Posted on 03/25/2017 3:17:18 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
For some descendants of persons held in U.S. chattel bondage, no monetary sum can compensate for the enslavement of their ancestors. However, for those looking for a number, there are various ways to calculate the value of involuntary servitude. Here’s one of them.
Calculating Reparations: $1.5 Million for Each Slave Descendant in the U.S.
by Denis Rancourt
This article previously appeared on Mr. Rancourt’s web site, Activist Teacher.
“This calculation includes only the money due to ancestors and their descendants, in terms of the stolen actual labor counted in person-hours.”
It is not difficult to calculate a MINIMUM amount of monetary reparation due to every single Black slave descendant living today in the USA.
If we leave out the reparations for physical violence, genocidal stress, inadmissibility to superior social classes, etc., and only take into account the stolen labor, at the today's equivalent minimum wage, then the calculation for the minimum amount due to the descendants of slaves is a simple one, as follows.
This calculation includes only the money due to ancestors and their descendants, in terms of the stolen actual labor counted in person-hours, based on a minimal economic value of that labor, adjusted at a lowest reasonable rate of interest.
Every step in the following calculation will use the lowest possible evaluators, such as to produce a MINIMUM amount due.
In the 70 year period between 1790 and 1860, there were, on average, 2 million slaves at any time in the USA. In the same period the average US population was 14 million.
Moving forward to 2000, the US population was 309 million, with 40 million slave descendants.
“We adopt the underestimate of 2% for the interest rate to be applied to the stolen income value.”
To obtain a minimal (under estimated) annual interest rate, we use the population increase from 14 million to 309 million in the 140 years from 1860 to 2000. This gives a population annually growth rate of 2.2%.
Now capital value increase interest rates in the US have been much greater that the population growth rate. Nonetheless, we adopt the underestimate of 2% for the interest rate to be applied to the stolen income value. We further apply the interest rate starting only in 1860, rather than earlier, thereby making our estimate even more of an under estimate.
The value of the stolen labor, for the period 1790 to 1860, at today's US minimum wage of $7.24 per hour is as follows. (Note that using today's minimum wage automatically corrects for valuing the historic currency to its present value.)
70 years (1790 to 1860 period only)
X
2 million slaves (average number in the period used)
X
365 days per year (OK, maybe I should exclude one day off per week?)
X
10 hours of work per day (again a minimum)
X
$7.25 per hour
=
$ 3.7 trillion
Next, I apply the 2% interest rate (compounded annually). This gives a multiplicative factor of (1.02)^140 = 16, for the 140 years from 1860 to 2000. Further compounding could be applied to bring us to the present. (Again, this is a minimum estimate.)
Compounding to 2000, therefore, gives:
$ 3.7 trillion
X
(1.02)^140 (or 16, if you prefer)
=
$ 59.2 trillion
The latter one-time payment would be easy for the USA to make, since its annual GDP is $15 trillion. (Think of a wealthy person's annual salary relative to buying a house in a safe neighbourhood.) The USA would not even need to sell any assets to achieve this modest payment.
For the 40 million Black slave descendants in the US today, the calculated reparation means that US white society owes each and every Black slave descendant a MINIMUM payment of $ 1.5 million, which is long overdue.
“The USA would not even need to sell any assets to achieve this modest payment.”
After the minimum payment is made, it would be appropriate to calculate and pay the addition reparations that are due.
My goal here was to show that these calculations are simple and unambiguous. Understanding the calculated minimum allows one to move forward from that established basis, towards a more realistic reparation number. At the very least, each Black slave descendant can legitimately demand $ 1.5 million payable immediately.
An obvious question that arises from this straightforward calculation is: Why are Black leaders not demanding reparation, as a priority demand?
Denis Rancourt is a former physics professor at the University of Ottawa, and is the author of the book "Hierarchy and Free Expression in the Fight Against Racism." More essays by this author are HERE.
Your Not starting at the beginning of Slavery, try Africa as the Beginning. Truth Hurts
Me thinks they need to get in line. First, everybody needs to return their land to descendants of the aboriginal populations of North America. Then, if their is anything left, it could go to reparations. I don’t believe that I am responsible for my ancestors actions. Just my own. I don’t feel obligated to offer reparations for actions which I had no complicity with.
Many of mine owned slaves. Several fought for the Confederacy. Most of my ancestors arrived either before the first slave ship ever arrived or within 50 years. I still don’t owe them squat!
What has Denis been smokin’? And where can I get me some?
My ancestor on my mother’s side was an indentured servant. Does that count?
Yer still not getting any reparations. Now move along, sir. People are waiting.
I’m all for it, as long as all future claims to welfare cut of. Broke in 5 years.
Indentured to pay for passage to this great land?
Half these wouldn’t have been born or would have been killed if they had been left in africa.
if that includes a one-way ticket to anywhere outside the US, a quit claim agreemenet and revocation of citizenship... PAY IT ASAP.
I want TWO ponies.
Yeah, well my ancestors worked in the coal fields in northeastern Pennsylvania - for the company store - that should be worth at least a million......
“I’ve really got to arm myself, in case of a reparations-inspired plundering by angry blacks.”
Most sensible solution to the reparations `issue’ that I’ve seen on this thread.
Yep, he was indentured and worked on a farm in Suffolk, Virginia. I believe he married the owners daughter after he completed his indenture. This was in the 1600’s. I grew up in Appomattox, Virginia. I worked on local tobacco farms, and never smoked. Dad would have whipped me good if he caught me. After high school, I joined the Air Force.
The white share croppers were in some ways worse off then the black slaves. A slave was an investment in which it was in your best interest to keep healthy and alive. A sharecropper was easily replaceable and you made money off the deal.
He forgot to subtract the monies already doled out ,ie, welfare, free this and that.
How much have we spent on welfare since the ‘Great Society’ instituted around 1965? $3-4 trillion?
1.5 million minus whatever benefits already received @ 2 % interest and no longer eligible for any future transfers...
I can see how that might would up being only a couple 100 K paid out.
20 years @ $40,000 a years = $800,000 plus interest in bennies.
Might not be a bad idea just to get these folks to Shut UP....
Bill Islam and African Tribes since both were the biggest slave traders on the planet
No reparation without seperation.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.