OK, I see two things you state: one, a determination as to how far the US government constitutionally and statutorily supported the institution of slavery - not financially. Two, charging a commission with determining if reparations are warranted and, if so, what form those compensations should take. I see nothing in there that explicitly states that such reparations are expected to come from the US government itself.
As to the second part of your question - only some, not all, of those companies named in the lawsuit bought other companies that insured slaves. That means there are companies named in the lawsuit which did deal in insuring slaves and that continue to operate. Should those companies not be confronted at all?
I think we’re tryong to settle two separate problems with one solution. It also seems to me that solving the problems of poverty and racism based on whose ancestors suffered historical injustice is nonsense. Should Oprah Winfrey, Will Smith, and Shaquille O’Neil get reparations because their ancestors were slaves, but the poor whites in Appalachia or poor Latinos in the shantytowns on the border with Mexico shouldn’t?
Poverty needs to be eradicated for ALL races, regardless of who owned who in the past. And not through some bullshit extortion–for that’s exactly what this reparations nonsense is–but through repairing the public school system, ensuring that poor kids of any color can get a college education, and forcing owners of slum housing to renovate their property. There should be incentives for grocery store chains to open in the inner cities, so that poor blacks in Chicago, for example, don’t have to grow their own food just to get fresh produce.
You’re not going to achieve any of that through cheap shakedowns in which any “reparations” paid just go to the lawyers and the hustlers posing as community leaders.
This is not about a like it or lump it attitutde. This is about whether paying reparations for a bad institution to people who were not even directly affected by it.
It doesn’t matter whether the parties forced to pay are insurance companies or the government. Should all remaining shipbuilders be forced to pay too, since the ships carrying slaves over made it possible? Should the food producers also be forced to pay, since they produced food that fed the slaves and made owning slaves possible? Punishing insurance companies for purveying their product to slave owners to insure property that, at the time, was indeed considered property is just stupid.
I don’t disagree that there is still a lot of racism in the US today. Paying reparations is not the most effective way to combat it. It is not even a useful way to combat it. The money could be a lot better spent on solving the problems of now.
Better educations for minorities, and for whites about minorities, seeking to end the income and housing inequalities between the races, making sure all the people have the same starting opportunities, those are all good uses for the money. Paying someone who may not need it money because of what happened 150 years ago (and has occured throughout all history) is not a good use.
gobear - Exactly. My point is, however, that if it took 400 years to end slavery, 100 more to grant civil rights to blacks, 180 years just to get women the vote, then ending poverty isn’t all that likely to come about without radical social change. And that involves struggle. I certainly don’t think reparations in and of themselves will end racism or economic inequality for Blacks, but I certainly support the struggle to get those reparations because it’s a valuable lesson in where change actually comes from.
I would have thought that it would be obvious. If you hold the premise that the U.S and state governments are responsible (to whatever degree) and you are recommending compensation, surely some of that compensation must come from those same Federal and State governments, no?
Well, you have two questions to answer here:
(1) Should a company be penalized for doing something that was legal at the time?
Aetna has admitted that they insured some slaves in the pre-Civil War era. However, to do so at that time was a prefectly legitimate part of the insurance business. To bring the matter further, suppose we find that the government hired security guards to keep women from the voting polls in the late 19th century. Should they be the targets of a lawsuit? The security firms profited from denial of people’s civil rights, no?
The bottom line to this question is: Should American businesses be afraid to do their normal business because of later developments in civil rights; especially when no one at the time would have considered it wrong.
(2) Should the present-day investor in Aetna, CSX, etc. be penalized for something that shareholders in the 1850s profited from?
The people who profitted from the sale of insurance policies on slaves are all long gone and dead. The present day investor (which may even include me – I don’t know all the companies my mutual funds in my 401(k) invest in) gained no profit from the sale of policies on slaves. Should the present-day investor suffer the loss for what someone did long, long ago?
Slavery has existed for way over 400 years. From the first time a tribe of cavement defeated another band of cavemen in a battle, there have been slaves.
When the women were seeking to get the vote, did they try to get reparations for things done 150 years earlier, 1770? No, they spent their energies on obtaining the results that they wanted at the time, which was to get the vote. Similarly, people who want to end poverty, and racial inequality specifically, would be better served by doing just that, working towards ending poverty and racial inequality. It does nobody any good, except the lawyers and so-called “black leaders” to punish companies that have been run well enough to last for 150 years for doing something that was legall at the time.
The OP is certainly not against working for economic justice. What he/she is against, is doing it in ways that, when it comes to actually solving the problems at hand, are useless at best, and increase racial tension at worst.
It seems here that you are as much as saying that reparations may not work, but you are fighting for them because they strike a blow at The Man[sub]TM[/sub]. Kind of like those who argue against George Bush for the sake of arguing against George Bush, not because they think he’s actually wrong.
They’re not even holding that premise. Look at the language again:
All they’re saying here is that the commission is charged with examining the extent of the US government’s legislative support for slavery. There’s nothing there that says anything about holding the government responsible now - only finding out if there is a basis for holding the government responsible. And that, again, not from a financial perspective.
“No one at the time would have considered it wrong”? Really, zev, you should know better than that. The names John Brown or William Lloyd Garrison ring a bell? How about Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, or Harriet Beecher Stowe? What about the phenomenon of the Underground Railroad? What about the Compromise of 1850, or the Missouri Compromise?
As for your second question - there is no ironclad rule that says the investors have to be penalized when a company is fined. The companies could pay the reparations out of the profits left over after dividends are paid out, no?
Secondly, the people who originally made the profits off the slave trade are long dead, yes, but it was those profits that allowed the companies to grow and expand. Those companies benefited greatly from their involvement in the slave trade, and at no compensatory cost to the slaves themselves. Slavery is at the roots of racism in America and is at the roots of the economic and social inequality experienced even today by Blacks, as well as other minorities (though they weren’t enslaved, obviously). Companies that profited from an institution that had such economic and social consequences for a portion of the American population should definitely be held accountable for compensation.
Abe Babe - Only in the American colonies and the southern states did slavery become a mass commercial enterprise. At no other time in history did one political entity make another entire continent a source of human raw material.
Well, for one thing I do actually think W is wrong. And I certainly think it would be a great victory if reparations were actually won from the companies in question. Is it enough to end racism? No. Is it enough to end poverty? No. But it is a huge step forward in giving people the experience of fighting for change themselves, and in them learning the lesson that this is where change actually comes from - and from there the idea that this is how racism and poverty can actually be ended becomes much easier to grasp.
It doesn’t say that it’s not necessarily from a financial perspective. It certainly could be.
**
Granted, I went too far on that one. I retract.
**
That is a punishment of the investors. If a company I invested in goes out of business becuase they have to pay reparations, there goes my investment. If the company has to pay $10 million out of profits, that lowers my stock value too.
**
No one has made that case. Just becuase Aetna insured slaves in the 1850s doesn’t mean that Aetna is built on slavery. How much of it’s business involved the slave trade? 2%? 5%? 100%? unknown. Even Aetna doesn’t know, according to the page I linked to above.
Secondly, just becuase Aetna insured slaves, doesn’t mean that they helped slavery as an institution. I’m fairly confident that had Aetna decided not to insure any slaves, there would have still been slavery in the same numbers as existed with Aetna’s decision to insure slaves. As such, is Aetna really responsible. And if so, then to how far? Are tool manufacturers responsible because slaves were forced to use their tools? Are ship manufacturers responsible becuase their ships were used to transport slaves? Is a newspaper responsible because it accepted an advertisement for slaves in the 1790s? Is the blacksmith liable becuase he shod the horses that slaves used to do their labor? What about the company that manufactured the paper on which Aetna wrote the policies? Are they liable? The ink manufacturer? The lumberers who cut down the trees to make the paper? Where does it end? They too “profited” from slavery.At what point do we say “This entity, even though it had business dealings with slave owners, and ‘profited’ from slavery, didn’t do anything wrong.”
**
Well, in Aetna’s case, there would be no benefit to the slaves. If someone insures my life and pays the premiums, I get no compensation or benefit, the beneficiary does. So, what does Aetna owe the slaves for insuring their lives?
**
I don’t know that slavery is the root of racism today. Other groups who were never slaves in the U.S. were persecuted and even today maligned and discriminated against. The root of racism today is simply bigotry. Stupid, unfounded bigotry. Trust me, if slavery never existed, there would still be people who hate blacks just for existing.
So, again, I pose my question. The hypothetical security firm hired to keep women away from the polls in the 1880s - are they liable? They “profited” from denying people civil rights that, even though they didn’t have them at the time, have them today.
Zev - I don’t deny the possibility that the US government could at some point be held accountable, but I don’t see any evidence at this point that leads me to believe it’s a logical conclusion.
You also can’t assume that reparation payments are going to drive a corporation out of business. Especially given this administration, more than likely any money taken will amount to a slap on the wrist.
Perhaps I wasn’t too clear what this slave insurance covered. It insured the slaveowner against a slave running away, for one thing. That alone is damning enough - Aetna provided financial backing to keep Blacks enslaved. Granted there was also so-called “life insurance” but as I understand it it was more akin to the modern-day practice of “dead peasant” insurance taken out by companies than a way for a man or woman to provide for their loved ones after their passing. And it doesn’t matter how much of their profits came in from slave insurance - even if it were a fraction of one percent, they still dealt in the slave trade and provided financial backing for its continuance.
Finally, I definitely believe that slavery is at the root of racism and bigotry in America today. Let’s look at this for a second. In the South, the big plantation owners use slaves as the primary workforce. Poor whites therefore can’t get jobs on the plantations (unless they get an overseer’s job or such like) and have to find other ways of making a living. Since the level of industrialization is nowhere near that of the North, they’re pretty much stuck in small-holding agriculture and other niche jobs.
Now comes 1865. The South is in ruins following the war, both economically and physically. The job market’s a joke, but the available labor force has literally doubled, if not more. Those businessmen and bosses who are hiring find it quite easy to keep wages down, since they’re sure they can replace white workers with cheaper Black labor if and when they need to. Now the white workers see they’re in competition with the newly freed Black workers for whatever jobs are available. Fertile soil for racism and bigotry, if conditions aren’t right for workingmen to build solidarity with each other. The small minority of people who hate blacks for just existing wouldn’t be powerful enough on their own to create all this racism and bigotry in society without the kind of social and economic background I’ve just described.
As for your example of the armed posses at voting booths, you’re adding a definition of “profit” that bears no relevance to the argument at hand. Aetna made money from insuring against runaway slaves - profits that helped them expand their business and grow as a company. As I said before, the percentage of income derived from this activity is irrelevant. It’s the consequences of that activity that are of concern here.
So are you saying there’s an inherent, possibly genetic reason why white people hate black people? What’s the root of the bigotry that’s the root of racism?
Though there are other groups the were persecuted, their experience pales in comparison to that of african americans with the exception of the native americans.
This is the type of question that conveniently keeps people from looking at the huge injustice that was done and it’s repurcussions that are felt to this very day. It’s like a discussion between a couple where the man after having knocked the woman unconscious on numerous occassions get’s on her case for not being able to remember stuff that he easily remembers, and when she reminds him of the abuse, he exclaims, “that happened weeks ago, what’s that got to do with today?”.
What’s so wrong with the government and industry that obviously benefited from slaverly and it’s aftermath, to pay reparations?
I’m amazed by people who think racisms is advanced by talking about things such as reparations to a group that has been grossly wronged through the use of slavery, lynching, jim crow, segragation, racial profiling, and descrimination. What does that say about the person that thinks this way.
Irrelevant. If the courts find that company X owes Plaintiff Y money, the administration can’t overturn that.
**
Firstly, thank you Olentzero for the expanded explaination of what the coverage entailed. I’ll grant that I wasn’t 100% up on that.
Secondly, I’m not so sure that you can state that if the company got a single penny from slavery (“it doesn’t matter how much of their profits… even if it were a fraction of one percent”) then that makes all future transactions of that same company suspect and “supported by slavery.” It’s a dubious argument at best.
**
We’ll have to agree to disagree here. I won’t deny that the former status of slaves may have “helped” the cause of racism, but, in the end, I’d still have to say that racism exists simply becuase some people are stupid, ignorant or just plain bigoted enough to hate anyone who isn’t like themselves.
**
And how do you know they didn’t lose money on those policies?
No, I never said that. I said that some people will simply hate black people because there are black people. There are similar people (probably many of the same) who will hate Jews because there are Jews, hate Catholics because there are Catholics and so on and so on. I never said genetics had anything to do with it.
**
In the U.S. anyway.
In any event, I didn’t deny what you said. However, if (hypothetically) blacks are entiled to X because of the discrimination/persecution/etc., aren’t other persecuted groups also entitled to some amount as well (even if not as large as African-Americans, because their suffering was not as great…).
I’m not trying to redirect here EasyPhil. I’m simply asking if what applies to one group that had their civil rights legally violated would apply to another group that had their civil rights legally violated. It in no way states that what happened to the former isn’t an injustice.
OK, the courts and the administration thing was weak. I think my point there is that the corporations will find some way of bargaining the amount of money paid out to reparations down to a bare minimum. Corporate lawyers are good at that.
As for earnings from slavery insurance - what do you think is done with that income? Part of it goes to investing in further expansion and development of the business. Therefore, money earned from slavery insurance went to support further business activity by Aetna. It’s a very simple concept.
I still don’t think racism comes simply from an irrational fear of differences. Racism got a big boost in the eighteenth century as well - I’ve seen copies of books purporting to “scientifically” demonstrate that Africans are inferior to European whites based on skull structure. That kind of argument was needed in order to justify the continuation of slavery - even then there was an abolition movement. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the carving of a Black man, kneeling and in chains, with the caption “Am I not a man and a brother?” above him, but that’s been proven to date from the mid-1700s. Slaveowners and apologists for slavery had to come up with racist arguments about inferiority to counter that.
I don’t know for a fact that Aetna did or did not lose money on slave insurance policies - although if I could find out how long they’d been in that business I think it would be safe to guess one way or the other - but such a situation does not exculpate them from their financial backing of slavery in the first place.
Shit … I’m French AND German…does that mean I have to pay myself? I’m also Irish, Scottish, Welsh, part Amerind (seems as good a word as anything else to use), Prussian…
Er, nix that last bit. I don’t wanna hafta pay you, Guin
[Upon preview]
Hinten, are you talking about War crimes and slavery committed during WWII or reparations Germany made for those things in the 1940s, a period that also coincided with WWII? If it’s the former you can bet your ass there are still people alive from that time:)
Not necessarily. How do you know that all of it didn’t go out in dividends to investors? Again, how do you know that they made money on these policies at all? As it is, Aetna only sold these policies for a few years. That would lead me to believe (and yes, I admit it’s far from proof) that maybe they weren’t so profitable after all.
**
The Nazis had “scientific reasons” why they felt the Jews were genetically inferior – untermenschen. Doesn’t mean it’s caused by slavery.
Morally, I agree with you - it’s a repugnant (and even that word’s not strong enough) practice, one for which the company has apologized, and given support to black causes since then to try to make amends as best they can. However, a moral wrong is not necessarily a legal wrong and not every moral wrong is actionable in court.
In any event, let me ask another question… suppose the case comes down in favor of the plaintiffs and Aetna coughs up X million of dollars. Now, 50 years down the line, in 2052, the company has grown again and is still profitable. Are they now open to another lawsuit on the grounds that the profits of 2002-52 are built on slavery too?
By the way, Olentzero, I hope we don’t get banned for breaking the rules. We’re having a respectful, intelligent debate in the Pit.
