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.)
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.
Party A is enslaved by party B. Party B dies and leaves his wealth to party C, who dies and leaves his wealth to … party F. Party A dies and leaves his lack of wealth to … party K. Party F uses the empire built off of his wealth to sell things to party K and some random other party L. Is party L responsible for compensating party K for party B’s exploitation of party A?