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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: A challenge: how did you benefit from slavery?
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
History has shown repeatedly that waiting for slaveowners to voluntarily manumit their human property through "changing societal attitudes" is a fruitless endeavor. Something like the Slavery Abolition Act or the Thirteenth Amendment is always required to "chang[e] the economic situation" first.
It may be important that one of those passed peacefully.
There are similar examples in the U.S. What we don't have examples of is historical examples of slavery ending without some kind of legal action being taken.
The determining factor seems to be the overall prevalence of slavery. For example, the enslavement rate of New York in 1800 (around the time the above-linked law was passed) was about 3.5%. The cut-off for American states willing to enact gradual emancipation programs seems to have been somewhere between 6% and 10% total population enslaved. The notable exception seems to be Delaware, which maintained legal slavery despite holding a relatively small proportion of its population in bondage.
The other cut-off point was how prevalent slavery had to be for a state to be willing to engage in violent rebellion for its preservation. That cut-off seems to be somewhere between 20% and 25% enslavement. Of the fifteen American states where slavery was still legal in 1860, the eleven who joined the Confederacy all had enslavement rates of 25% or higher while the four slave states that remained loyal to the Union all held less than 20% of their population in slavery.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I'm trying to imagine what the world would look like had slavery never been a thing, especially in light of the central thesis of this thread that our prosperity is entirely due to our ancestors exploitation of slaves.
Your addition of "entirely" qualifies this as a strawman, IMHO. No one has suggested Western prosperity is entirely due to slavery. The OP invites us to speculate re how much of our prosperity is due to slavery.
And the addition of "what the world would look like had slavery never been a thing" also extends the question far beyond the OP, which said it sought to find out "to what extent you and your family have benefited from America's long history of slavery."
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I'm trying to imagine what the world would look like had slavery never been a thing, especially in light of the central thesis of this thread that our prosperity is entirely due to our ancestors exploitation of slaves.
Your addition of "entirely" qualifies this as a strawman, IMHO. No one has suggested Western prosperity is entirely due to slavery. The OP invites us to speculate re how much of our prosperity is due to slavery.
And the addition of "what the world would look like had slavery never been a thing" also extends the question far beyond the OP, which said it sought to find out "to what extent you and your family have benefited from America's long history of slavery."
But that extension is implied in the OP itself-- you can't really answer the question of how you benefitted w/o first speculating on what the world (or at least your little corner of it) would be like had our history been different. And yes, when you start speculating it's hard to reel it back so some degree of "slippery slope" thinking is inevitable. But still, no one has suggested that ALL Western prosperity is based on slavery.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
And the addition of "what the world would look like had slavery never been a thing" also extends the question far beyond the OP, which said it sought to find out "to what extent you and your family have benefited from America's long history of slavery."
America's history of slavery began from Britain's slave trade and is intertwined with British-American relations until the American Civil War. As cliffdweller says, it is a natural extension and well within the natural flow of a Ship thread.
Oh, yeah, and there is this from the OP:
quote:
If you're in the UK, did your family benefit in any way from the Triangle Trade?
So beyond America from the start.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller
But that extension is implied in the OP itself-- you can't really answer the question of how you benefitted w/o first speculating on what the world (or at least your little corner of it) would be like had our history been different. And yes, when you start speculating it's hard to reel it back so some degree of "slippery slope" thinking is inevitable. But still, no one has suggested that ALL Western prosperity is based on slavery.
Sure, in order to answer the question of how one one might have benefited from American slavery one has to consider how history might have been different without American slavery. And of course, the effects of American slavery weren't confined to America.
But that wasn't my point. My point was that the OP, which asked about how one might have benefited from slavery in Anerica, had been expanded to a broader "what would the world look like if slavery had never been a thing"—which I, at least, take to mean not just American slavery, but all slavery throughout world history. Perhaps I read to much into that, but discussions of feudalism and serfdom in Eurooe make me think I didn't.
The implications and lingering effects of slavery generally are certainly worth considering. But it is broader than the more specific question posed in the OP.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
ah, I see.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
And if you must delve into historical slavery (I fail to see how you could not) then you have to consider how it's not just one thing. The race-based slavery of the Americas was very different from African slavery or the practices of the Classical world, or even that of the OT, which seems to have shaded over into serfdom.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
And if you must delve into historical slavery (I fail to see how you could not) then you have to consider how it's not just one thing. The race-based slavery of the Americas was very different from African slavery
The existing West African slave system which European trans-Atlantic traders bought into was horrific and remunerative enough, even if not specifically race-based, but it is difficult to deny the existence of a racial element in the Arab trade in sub-Saharan Africans, even if it was mixed up with religious and economic factors.
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Without slavery, would the Industrial Revolution even have happened?
Almost certainly. Slavery (and similar forms of forced labor) seems to arise in situations where the the prevailing wage for free labor is significantly higher than human subsistence. If a market equilibrium price of labor is close to subsistence it's easier to pay that. In many ways industrialization is a different answer to the same problem, substituting mechanization for costly human labor. The main difference is that it requires a higher degree of technical knowledge and a nearby source of concentrated energy (historically coal).
In fact the early industrialized economy and slave economy seem antithetical to each other. If you had the one it seems impossible to maintain the other in the same geographical economy.
However, the profits gained from the sourcing and maintaining the slave trade helped to fund the industrial revolution. This is certainly the case in the West Midlands (UK), where I live.
On a more personal level, I'm descended from both slaves and slave owners, so you could say that without the Transatlantic slave trade I wouldn't exist. Whether I should see that heritage as a 'benefit' is a controversial question.
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
The implications and lingering effects of slavery generally are certainly worth considering. But it is broader than the more specific question posed in the OP.
It is. But threads have a way of drifting away from the specific points in an OP, and I'm okay with that. Especially since Real Life has gotten in the way of me being as active a participant on this thread as I would have liked!
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
You seem to be assuming rather than demonstrating your conclusion. It's not at all clear that a system of paid labor is incapable of producing cotton in industrial quantities. In fact, given cotton is produced today largely using paid labor it seems fairly clear that the premise that cotton agriculture requires slavery is faulty.
I guess my assumption is that the mill owners wouldn't have been prepared to pay for large quantities of cotton if they'd have had to pay wages as well. Maybe that's not a safe assumption.
quote:
In fact, it could be argued that slavery impedes industrialization in another way. A paid worker is also a potential customer. An unpaid worker is not. Using an enslaved workforce is a constraint on market size.
Except that, in terms of the textile industry of the time, the slaves weren't living in the market they were selling to. Just like all those clothes manufacturers today aren't selling their wares to people in Bangladesh.
quote:
I disagree. History has shown repeatedly that waiting for slaveowners to voluntarily manumit their human property through "changing societal attitudes" is a fruitless endeavor. Something like the Slavery Abolition Act or the Thirteenth Amendment is always required to "chang[e] the economic situation" first.
You make a persuasive argument.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
And the addition of "what the world would look like had slavery never been a thing" also extends the question far beyond the OP, which said it sought to find out "to what extent you and your family have benefited from America's long history of slavery."
Well, if you just want me to think about direct benefits to me and my family then the answer is "we haven't". I come from a long line of farmers and menial workers. We neither owned slaves nor were related to anyone who did, and what small prosperity we as a family may have has been built up in the last couple of generations, well after the slave trade ended.
Of course, the usual reply to such a statement runs along the lines of how the world around me is different - to my benefit - because of slavery. In which case the question of how different and in what way(s) becomes perfectly relevant to the initial question.
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Hail Gallaxhar
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
You seem to be assuming rather than demonstrating your conclusion. It's not at all clear that a system of paid labor is incapable of producing cotton in industrial quantities. In fact, given cotton is produced today largely using paid labor it seems fairly clear that the premise that cotton agriculture requires slavery is faulty.
I guess my assumption is that the mill owners wouldn't have been prepared to pay for large quantities of cotton if they'd have had to pay wages as well. Maybe that's not a safe assumption.
The typical early industrial textile mill wasn't vertically integrated so it wouldn't be paying the wages of agricultural workers anyway. A more accurate way of phrasing this is to question whether mill owners were "prepared to pay for large quantities of cotton if [the price was marked up to include wages]". We know that they were willing to buy cotton at prices that were marked up to include the cost of huge-ass mansions for plantation owners, and that was at a time when human labor was cheap and durable goods were expensive. It may be possible that mill owners might have balked at a price marked up to include both wages and a huge-ass mansion, but that brings us back once again to the question of the absolute necessity of prioritizing huge-ass mansions over paid labor. It's at least arguable that 'forcing' cotton barons to live in mansions with slightly smaller asses is a worthwhile trade-off for human freedom.
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
In fact, it could be argued that slavery impedes industrialization in another way. A paid worker is also a potential customer. An unpaid worker is not. Using an enslaved workforce is a constraint on market size.
Except that, in terms of the textile industry of the time, the slaves weren't living in the market they were selling to. Just like all those clothes manufacturers today aren't selling their wares to people in Bangladesh.
Actually in a lot of ways they were. Textiles produced in British mills (or, later on, mills in New England) were primarily an export commodity.
quote:
By the middle of the nineteenth century, global cotton production was firmly locked into a trans-Atlantic pattern. Cotton was produced via slave labor in the southern states of the US. It was processed into its usable raw form by the slaves, then sold by the southern plantation owners to the major manufacturing firms of northern Britain. Britain was famously referred to as “the workshop of the world” in this period, and it was cotton cloth production that underpinned that status. Simply put, the production of raw cotton by slaves and the manufacturing of cloth by massive, specialized British industrial power culminated in high-quality cloth that was cheap enough to undermine the native cloth industries of practically every place then integrated into the global market system. The most famous shift in this regard was the reversal of the British – Indian cotton relationship; where Britain had struggled desperately to protect its native cloth manufacturing against the tide of high-quality, fashionable and affordable Indian cottons, British-manufactured cloth severely undermined the Indian cotton industry during the nineteenth century thanks to the efficiency of the US – British cotton production system.
In short, given the fact that slave-produced raw cotton managed to get from the U.S. to Britain there was no reason finished textiles couldn't make their way from Britain to the U.S. The main barrier was similar to the barriers around the people of Bangladesh, the fact that American slaves had no means to purchase anything. Though it should be noted that the few rags of clothes provided to American slaves by their owners were probably from fabric milled either in England or a northern state.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Of course, the usual reply to such a statement runs along the lines of how the world around me is different - to my benefit - because of slavery. In which case the question of how different and in what way(s) becomes perfectly relevant to the initial question.
As I clarified in a subsequent post, I don't disagree. My point was simply that the OP asked about how people had benefited from the American institution of slavery, not from slavery throughout history generally.
That doesn't mean I don't think the latter conversation isn't worth having. Far from it. And I agree with Josephine that threads blow where they will. It's simply that if one is talking about how the world is different because of slavery throughout history, the discussion has become broader than what was posed in the OP, and what many posters may have been responding to. It's worth being clear about that to make sure everyone is still singing on the same page in the hymnal. That's all.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
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Graven Image
Shipmate
# 8755
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Posted
Always thought I got off free of any personal involvement with slaves. Southern families on both side did not own slaves. One side of the family was too poor to own slaves and although living in the south supported the union, the other side of the family although southern were abolitionists for religious reasons.
Then I found out tne-hundred-seventy-eight years ago, Georgetown University was massively in debt.
In order to pay that debt, the university sold 272 slaves -- the very people that helped build the school itself.
When I attended Georgetown I had no idea of any of this. Thankfully they are seeking to make amends with the descendants those slaves. Clearly I owe my education and all it's benefits to slavery.
[ 13. July 2016, 20:55: Message edited by: Graven Image ]
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Guilt itself is an objective condition of being somehow responsible for something wrong.
Actual guilt is sometimes accoompanied by no feelings of guilt (eg psychopaths), and sometimes people have false feelings of guilt when they are not in fact guilty of anything.
Shame, on the other hand, is always a sensation - sometimes unjustified, sometimes disproportionate to the point of toxicity, but sometimes entirely appropriate and a sign of moral health and awareness.
Shame is social. It's a feeling of reluctance to admit to those whose good opinion we value that we haven't lived up to their standards.
Being able to feel shame is a sign of being part of a community and aware of the values of that community.
When we identify as part of a group - in this instance a nation or a race - we can feel shame for what that nation or race has done.
But ISTM that guilt is individual. Christians believe that we will be held responsible befire God for our own actions, not those of our fellow countrymen.
Nobody alive today has any guilt for slavery that ended 150 years ago.
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
But ISTM that guilt is individual. Christians believe that we will be held responsible befire God for our own actions, not those of our fellow countrymen.
Nobody alive today has any guilt for slavery that ended 150 years ago.
I disagree. Both the OT and NT speak of sin and guilt in corporate terms just as much if not more than they do in individual terms. One can be guilty individually of acts committed personally and directly, or one can be guilty corporately for acts committed by a community of which you are a part and for which you made no effort to stop.
This is the case with slavery. As has been abundantly demonstrated so far on this thread, Western society continues to feel the effects of slavery and to benefit economically from slavery both past and present. If we fail to act on that knowledge with integrity-- doing what we can to reverse those effects, however costly they may be or however we may feel we're but a drop in the ocean-- then we are morally complicit in the acts.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
This is the case with slavery. As has been abundantly demonstrated so far on this thread, Western society continues to feel the effects of slavery and to benefit economically from slavery both past and present. If we fail to act on that knowledge with integrity-- doing what we can to reverse those effects, however costly they may be or however we may feel we're but a drop in the ocean-- then we are morally complicit in the acts.
I don't think that has been demonstrated. Some people made money out of slavery, certainly, but that doesn't prove that society as a whole benefited from it compared to what might have happened otherwise. It seems at least possible that keeping a high proportion of the population enslaved (and therefore poor, uneducated, and without economic autonomy) tends to retard economic development. If so, we might all have been better off if slavery had never happened.
But even if that's not the case, does the fact that I personally might have derived a small, indirect economic benefit from past injustice really make much of a difference to my moral duties here and now? If we're thinking of racial justice, it seems to be that my obligation is, firstly, not to be racist myself, and secondly, to encourage racial equality in my society as far as I reasonably can. I don't see that those duties would change if my great-great-grandfather were a slave-trader or an abolitionist.
I'd feel a little happier if my ancestors had been on the right side, perhaps, but only a little. I can't imagine feeling either shame or guilt if they weren't.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
I don't think the effect then-- or now-- was as small as you think. Certainly Lincoln didn't, or he wouldn't have taken the North to task over thinking they had the moral high ground.
But the point I think for you is probably whether or not there is any benefit today. And I think there is. If it can be shown that blacks are disadvantaged in employment, for example, it then would stand to reason that whites or non-blacks have somewhat of an advantage-- less competition for the choice spots. I think that it's clear that any such advantage/disadvantage stems from the racism nurtured by slavery.
Of course privilege is something we're born into, not something we choose. But once we are aware of it, what we do with that privilege is a choice. So then it comes down to the things mentioned upthread and how we respond to any benefits we may have rec'd either indirectly or directly from slavery-- whether we use those benefits to open doors or simply to leverage our own position. Whether we're working for a more just society or content to live with one in which some are privileged.
[ 15. July 2016, 01:17: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Eliab is not American, but it is the same argument regardless.
One cannot claim no reliance on the stone of the foundation simply because one lives in the second floor.
I care not for guilt in modern people for the sins of the past. What I do care about is acknowledgement of that past, the benefot it gains them in the present and the willingness to right present wrongs.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Both the OT and NT speak of sin and guilt in corporate terms
This is a principle which we only apply very selectively as it suits us, and with dubious exegetical validity.
Would we seriously want to enforce the sort of communal guilt which saw a whole family destroyed because of one individual's offence, as in the case of Achan (Joshua 7:24)?
Or the generational guilt which saw genocide perpetrated against a whole people because of what their ancestors did centuries previously, as in the case of the Amalekites (I Samuel 15:2-3)?
A more historically recent obscenity which I mentioned upthread has been the centuries of persecution of the Jews for their putative corporate guilt in killing Christ.
What's more, there are quite explicit refutations of corporate guilt in the OT, such as Deuteronomy 24:16, Jeremiah 31:29-30 and Ezekiel 18:1-4.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
If it can be shown that blacks are disadvantaged in employment, for example, it then would stand to reason that whites or non-blacks have somewhat of an advantage-- less competition for the choice spots. I think that it's clear that any such advantage/disadvantage stems from the racism nurtured by slavery.
I think it's clear that there's a strong connection between black slavery in the US and racism. The exact cause-effect relationship between the two is less clear.
You seem to be saying that life is a ratrace in which what matters is relative advantage over other people in one's own society. Competition for jobs and influence is what it's about. So that if history has done other people down then that's an advantage to you.
Not convinced that that's what's important.
And you'va still not come clean about your counterfactual. Arguably if there had been no slavery, there would be no blacks in the US for you to compete with...
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
But the point I think for you is probably whether or not there is any benefit today. And I think there is. If it can be shown that blacks are disadvantaged in employment, for example, it then would stand to reason that whites or non-blacks have somewhat of an advantage-- less competition for the choice spots. I think that it's clear that any such advantage/disadvantage stems from the racism nurtured by slavery.
Nobody is arguing that we shouldn't work to end the evils of racism. But even had I got my job due to racism on the part of my employer (which is not the case) I wouldn't see that as me benefitting from slavery. To conflate the two seems unnecessary to me.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
With a possible very few exceptions of people who have inherited wealth built over several generations starting with fortunes made from the slave trade or commerce on the labour of slave, I don't think anyone is claiming a direct personal benefit from slavery. The benefits are indirect, and are benefits we have from being members of our society.
And, I think the benefits to people in the UK are from a different route than those in the US, where there was a fairly recent history of direct exploitation of slave labour. Because of that, I'm going to expand on the benefits we have in the UK, but that the situation in the US is different.
For the UK, and I suspect much of western Europe, the slave trade was part of a much bigger picture of colonialism. Slavery was one particularly extreme example of the exploitation of native peoples and resources by and for western European colonial powers. I suppose a case could be made for the early colonialism (Spain and Portugal in South and Central America) was driven by religious ideology. But, certainly by the time you get to later colonialism (France and Britain in North America; France, Britain, the Netherlands in SE Asia; practically everyone in Africa) the driving force is commercial - colonies were established to make money, and hence to gain power within the context of the rising competition between western European nations. The particular means by which money was made varied depending upon the particular situation - the colonial nation and the native people and their resources. But, the common theme was that the western European powers made their money at the expense of the native people in their colonies. In the southern parts of what would become the United States and the Caribbean that wealth came from production of cotton and sugar, and since the majority of the native population had been wiped out by European disease those were grown with maximum profit by exploiting the populations of African colonies, shipping them across the Atlantic as slaves.
That colonial exploitation created vast fortunes for a small number of people. Even as late as the turn of the 20th century, vast wealth continued to flow into the UK from India and elsewhere in the Empire. That money paid for political influence, the influence needed to protect the exploitation that generated that wealth. British commercial interests, the East India Company for example, effectively bought the services of the British army and navy to protect their interests - even when those interests were as despicable as dealing in opium. That money also fuelled the industrial revolution, as a means of making yet more money (and, exploiting the people of Britain as labour in the factories as they were exploiting the native populations of the colonies), it fuelled a growing middle and upper middle class of people made their own small fortunes as merchants and in service to commercialism, it created grammar schools to educate enough people to fill the ranks of clerical positions within these new commercial enterprises, and new universities to train the engineers and lawyers and other professions the country was needing to keep the wheels of industry and trade turning. We live well and truly on the shoulders of the wealth that colonialism created.
Earlier in the thread a question was raised about whether slavery, and the incipient racism that was based on, lead to the rise of Hitler. I don't think there is a direct connection. But, I don't think there is any doubt that the protection and expansion of commercial interests by the different European nations created the tensions in the continent at the start of the 20th century, that almost inevitably erupted in 1914. The slaughter of the next four years, and the re-ignition of that between 1936-45, was to protect the commercial interests of European colonial powers. By that stage slavery was no longer part of those commercial interests, but exploitation of native peoples certainly was.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
The problem is how far back do you go? I doubt there's a nation on earth today that isn't what it is due to slavery of some form or another, and not always of black people. It's a little like asking an irish person how they benefitted from the 1798 rebels who lit a flame that would burst into a fire in 1916, and should I currently feel guilt and therefore apologise to the Brits who were murdered? The answer is that we 'benefit' from any event in history to be where we are currently at and, no I can't apologise for the actions of someone else. I can condemn their actions as wrong, but I can't apologise on their behalf - they're dead and I'm not their spokesperson.
So, say we took the example of someone in the States whose great grandfather (if they happened to be alive at the same time) had slaves that built their current livelihood. Yes, the descendants alive currently could express sorrow at what their great grandfather did, but they cannot apologise on their behalf. Should they make retribution? No. Who would they give it to? They are all dead and gone. To insist that retribution financially should be made to those treated cruelly in history and whose descendants didn't experience it seems utterly daft to me. It would be like saying that the British family who were burnt out of their stately home in Ireland in 1916 and whose descendants are alive in Cambridge today should be given financial compensation for the living they otherwise could have had. It's a nonsense.
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
Posts: 5235 | From: a prefecture | Registered: Jul 2008
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Even as late as the turn of the 20th century, vast wealth continued to flow into the UK from India and elsewhere in the Empire.
and even more recently than that in the decades after WWII, the APOC/BPC paid more in taxes to the British Exchequer than they did to the government of Iran.
There were some structural reasons why this was the case - but to a certain extent this agreement and others funded the social settlement post WWII.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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simontoad
Ship's Amphibian
# 18096
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Posted
Thanks for the thread Josephine.
I read the article and noticed a company that a friend used to work for. I rang them up and told them that their previous employer was involved in slavery. They told me that this was the reason they left (an obvious lie) and went to the German company that now employs them. It typical German fashion this company is very open about their past work with the Nazi regime in the 1930's and 40's, and their involvement in supporting the death camps.
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Human
Posts: 1571 | From: Romsey, Vic, AU | Registered: May 2014
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
The problem is how far back do you go?
Usually anything further back than yesterday is considered too far on this question.
quote:
This species of ignorance — of looking away — is old. In 1884, Harvard scientist Nathaniel Shaler assessed "The Negro Problem" in the pages of this very magazine [The Atlantic]. Shaler concluded that:
quote:
It was their presence here that was the evil, and for this none of the men of our century are responsible ... The burden lies on the souls of our dull, greedy ancestors of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, who were too stupid to see or too careless to consider anything but immediate gain ...
There can be no sort of doubt, that, judged by the light of all experience, these people are a danger to America greater and more insuperable than any of those that menace the other great civilized states of the world. The armies of the Old World, the inheritance of medievalism in its governments, the chance evils of Ireland and Sicily, are all light burdens when compared with this load of African negro blood that an evil past has imposed upon us.
At the very moment that Shaler was disowning American responsibility for enslavement, there were thousands, perhaps millions, of freedmen alive as well as their enslavers. It had barely been 20 years since enslavement was abolished. It had not been ten years since the rout of Reconstruction. In that time, sensible claims for reparations were being made. The black activist Callie House argued that pensions should be paid to freedmen and freedwomen for unpaid toil. The movement garnered Congressional support. But it failed, largely because, the country believed as Shaler did, that "none of the men of this century" were "responsible."
The "end of slavery" in the U.S. is an interesting question and kind of hard to pin down. Jim Crow seems to have been an attempt (and a largely successful one) to re-instate slavery in all but name. Does a system that uses trumped up legal charges to selectively sentence black people to forced labor (even going so far as to auction off that labor in a historically very familiar way) count as "slavery"? If so, slavery persisted in the U.S. up to the 1940s. How about the more refined methods of not directly extracting labor from black folks but instead cheating them out of the product of their labor? Again from Coates:
quote:
A similar moment finds us now. Even if one feels that slavery was too far into the deep past (and I do not, because I view this as a continuum) the immediate past is with us. Identifying the victims of racist housing policy in this country is not hard. Again, we have the maps. We have the census. We could set up a claims system for black veterans who were frustrated in their attempt to use the G.I. Bill. We could then decide what remedy we might offer these people and their communities. And there is nothing "impractical" about this.
The problem of reparations has never been practicality. It has always been the awesome ghosts of history. A fear of ghosts has sometimes occupied the pages of the magazine for which David and I now write. In other times banishment has been our priority. The mature citizen, the hard student, is now called to choose between finding a reason to confront the past, or finding more reasons to hide from it.
quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
I doubt there's a nation on earth today that isn't what it is due to slavery of some form or another, and not always of black people. It's a little like asking an irish person how they benefited from the 1798 rebels who lit a flame that would burst into a fire in 1916, and should I currently feel guilt and therefore apologise to the Brits who were murdered?
This kind of argument always relies on the conflation of nations (and sometimes other organizations) with people. The United States and United Kingdom (for example) claim to be the same entities today that existed two centuries ago. For example, the United States claims to own the property of Fort Monroe (now a U.S. National Monument) because it was built by "the United States". It was also built primarily with slave labor. It seems like a whole new species of special pleading to argue that the property belongs to "the United States" because they have been the sole and continuous owner since the early nineteenth century and also to argue that it wasn't "the United States" who built the site using slaves because no one is still alive from the time of original construction. Nations claim to be functionally immortal. We should hold them to that even when inconvenient.
[ 15. July 2016, 15:31: Message edited by: Crœsos ]
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Nations claim to be functionally immortal. We should hold them to that even when inconvenient.
Very well. Then to whom do you propose our nations pay reparations?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Nations claim to be functionally immortal. We should hold them to that even when inconvenient.
Very well. Then to whom do you propose our nations pay reparations?
The most obvious would be the descendants of slaves. Same as we would say for any other long overdue debt. But again, that's a most inconvenient answer
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Not only inconvenient, but not a moral or ethical solution. If reparations were to be done, it is the governments of the nations responsible who would pay.
But I am not a fan of reparations. They would not change the current inequities and would give an excuse not to pursue the difficult issues that need to be solved to end those.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
The most obvious would be the descendants of slaves.
But aren't they beneficiaries of slavery?
If it weren't for the horrific experiences suffered by their enslaved ancestors at the hands of other West Africans, Arabs, and Europeans, they would almost certainly be enjoying a far lower standard of living in Africa rather than the US.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
Modern Australia exists only because of the occupation of the land over which the ancient people had roamed for 60,000 years or so, and their subsequent exclusion from most of it. The ramifications of that are slowly, painfully slowly, being worked out.
As to slavery - there was the practice of blackbirding Kanakas from various Western Pacific islands and bringing them to Queensland to work on cane sugar farms there. It operated for about 40 years from 1860 or so. In theory, all were free volunteer employees but in practice they were forcibly removed and treated as slaves on their arrival. Many of the mills to which the produce of the sugar farms was taken were operated by a company called Colonial Sugar Refinery, and various generations of my family from then on have held shares in that company. So my forebears directly drew benefits from slavery and I do so indirectly from the still very profitable but now diversified company.
[ 16. July 2016, 03:59: Message edited by: Gee D ]
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
The most obvious would be the descendants of slaves.
But aren't they beneficiaries of slavery?
If it weren't for the horrific experiences suffered by their enslaved ancestors at the hands of other West Africans, Arabs, and Europeans, they would almost certainly be enjoying a far lower standard of living in Africa rather than the US.
Right, because no one in Africa emigrates. Not to mention the current state of economics in Africa being a result of the same countries whose exploitation we are speaking about.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
If you want to argue that everyone in the US has benefited from slavery then it seems to me that there are there aspects to address:
- whether slavery created more wealth than the system that would have operated otherwise (and if so how large or small the marginal increase is)
- whether slavery caused the Civil War (and if so how much wealth was destroyed thereby)
- whether in the long run everybody benefits from greater wealth in the economy
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
If you want to argue that everyone in the US has benefited from slavery then it seems to me that there are there aspects to address:
Not just the US.
quote:
- whether slavery created more wealth than the system that would have operated otherwise (and if so how large or small the marginal increase is)
Irrelevant. The end being the same doesn't change the morality of the means.
quote:
- whether slavery caused the Civil War (and if so how much wealth was destroyed thereby)
It was so caused. And much wealth was lost, though that is also irrelevant.
quote:
- whether in the long run everybody benefits from greater wealth in the economy
Everyone did. Though for the former slaves it is a more complicated equation.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Right, because no one in Africa emigrates.
Near enough to right, because the overwhelming majority don't.
quote:
Not to mention the current state of economics in Africa being a result of the same countries whose exploitation we are speaking about.
Irrelevant.
The issue is whether or not the descendants of slaves in America are better off than they would be in Africa, and therefore whether or not they are beneficiaries of slavery.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
The most obvious would be the descendants of slaves.
But aren't they beneficiaries of slavery?
If it weren't for the horrific experiences suffered by their enslaved ancestors at the hands of other West Africans, Arabs, and Europeans, they would almost certainly be enjoying a far lower standard of living in Africa rather than the US.
However, broadly speaking, the descendants of slave owners in the USA are still enjoying a better standard of living than the descendants of slaves. Plus, as others have pointed out, you can't ignore the fact that slavery and colonialism also affected economic and social development in Africa.
But hey, if you'd like to come be my slave in Canada, so your descendants can live in a country with less gun violence and better access to health care, PM me.
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Not to mention the current state of economics in Africa being a result of the same countries whose exploitation we are speaking about.
Irrelevant.
The issue is whether or not the descendants of slaves in America are better off than they would be in Africa, and therefore whether or not they are beneficiaries of slavery.
Perhaps your dictionary is lacking, but it is the very opposite of irrelevant.
The process which fucked up Africa is part of the very same that led to slavery. Namely exploiting the hell out of other people for your own economic benefit. And twas done by the very same actors. That cannot be separated so is very relevant.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
A few years after we were married my wife was reading a book titled "Slaves in the Family". When she was about half-way through she realized with a start that it was a book about my family.
Up until that point I had successfully kept this fact hidden from her. ![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
Our marriage survived, but she has viewed me with suspicion ever since. ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
In my defense, my great-great grandfather, born in 1811 near Charleston, South Carolina, left the family plantation before the Civil War and moved to Philadelphia. We like to think that this was due to his principled objections to the lifestyle.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The process which fucked up Africa is part of the very same that led to slavery. Namely exploiting the hell out of other people for your own economic benefit. And twas done by the very same actors. That cannot be separated so is very relevant.
I agree.
I try to imagine alternative paths world history might have taken.
What if, once humans had migrated into every unoccupied corner of the globe, the clans, tribes, and nations had treated each other with respect and deference?
Would every population group today be in the spot where their ancestors migrated to thousands of years ago? Or would friendly trading and cooperation have resulted in a mixture of population groups that is similar to what we currently experience?
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Eliab is not American, but it is the same argument regardless.
99% true. The remaining 1% (my aortic and mitral valves) of me is of US manufacture, so I cannot claim to be entirely indifferent to American economic development.
It would seem slightly surreal to me to suggest that because I am indebted to US technological progress for every heartbeat, I have inherited a greater benefit from slavery than the average Brit, but that would seem to follow from the logic of this thread. My point is that even if this is true, I don't see that it makes an material difference to my (already existing) moral duties not to be a racist and to oppose racism. Even if you could demonstrate with conclusive proof that, but for slavery, I'd be dead, I can't see that this would impose any additional moral obligation.
I think that my distaste for the 'arguments from privilege' against racism is that it seems to me to portray black and white as competing interest groups - if blacks are disadvantaged, then whites must have an equal and opposite advantage. I'm anti-racist because I think the black/white.distinction is bullshit - we share a common humanity, we mostly want the same things, and we all benefit from having a more just society. The idea of races as essentially different is part of the legacy of slavery that I wish to refuse. I decline to self-identify with slavers simply because we have similar pigmentation. I'm not racist. My responsibility not to be racist does not vary according to the benefits I might derive from my skin colour.
Also, while pointing out that present day injustice has historical causes might be worthwhile, trying to motivate me to be less racist by emphasising the advantages that apparently accrue to me because of racism seems counter-productive. I'd rather emphasise the advantages of fairness.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
I'll break down my response to your post later, but for now I would reply that explaining the past can help people understand why the present isn't fair, equal or balanced.
Too many people is met think that inequity is inborn. Many do not think they are prejudiced, just observing what "is".
You may see the inequity without considering the why, that is hardly a universal trait.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Perhaps your dictionary is lacking, but it is the very opposite of irrelevant.
The process which fucked up Africa is part of the very same that led to slavery. Namely exploiting the hell out of other people for your own economic benefit. And twas done by the very same actors. That cannot be separated so is very relevant.
Perhaps your dictionary lacks a definition of non sequitur.
Even if European exploitation, including the trans-Atlantic aspect of the slave trade, were the unique cause of Africa's problems (which it is not), it does not follow that the descendants of transported slaves now living in America are not beneficiaries of slavery.
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
- whether slavery created more wealth than the system that would have operated otherwise (and if so how large or small the marginal increase is)
Irrelevant. The end being the same doesn't change the morality of the means.
I read "benefitted from slavery" as meaning "are better off than if slavery hadn't happened".
If you think that's irrelevant, then I guess you have a different meaning of "benefitted". Which you might want to spell out...
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
I think the point of whether it's relevant or not probably depends upon perspective.
Let's assume that it can be demonstrated through some alternate history analysis that the descendents of slaves in the United States are better off than they would be in the alternate history in which there had been no slavery. How would the descendents of those slaves actually view that observation?
Of course, the first thing to note is that it doesn't alter the fact that there are descendents of form slave-owners, slave traders and other direct beneficiaries of slavery who are very much better off than they would have been in the alternative history without slavery. The comparison does nothing to change the current inequalities within the US that have developed because of slavery.
Second, it doesn't alter the fact that the situation is not just about economic and social privilege. The alternative history would also need to include not just the non-existence of slavery, but the non-existence of the racism that allowed some people to consider other people as not much better than animals. Concentrating on economics does nothing to address the sickening racism endemic in the world.
Finally, and here's the biggie. What does that analysis convey? The primary message to the descendents of slaves is "You're better off because of slavery than you would have been without it". The implicit message, very close to the surface, is "so, don't complain about how unfairly life treats you". You might as well say "stay in your place and stop being so uppity".
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
The most obvious would be the descendants of slaves.
But aren't they beneficiaries of slavery?
If it weren't for the horrific experiences suffered by their enslaved ancestors at the hands of other West Africans, Arabs, and Europeans, they would almost certainly be enjoying a far lower standard of living in Africa rather than the US.
By that argument I am a beneficiary of the Third Reich. My grandfather (from the North East) only met my grandmother (from Somerset) because he was billeted near her when he was serving in the British army during the Second World War. If Hitler had not come to power they would not have met, married and conceived my mother. I would not, therefore, have existed. Now broadly speaking I think existence is preferable to non-existence and I think, by and large, I do more good than harm. But I don't think that it follows from that that the rise of National Socialism was a net benefit to humanity. In the same way, I'm not sure that it can be argued that the North Atlantic Slave trade was of net benefit to humanity because the descendants of some slaves have managed to attain a comfortable middle class existence. I think, in all seriousness, that we may be asking the wrong questions here.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Let's assume that it can be demonstrated through some alternate history analysis that the descendents of slaves in the United States are better off than they would be in the alternate history in which there had been no slavery...
...What does that analysis convey?
It gets rid of the strange notion that those who have benefitted from slavery owe some sort of compensation to those who have suffered from it ?
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
By that argument I am a beneficiary of the Third Reich.
Regardless of how horrific and purely evil something might be, it is seldom impossible to see something good, however small, that results - even though clearly outweighed by the bad.
Humanity's shameful history of conquest, domination, cruelty and hatred has served to extend the reach of knowledge and connection to every corner of the globe.
This sets up the future possibility of a united world, even if the wickedness that drove it makes that unity seem like an unrealistic pipedream.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
The most obvious would be the descendants of slaves.
But aren't they beneficiaries of slavery?
If it weren't for the horrific experiences suffered by their enslaved ancestors at the hands of other West Africans, Arabs, and Europeans, they would almost certainly be enjoying a far lower standard of living in Africa rather than the US.
Others have touched on this, but I want to emphasise how problematic it is.
With regard to the 'lower standard of living' in Africa, some scholars estimate that the Transatlantic slave trade actually helped to underdevelop the continent. It took away the young, strong members of African society. Along with the Arab slave traders it helped to depopulate whole regions. It exacerbated conflicts by encouraging ethnic groups and nations to war with their neighbours; to drive them into slavery was a way of preventing them from doing the same to you and your people, or to divert the unwelcome attention of slave traders. Some say that it influenced the direction of African leadership for a long time afterwards.
It should also be said that almost as soon as the Transatlantic trade was abolished, the destructive colonisation of Africa by Northern European countries began. Not everyone sees this as a complete coincidence.
In terms of what it's meant for the people of the African diaspora in the Americas, the trade created a psychological barrier between them and and modern Africans that has never truly healed. On a broader level the loss for Africans in the New World has been immense; a loss of languages, religions, names, cultures, and as a result, a huge a loss of ancestral knowledge, or simply knowing where your family came from. Individuals have to live with these losses deep inside them every single day, in addition to their largely subordinate position in the Americas.
Various attempts have been made to plug the gaps culturally and psychologically, but most have been found wanting.
As for the Arab slave trade in black Africans, I can't see what the point of that was at all. Most of the women ended up in harems, with their babies frequently put to death. The boys were castrated in order to staff the harems, or were stolen to provide the ancient, Eastern version of cannon fodder. AFAIUI their descendants haven't particularly 'benefited', neither in terms of social ascendancy, nor cultural distinctiveness.
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