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The Senate Slavery Apology and Reparations
Professor Bainbridge ^ | June 19, 2009 | Professor Stephen M. Bainbridge

Posted on 06/21/2009 8:08:26 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

Ashby Jones:

The Senate unanimously passed a resolution on Thursday apologizing for slavery, making way for a joint congressional resolution. Click here for the WaPo story. “You wonder why we didn’t do it 100 years ago,” Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), lead sponsor of the resolution, said after the vote. “It is important to have a collective response to a collective injustice.”

Memo to Senator Harkin: We had a collective response. It was called the Army of the Potomac. Not to mention the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th Amendment, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and decades of affirmative action.

Jones continues: Randall Robinson, author of “The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks,” said he sees the Senate’s apology as a “confession” that should lead to a next step of reparations. “Much is owed, and it is very quantifiable,” he said. “It is owed as one would owe for any labor that one has not paid for, and until steps are taken in that direction we haven’t accomplished anything.”

Back in 2004, I wrote a column for TCS Daily that addressed the reparations issue: Descendants of African-American slaves are suing Lloyd's of London seeking reparations on grounds that Lloyd's insured ships used in the slave trade in the Eighteenth Century. Although a federal judge recently dismissed a class action seeking reparations for slavery from a number of US corporations, lawyer Edward Fagan who successfully pursued Swiss banks on behalf of Holocaust victims seems confident that he's got a strong argument:

"Why is it too far fetched to say blacks should be entitled to compensation for damages and genocide committed against them, when every other group in the world that has been victimized in this way has been?"

A fair question, but there is a big difference between reparations from corporations for the benefit of victims of the Holocaust or Japanese internment, to cite two commonly used examples, and the descendants of slavery.

Legal liability can be justified on a number of grounds, such as deterrence, compensation, and retributive justice. Requiring a corporation to pay reparations to victims of centuries or even decades old wrongs advances neither deterrence nor retributive justice.

Who do we punish when we force the corporation to pay reparations? Since the payment comes out of the corporation's treasury, it reduces the value of the residual claim on the corporation's assets and earnings. In other words, the shareholders pay, not the directors and officers who actually committed the alleged wrongdoing (who in most of these cases are long dead anyway).

As far as deterrence goes, the problem is that shareholders don't control corporations. Corporation law assigns the responsibility for making corporate policy to the board of directors and the firm's managers. Holding the shareholders liable for something that happened decades ago is unlikely to have much deterrent effect on the corporation's current directors and managers. Human nature being what it is, current managers likely believe that they won't commit the errors of their predecessors. On top of which, the prospect that shareholders will be held liable is far less likely to deter management misconduct than would the prospect that the managers who made the decisions would be held personally liable.

Retributive justice likewise is poorly-served by corporate-level liability. Retributive justice is legitimate only where the actor to be punished has committed acts to which moral blameworthiness can be assigned. Because the corporation's legal personhood is a mere legal fiction, however, a corporation is not a moral actor.

Edward, First Baron Thurlow, put it best: "Did you ever expect a corporation to have a conscience, when it has no soul to be damned, and nobody to be kicked?" The corporation is simply a nexus of contracts between factors of production. As such, there is no moral basis for applying retributive justice to a corporation -- there is nothing there to be punished.

Even if you assume the corporation is still benefiting from alleged wrongdoing that happened decades or even centuries ago, the modern shareholders are mere holders in due course. It is therefore difficult to see a moral basis punishing them. They have done nothing for which they are blameworthy.

In sum, both deterrence and retributive justice require that punishment be directed solely at those who actually commit wrongdoing. In this context, it would be the directors, officers, or controlling shareholders who actually enslaved people. Since they're long dead, there is nobody left who properly can be punished.

This leaves compensation. When compensation is the goal of a particular punishment, it is more appropriate to treat the corporation as though it were a real entity that can be punished through fines or tort liability. After all, the corporation likely will have far deeper pockets and thus far greater ability to compensate victims than either managers or shareholders.

As a matter of compensatory justice, however, reparations for slavery differ significantly from the Holocaust or Japanese internment. In the latter cases, there were living victims whose injuries could be redressed. In the case of African-American slavery, there are no living victims or even immediate descendants.

Courts have routinely held that descendants of slaves have suffered no legally cognizable injury for which they have standing to sue. In his decision in the African-American Slave Descendants Litigation case, for example, federal district court judge Charles Norgle rejected the plaintiffs' argument that they suffered continuing harms, in form of racial profiling, racial slurs, and shorter life expectancy, as result of the enslavement of their ancestors.

Slavery was a great injustice. Yet, there is no moral case for reparations. None of the principal legitimate purposes of punishment -- deterrence, compensation, or retributive justice -- would be served by requiring corporations to pay such reparations.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; Politics; Society
KEYWORDS: 111th; affirmativeaction; agenda; bho44; blacks; congress; cw2; democrats; harkin; ia; obama; race; reparations; slavery
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To: freedumb2003

Not to disagree with you, but I think Roots did show that Kunta Kinte was captured by other Africans. The White guy was just there to collect.


41 posted on 06/21/2009 9:00:34 PM PDT by Clock King
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To: DennisR

Well not only the liberals voted for this. Not a single conservative had the courage to oppose it.


42 posted on 06/21/2009 9:01:59 PM PDT by Captain Kirk
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To: bannie

>>Some of mine were Quakers and helped slaves escape.

...jes’ sayin’...<<

OK, ask for 20% of all the reparations. 1.5 million each and 12% of the USA population of 300 million makes — what, 10.8 trillion?


43 posted on 06/21/2009 9:04:58 PM PDT by freedumb2003 (Communism comes to America: 1/20/2009. Keep your powder dry, folks. Sic semper tyrannis)
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To: bannie

That really is true...I think...about his ancestors selling Africans as slaves. His bunch is Arab-African...or vice -versa...whatever. LOL!


44 posted on 06/21/2009 9:07:24 PM PDT by lonestar (Obama is turning Bush's "mess" into a catastrophe.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

If it’s any comfort, any money they recieve will more than likely be worthless, as the only real way Big Brother can pay them is by printing up more. Thus, they’ll be little better off; they’ll probably be worse, since by that time, Big Brother’s control will be slipping and there won’t be any government goon to force people to suck up to them.


45 posted on 06/21/2009 9:35:27 PM PDT by RWB Patriot ("Need has never produced anything. It has only been an excuse to steal from those with ablity.")
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I should think that the deaths of over 660,000 men on both sides would’ve been reparation enough, but then liberals are never happy. And since the Republican party did more for blacks than the Democratic party ever could, you’d think they’d shut up.


46 posted on 06/21/2009 9:51:57 PM PDT by laweeks
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To: OrioleFan

“My white ancestors on my Mother’s side were indentured servants. Where’s my payback?”

Mine were too. When their time of service was over, they didn’t get their “40 acres and a mule” either. Think I’ll add the cost of that, plus interest, to my payback.


47 posted on 06/21/2009 9:56:00 PM PDT by Humal
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To: laweeks
The political party that controlled the seceding southern states in our Civil War was the same party the created the Ku Klux Klan which intimidated black voters not to vote against them during Reconstruction: the DEMOCRATIC PARTY. Let them apologize and pay out of their own pockets.
48 posted on 06/21/2009 10:13:28 PM PDT by Tucson Jim
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
The Democrats owe the most. They were against civil rights in the 60s.
49 posted on 06/22/2009 12:32:34 AM PDT by Force of Truth (Yes political conservatives are libertarians. They want to have their rights and eat them too.)
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To: Force of Truth

Before the 60s is what I meant to write.


50 posted on 06/22/2009 12:34:59 AM PDT by Force of Truth (Yes political conservatives are libertarians. They want to have their rights and eat them too.)
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To: All

Not apologizing for me. If anyone should, it should be the Democrats!
__________________________

Had enough?

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THANK YOU WITH OUR HEARTS FOR YOUR SUPPORT AND YOUR COMMITMENT FOR THIS GREAT
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__________________________________________________

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51 posted on 06/22/2009 3:22:49 AM PDT by patriot08
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To: Catholic Iowan
"I would like to apologize to the rest of the country for Tom Harken."

That is a lot to apologize for.

From his phony Vietnam War record through his ass kissing of Daniel Ortega through his generally disgusting voting record, he is ripe for a hemp rope.

I never figured how a sober sided hard working state like Iowa could elect that chump.

52 posted on 06/22/2009 3:31:46 AM PDT by Jimmy Valentine (DemocRATS - when they speak, they lie; when they are silent, they are stealing the American Dream)
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To: Humal

I can see the argument against indentured servitude coming up. Indentured servants willingly submitted to it for the end goal of receiving freedom and a start in America whereas slaves from Africa (and other parts of the world) didn’t willingly submit to anything and expected little of anything else. The slaves were freed anyway.

We’ve been through several generations of those freed slaves. They have had time to better their lot. But, along came the Democrats whose primary goal in life is control. Democrats have kept the black people and poor whites down as a voting block, encouraging out of wedlock procreation, destitution, and lack of self esteem. As such they expect government to provide everything for them (”I want a house with a kitchen and a car, Mr. Obama!”). In order to maintain that sham, the Obama Administration has to destroy capitalism as the main source of job creation. The American Dream died on January 20, 2009 when Obama was coronated.


53 posted on 06/22/2009 5:58:30 AM PDT by OrioleFan (Republicans believe every day is the 4th of July, democrats believe every day is April 15)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I agree that every person alive today who was a slave should be paid by those people alive today who were slaveowners.

No takers?

Next agenda item, please.


54 posted on 06/22/2009 6:06:35 AM PDT by bestintxas
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
I have good news for those who support reparations: reparations have already been paid. They've been paid through the blood of those who fought and died in the Civil War. They've been paid through programs like Affirmative Action, government contract set-asides for minority owned businesses, scholarship programs for minority students, corporate donations to organizations such as the the United Negro College Fund, Urban League, NAACP, etc. Reparations have been paid, and paid many times over.
55 posted on 06/22/2009 6:17:37 AM PDT by GreenHornet
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To: OrioleFan
Thomas Sowell in my local paper correctly (as usual) addressed this business of “pay back” and retribution.

“One of the many problems of the payback approach is that many of the people who most deserve retribution are no longer alive. You can take symbolic revenge on people who look like them, but this removes the whole moral element.

If it is all right to discriminate today against individuals who have done you no harm, then why was it wrong to discriminate against you in the past?”

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2273044/posts

56 posted on 06/22/2009 6:56:09 AM PDT by Humal
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To: Humal

Right on!


57 posted on 06/22/2009 8:08:39 AM PDT by OrioleFan (Republicans believe every day is the 4th of July, democrats believe every day is April 15)
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To: freedumb2003

Yea...they took risks, didn’t they.


58 posted on 06/22/2009 10:48:23 AM PDT by bannie
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To: Tucson Jim

“The political party that controlled the seceding southern states in our Civil War was the same party the created the Ku Klux Klan which intimidated black voters not to vote against them during Reconstruction: the DEMOCRATIC PARTY. Let them apologize and pay out of their own pockets.”

Just incredible that they’ve been able to grab the whole civil rights mantra from such a disgusting background . . . another example of friendly media.


59 posted on 06/22/2009 3:10:24 PM PDT by laweeks
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