This relates to the BBC article [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66596790] which states “the UK should pay $24tn (£18.8tn) for its slavery involvement in 14 countries”.

The UK abolished slavery in 1833. That’s 190 years ago. So nobody alive today has a slave, and nobody alive today was a slave.

Dividing £18tn by the number of UK taxpayers (31.6m) gives £569 each. Why do I, who have never owned a slave, have to give £569 to someone who similarly is not a slave?

When I’ve paid my £569 is that the end of the matter forever or will it just open the floodgates of other similar claims?

Isn’t this just a country that isn’t doing too well, looking at the UK doing reasonably well (cost of living crisis excluded of course), and saying “oh there’s this historical thing that affects nobody alive today but you still have to give us trillions of Sterling”?

Shouldn’t payment of reparations be limited to those who still benefit from the slave trade today, and paid to those who still suffer from it?

(Please don’t flame me. This is NSQ. I genuinely don’t know why this is something I should have to pay. I agree slavery is terrible and condemn it in all its forms, and we were right to abolish it.)

  • Melllvar@startrek.websiteEnglish
    19827·
    1 year ago

    Nations that were the source of slaves remain on the whole impoverished and underdeveloped.

    Nations that were slavers still remain on the whole wealthy and highly developed.

    This is not a coincidence, and there is a reasonable case to be made for reparations on these grounds.

    • Gsus4@feddit.nl
      4317·
      1 year ago

      The UKs position today is arguably due more to leading the Industrial Revolution and that was the main factor in the decay of slavery, so you need to balance historic grievances with development i.e. “what have the Romans ever done for us?”

    • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
      2717·
      1 year ago

      Exactly. If anything, this amount of money is way too small.

      Occasionally we read a news story about someone who escaped a maniac that kept them locked up for years, forcing them to work and do depraved things for little or no pay. We rightfully think this is terrible and the criminal is inhuman.

      Slavery was millions of people in that situation for their entire lives. Whole economies were based on this genocide. We put Nazis to death for genocide. We put other leader on trial for similar crimes. Paying this tiny fine is the least the British (and other European governments) can do. The amount they really owe would bankrupt them.

      What amount of money would you exchange for measurably worse lives (education, health, jobs) for you, your family, and everyone who looks like you for generations?

    • Dave@lemmy.nz
      3323·
      1 year ago

      Is it possible that other factors led to the countries being wealthy or impoverished, and this allowed the wealthy to colonise or take the impoverished as slaves?

      • protist@mander.xyzEnglish
        105·
        1 year ago

        Yes, and even accounting for those, wealthy countries that took slaves still hold an enormous amount of responsibility for what they did

        • Dave@lemmy.nz
          124·
          1 year ago

          The original OP argument is that those captors or slaves don’t exist anymore. Even the countries barely exist. Is this a matter of descendants being responsible for their ancestors crimes?

          I think there’s a strong feedback loop argument here but I’m not sure that’s the point you’re making.

          • protist@mander.xyzEnglish
            168·
            1 year ago

            Do descendants have the same responsibility as their ancestors who actually owned slaves? No. But do they bear some ongoing responsibility as a benefactor of a system that was built around their ancestors owning slaves? Yeah they do.

            All of this is incredibly messy, but approaching it at a governmental level is definitely something I support, because slavery was sanctioned and even encouraged by the government we’re talking about, which has existed continuously

            • Dave@lemmy.nz
              134·
              1 year ago

              That’s the feedback loop argument, right?

              Some countries collonised others: crime of ancestor

              But those countries used slaves and stole resources, making those countries wealthier. That wealth allowed them to develop better technologies, making them even wealthier.

              So the argument is that while the original crime is not the responsibility of those alive today, the proceeds of crime should not be kept - they should be returned. In this case the proceeds are wealth, so a monetary reparation is appropriate.

              Is my train of thought right? Because it seems to make sense to me.

              • DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
                115·
                1 year ago

                Pretty much my take.

                OPs position is based on the idea that the reparations are punitive, which they are not.

                No one alive in England today was engaged in slaving, but everyone is the beneficiary of the practice.

                  • DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
                    11·
                    1 year ago

                    Yes, but the few dollars per slave that a trader would have received is nothing in comparison to the value a slave would generate through their lifetime.

                • Jamie@jamie.moe
                  4·
                  1 year ago

                  Disclaimer that I’m not English and don’t particularly have a dog in this fight, and my opinions are a little mixed. On the one hand, I agree on the morality there, a lot of people were damaged in the very long term by slavery. But on the other, even if you can say that it’s an act to attempt to return the wealth to the wronged people, that doesn’t mean the wealth has simply been sitting there for nearly 200 years, waiting for return. That money has to come out of some budget, somewhere.

                  So where are they going to pull 18 trillion to give reparations from? Certainly, cuts will need to be made somewhere to make it happen, and often, those cuts are usually made along the lines of political agendas rather than things that are objectively bloated.

                  • DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
                    42·
                    1 year ago

                    But the ability to pay reparations isn’t really considered in deciding whether reparations should be made.

                    You’re right that the money isn’t just sitting there, it’s embedded in the development of the nation.

          • Maturin@sh.itjust.works
            96·
            1 year ago

            Watch a video tour of the tourist sites of London. Or look what is in the imperial museum. Or the Victoria and Albert museum. The looted wealth of of their genocidal empire is still celebrated as a national treasure. India still has not recovered from British occupation, which only officially ended 75 years ago. And that’s like 20% of the entire current human population.

            • Dave@lemmy.nz
              4·
              1 year ago

              My comment is not about the validity of reparations. It was a direct reply to the one above it, which seemed to imply that reparations are because of the actions of past people, when in my view it’s about the proceeds of the crimes rather than the crimes themselves.

                • Dave@lemmy.nz
                  31·
                  1 year ago

                  I think they can and should be separated.

                  If they are not, then you are saying that you are making people responsible for a crime that was committed well before they were born.

                  By separating the crime from the proceeds, you can justify why reparations should be paid, without the defense of the crime being committed by someone else.