Lmao as if I am seeing any of that wealth.
Comment on How are slavery reparations fair?
Javi_in_4k@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Slaveholders got to build wealth off the free labor of slaves. When they died, that wealth didn’t disappear. It was passed down to the next generation. The descendants of slave holders are better off financially than the descendants of slaves because of that accumulated wealth. The descendants of slave holders should pay back the wealth they now own to the people it was stolen from.
FluorideMind@lemmy.world 10 months ago
mvirts@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Aka tax the rich, were all slaves on a spectrum
supert@lemmy.sdfeu.org 10 months ago
There was substantial indentured labour and serfdom in England too. Surely simple redistributive tax based on wealth is fairer?
Anyway how do you determine whos ancestors had slaves, or weren’t involved, or were slaves? You want to start tracing bloodlines?! Should the English pay the Irish?
letsgo@lemm.ee 10 months ago
You’re welcome to look at my bank statements. If you can find £569,000 that I can pay someone without going bankrupt then I’d be most surprised.
AeroLemming@lemm.ee 10 months ago
But tax-based reparations will mostly be paid out from normal proletariat with little to no capital ownership.
ProvableGecko@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Which is just because not only those that profited from slavery paid taxes on those profits which improved the lives of all those who lived under the same state, they also individually used those profits in philanthropic projects (schools, hospitals, poor houses) that have benefited the public as well. On top of all these, just the injection of wealth that stemmed from slavery and other exploitative practices into the economies of these countries that practiced them had a positive effect on the growth of those economies the benefits of which (lower unemployment, higher incomes etc.) being reaped by the general public.
All of these have a compounding effect that positively affects the lives of the people living in that place (wherever that is) in the current times so even though they don’t own slaves now or their ancestors have never been part of the slave trade it is fair that they should be a part of paying reparations.