PS section 5 final The Case for Reparations

who wrote the case for reparations?

Ta-Nehisi Coates

reparations

policies or compensation addressing historical injustices such as slavery

liberalism

the idea that laws and policies should treat people as equally as possible, protect individual rights, and be as neutral as possible toward the myriad things people want and value

classical liberalism

private property is fundamental to realizing the aspirations of liberalism

recent liberalism

private property often hampers achievement of the aspirations of liberalism, even if it remains an important part of society (private property can be dangerous)

nozick’s entitlement theory

property rights must be created through consensual processes, or else rectification is required

• private property must be obtained through just acquisition, just transfer, or repeated applications of just acquisition and just transfer.

• entitlement property is a historical theory, meaning a holding is just depending on how it was acquired, not a pre-determined pattern

• if a holding was acquired unjustly, rectification is required

identity interventionism

given the harms that mistaken identities can do politically, law and policy should take steps to try to change many identities

just acquisition

if you take something from nature in a fair way/obtain property without violating anyone’s rights, you are entitled to it

justice in transfer

if someone who is entitled to a holding gives it to you voluntarily (through a salem gift, trade), you are entitled to it

how is a distribution of property just?

it is just if everyone has what they are entitled to according to the entitlement theory’s rules

so if a distribution starts out just and people only use legitimate transfers, the resulting distribution is also just. if each person’s holdings are just, then the overall distribution of property is just

current time-slice theories

these theories judge justice by looking only at the present distribution (who has what) without caring about the historical aspect (how it got that way)

they ask to look at the current distribution and judge it by a pattern

patterned theories

distribution should follow some rule or dimension (moral merit, IQ, need, usefulness to society, effort, etc.)

nozick’s entitlement theory is not patterned. it only cares about whether holdings were acquired and transferred justly

real-world distributions

• these are messy and unpatterned because they emerge from many individual choices

• people gamble, give gifts, inherit, invest, work different jobs, and have different preferences

• patterned distribution is destroyed by people freely choosing what to do with their holdings

market efficiency (hayek)

markets must be left to operate freely to maximize the use of distributed knowledge and expertise

people are free to buy, sell, trade, work, and use their property however they choose, without a central authority directing their decisions

central planning

an economic system which the government (rather than individuals or markets) makes the major decisions about production, distribution, prices, and resource allocation

it assumes that all relevant information can be collected by a central authority

hayek argued against this, as statistics cannot capture the details that matter and conditions change constantly, which central planners/ the government cannot react quickly enough to

the price system (hayek)

price communicates information

example: when tin becomes scarce, users of tin don’t need to know why. they only need to see the price rise, and then adjust their behavior accordingly.

the problem with central planning

no single planner or authority can gather all the detailed, local, constantly changing knowledge that individuals/local knowledge hold

because knowledge is dispersed across millions of people, central planning can’t make efficient decisions

local knowledge includes:

• knowing a machine is idle

• knowing a supplier is late

• knowing a worker’s skill

• knowing a local shortage or surplus

• it is impossible for planners/central planning to know this

redlining

housing policy that denied loans to minority neighborhoods

history of racial theft

250 years of slavery, 90 years of Jim Crow, 60 years of “separate but equal”, and decades of racist housing policy

violates the entitlement theory

what is Coates’ main argument in The Case for Reparations?

America must repair the long history of racial theft and discrimination against Black people

white people owe them reparations

who is clyde ross?

a black man who he and his family had their land stolen through fake tax claims

they lived under threats of violence and were denied education and legal protection

he fled to chicago hoping for freedom but found new forms of exploitation

what happened to ross’s family in Mississippi?

their land and property were taken through racist legal tricks and violence

what were racist policies in chicago regarding housing?

Black families were barred from normal mortgages due to redlining, racist lending rules, and segregation enforced by violence

what is contract buying?

a predatory housing system that overcharged black buyers and took their homes

buys paid inflated prices, had no equity, lost everything if they missed one payment, and homes were resold over and over for profit

what was the result of racist housing policy?

massive loss of Black wealth and the creation of segregated, impoverished neighborhoods. also created:

• plunder: organized theft backed by law and custom

what does coates say about modern inequality?

it comes from past racist policies, not personal failure. from an unfair system, not from some racist acts

structural inequality today

• black neighborhoods have far higher poverty and incarceration rates

• Black families have far less wealth than white families

• black middle-class families live in worse neighborhoods than white families with lower incomes

what is H.R. 40?

a proposal to study what reparations should look like

reparations are about truth, justice, and repairing the damage caused by centuries of state-sanctioned theft

why does coates say america is not whole?

because it has never confronted or repaired its racial crimes

how did redlining shape urban segregation?

black families were denied mortgages which caused:

• being pushed into a small number of neighborhoods

• white families moving to suburbs with government-backed loans

• cities became racially divided

• black neighborhoods received less investment, fewer services, and worse schools

how redlining is connected to coates’ argument

• it is a central example of systematic, government-backed theft

great migration

movement of African Americans from the rural South to northern cities

what are the models of reparation

rectify all unjust takings, liability for specific government wrongs, extra support for communities, change of public narratives

rectify all unjust takings

associated with Nozick

on this model, it is essential to trace out all injustices down to the level of individual families

this model is very informationally demanding, with unpredictable results in outcome

liability for specific government wrongs

compensation to victims of Japanese internment in WW2, compensation by the Indian Claims Commission, etc.

this model focuses on calculating monetary value of government-created harm itself

extra support for communities

• it focuses on obligations to repair past damages in a more general sense

• doesn’t focus on individuals on their own, but on broader communities and patterns of continuing deprivation and harm

• fits easily with reparation funds going to education, community services, increased medical care, etc

change of public narratives

doesn’t focus on specific wrongs, but on wrongs as part of a broader pattern that deserves public recognition and acknowledgement

focuses on those who are associated with wrongdoers more than those who have suffered it

may get trapped into pure symbolism rather than concrete actions