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.)

  • @JdW
    13•1 year ago

    They are definately not fair. But fair is not an economic or political quantifyable term. Slavery wasn’t fair either.

    What is just or not changes with times and societies. If there is political capital to be made by making reparations then they make sense. If the public disagrees they can and will vote out those responsible. For better or for worse that’s our system.

    But I personally do not feel there’s such a thing as Sins of the Fathers. I have nothing to do with the slavers of 300 years ago, the whole concept of owning a human being is repugnant to me. And I genuinly feel that should be enough.

    • @[email protected]
      15•1 year ago

      I tend to agree about the Sins of the Fathers, but at the same time, if you don’t inherit their sins why do you inherit their stolen boons?

      But, ultimately, the time to address these evils was a century ago.

      Hell, at this point it’s impossible to separate “sinner” and victim in many cases. What do you do for the descendants of both slave and slave owner?

      Instead, in the now, as a society we should indeed strive to lift up the impoverished. All of the impoverished.