Yeah, how silly of liberals to think that a system that penalizes black applicants because of well-known racial disparities in law enforcement is "racist".
Thinking about it more, here's a counter-argument. I don't really believe it, but I think it's worth "steelmanning" TNC's position, to use the silly "Rationalist Community" term:
One of the persistent obstacles to enacting social programs, at least ones that would actually benefit African Americans, is that they are dubbed "reparations" by political opponents and that stigmatization is sufficiently powerful as to cause them to be blocked, repealed, cut, et c. It happened with the ACA[1], it happened with AFDC, it happened with the pluperfectly ridiculous controversy over "Obamacare", and so on.
While that weapon is available to opponents of anti-poverty programs, it will be impossible to use them to actually, finally ameliorate the lingering effects of hundreds of years of racism[2], even if they do so without making any explicit reference to race. Instead of endlessly (and evidently fruitlessly) trying to make the political case that these programs aren't reparations, it is better to just batter through that obstacle by making the case that reparations are necessary, even though they may well ultimately take the form of transfer programs that don't actually single out members of any particular class (beyond, perhaps, "poor people of any race").
Contrary to what you've been contending elsewhere in the thread, there really is an approach to reparations that does not depend on the Treasury Department administrating paper-bag tests. It only requires reversing the current, very negative political valence of the word "reparations" and the idea behind it.
[1] And then the SCOTUS re-wrote the law in a way that kept the Medicaid expansion from benefiting the a disproportionately black group of otherwise eligible persons in the South.
[2] This won't do poor people of any races a hell of a lot of good, truth be told.
Because as long as you’re helping some victims a bit, what does it matter that you’re also taking more money from the supposed victims you’re trying to help?
The ones most harmed--or at least most suffering from persistent harm--are going to be the least affected, due to the progressive nature of the (federal) income tax system.
Persistent harm is really the key, I think. It's not just that people were harmed in the past, it's that the harm has persisted across generations because so many of the opportunities that have come along for people to pull themselves out of poverty, often with the direct assistance of the government, those people and their descendants have been deliberately excluded. The case isn't built on the wrongs of slavery or the wrongs of Jim Crow or the wrongs of discriminatory anti-poverty programs... it's built in to all of them working in series.
...and then they reply, "Here are a few ideas which might be better; I think the government should fund a committee which investigates whether they would address the problem and make recommendations accordingly."
That would, at least, provide a lot more than I've usually seen.
Babylon 5 had a Neil Gaiman scripted episode[1], and he's also written for Doctor Who. And speaking of William Gibson, he wrote an episode for The X-Files[2].
I actually can imagine Gibson writing a DS9 episode. John Shirley wrote one, and I thought it was pretty decent.
Can, but given the known pattern of racism in police stops, it is not a race neutral way of doing so. It's already bad enough that being stopped for DWB is a thing at all; it's worse to aggravate it by making it a bar to college admissions.
Yes, asking students if they've been arrested (as opposed to convicted) is wrong. Being arrested is no proof of wrongdoing--"innocent until proven guilty" means something--and there's a great deal of evidence that shows that African Americans get hassled by cops a lot more than white people.
Did you have an actual argument here, or was your incredulous tone supposed to be enough?
My sense is that TNC believes something along the lines of, "Might as well be hung for a sheep as a goat."
Still, this is where I think his argument about the necessity of reparations--which has indeed gotten more strident over the last couple years--really falls apart. Maybe we really do need reparations, but we've haven't tried all the alternatives yet. We haven't even come close.
FWIW, I'll pay kids about $30 to shovel our driveway and sidewalk if they volunteer. Usually they do an OK job, and I think it's definitely worth that much to be the one who gets to sit on a comfy couch in a warm house and play video games.
That's just under $19 in 1995 dollars. I'm getting a good deal!
This is, actually, kind of nonsensical, and not properly responsive to TNC's case for reparations. Some of that is his fault, because he doesn't devote enough attention in his writing to what scope of reparations should be considered, beyond a bill to form a committee to study the question and make recommendations. Such a committee wouldn't seem to entail anything like what you're describing.
He also mentions the possibility of extensive race-neutral anti-poverty program[1], which also wouldn't entail anything like the expulsion of everyone who isn't of Native American descent.
Finally, he mentions the possibility of making direct cash payments to bring the per capita income for black people up to the per capita income of the country. This is, I think, the sort of thing that people think of when they hear "reparations", and there are many problems with it, including deciding who might be eligible for payment, extreme political challenges, and expense. I think it would cost something like $500 billion a year to accomplish this, and TNC suggest that it would appropriate to make these payments for ten years.
Still, even that doesn't come anywhere close to what you describe. There are 3-5 million people of Native Americans descent in the US[2], depending on how you answer the question of who qualifies. Even assuming their average per capita income is zero, we're talking maybe $200 billion dollars a year. It's, again, an eye-wateringly huge amount, but it's hardly "confiscate everything from everybody".
I really think the problem here isn't that TNC isn't thinking seriously about this, but rather people not reading what he's written about it with sufficient charity.
[1] One of the most persistent problems with race-neutral anti-poverty programs is that they get attacked and then stigmatized as "reparations" to black people. TNC actually spends a fair amount of time reflecting on this in his original essay on the subject.
Yeah, and given one line of argument that TNC entertains, we're facing a debt even bigger than $100 billion!
I actually am skeptical of a lot arguments in favor of reparations, and the more I think about it, the more legitmate I think Sanders' appeal to politica is. I just think the specific line of argument I'm trying to refute is a weird bust.
Yeah. I think I like it because it mostly allows me to talk to people. I have little defense against getting things wrong because they cut against my intuitions, but I'm not sure I'm convinced any approach to morality that I've seen has a convincing record of doing otherwise.
“so what” is that debt doesn’t have a moral component; and it does have objective measures of its magnitude and repayment.
I don't really see how this makes anything better for the people (i.e., us) who are expected to pay it off (i.e., pay taxes) regardless of the fact that we didn't have any say in the processes that incurred the debt in the first place. The amount we're on the hook for is beyond our control either way.
(Also, it's not like we don't have precedent and tradition for the idea that one can be owed a debt based on the fact that one was wronged.)
Um, I hate to be so blunt, but so what? I'm really not seeing what the relevance of this line of argument is at all.
The precise details of the political process which produced government debt doesn't change the fundamental fact that contemporary Americans are, through their government, responsible for past obligations that were incurred in ways that they had no input into. All of the debts we're discussing here, no matter how they were created, would ultimately have to be paid by taxes. Any decision to pay or not pay those debts is ultimately political (as demonstrated by the fairly recent debt ceiling debacle).
I'm not sure I see the relevance. Either way, people are being held responsible for decisions that they had no say in, ones that may have been made before they were born, or their parents were born, or before their parents came into the country, or whatever. The fact that the debt it's all laid out in terms of a contract doesn't seem to change the key point.
I think the more telling and relevant argument is, "How is it just for a descendent to suffer because their ancestors (often not so remote) were victims of crimes?"
If the effects of those crimes really are still being felt today, someone is paying for them.
Those problem are often put as questions: How is it just for a descendant to pay for the crimes of a a remote ancestor?
The most obvious answer is, I believe, the correct one: it isn't.
However, I think this is a much less serious problem than most people who object to reparations[1] believe. Reparations, even in its crudest form, argues that the United States, which is a nation state that has a continuity of existence beyond the life span of any individual, owes the descendents of slaves a debt based on past wrongs that the United States committed directly or enabled. The idea that the US is liable for debts incurred by past governments, despite the fact that many people currently alive had no input into them[2], is not a particularly exotic one, and is essential to the government functioning at all.
This also applies to corporate entities that exist now and existed then. The idea that a firm has an existence independent of the lifetimes of its owners, managers or employees is fundamental to the functioning of our economy, as is the idea that current owners of that corporation may find their stake become drastically less valuable due to circumstances beyond their control.
I think there are a lot of problems with Coates' position, specifically in regard to Sanders, and of course the fact that I believe one common objection to reparations is not valid doesn't actually mean I support any given program of reparations[3]. Nonetheless, I think it's interesting that the perhaps the most common objection to any concept of reparations seems to be arguing that the question should be treated as a special case.
[1] Or even support reparations!
[2] Why should I be responsible for the trillions of dollars of government debt racked up before I was born? If the answer is just that that debt was racked up on behalf of less distant ancestors, we're really just negotiating price.
[3] In his long Atlantic piece from a couple years back, Coates laid out a few possible forms a program of reparations might take, so I think it's important to be very clear what we're talking about. That's one of my major objections to his response to Sanders.
Brandon Berg:
Maybe you already know this, but just so we’re on the same page: Corporations cannot donate any money at all to a politician’s campaign. What Citizens United allows them to do is sponsor independent political speech about candidates, and donate money to organizations that sponsor such speech.
Yes, and that seems to be more than enough to raise concerns about quid pro quo arrangements between politicians and donors.
So that’s one option. Putting aside obvious first amendment issues, the alternatives that come to mind are:
My prefered alternative is to restrict corporations from making "electioneering communications" independently of a candidate's campaign, which was the status quo prior to Citizens United. I suppose that fits under your option (2) if you squint at it:
2. Media corporations retain freedom of speech about political candidates, but other corporations do not. This privileges media corporations, and also non-media corporations with enough money to acquire or establish a media arm.
Yeah, it priveleges media corporations, but I think that's a reasonable trade-off in light of the importance of maintaining both the reality and appearance of a government that's free of corruption. "The freedom of the press only applies to those who own one," worked pretty well for a couple centuries.
What, exactly, lets us figure out what is good? What is bad? What is indifferent?
I don't know if the problem with this question is that it's too hard to answer, or that it's too easy to ask. :D
Less facetiously, I usually rely on a blend of emotional reactions and a very half-assed sort of rule-based utilitarianism. I find that this rarely puts me so far out of step with people that I'm actually talking to that communication becomes impossible.
Can I back up moral statements that strike me as axiomatic in a way that will convince anybody else? Doubt it.
Do I find myself having to convince anybody else of the truth of moral statements that strike me as axiomatic? Less often than I'd expect.
(Have I welcomed you to the board, Pillsy? Please, let me rectify that. Welcome to the board.)
On “Morning Ed: Society {2016.01.28.Th}”
Yeah. Adams wrote "City of Death", didn't he? That's probably my favorite of the "old" Whos.
"
Still missing after several posts: anything resembling an argument explaining why they're wrong.
"
Yeah, how silly of liberals to think that a system that penalizes black applicants because of well-known racial disparities in law enforcement is "racist".
On “The Argument for Reparations, and the Question of Justice”
Thinking about it more, here's a counter-argument. I don't really believe it, but I think it's worth "steelmanning" TNC's position, to use the silly "Rationalist Community" term:
One of the persistent obstacles to enacting social programs, at least ones that would actually benefit African Americans, is that they are dubbed "reparations" by political opponents and that stigmatization is sufficiently powerful as to cause them to be blocked, repealed, cut, et c. It happened with the ACA[1], it happened with AFDC, it happened with the pluperfectly ridiculous controversy over "Obamacare", and so on.
While that weapon is available to opponents of anti-poverty programs, it will be impossible to use them to actually, finally ameliorate the lingering effects of hundreds of years of racism[2], even if they do so without making any explicit reference to race. Instead of endlessly (and evidently fruitlessly) trying to make the political case that these programs aren't reparations, it is better to just batter through that obstacle by making the case that reparations are necessary, even though they may well ultimately take the form of transfer programs that don't actually single out members of any particular class (beyond, perhaps, "poor people of any race").
Contrary to what you've been contending elsewhere in the thread, there really is an approach to reparations that does not depend on the Treasury Department administrating paper-bag tests. It only requires reversing the current, very negative political valence of the word "reparations" and the idea behind it.
[1] And then the SCOTUS re-wrote the law in a way that kept the Medicaid expansion from benefiting the a disproportionately black group of otherwise eligible persons in the South.
[2] This won't do poor people of any races a hell of a lot of good, truth be told.
"
The ones most harmed--or at least most suffering from persistent harm--are going to be the least affected, due to the progressive nature of the (federal) income tax system.
Persistent harm is really the key, I think. It's not just that people were harmed in the past, it's that the harm has persisted across generations because so many of the opportunities that have come along for people to pull themselves out of poverty, often with the direct assistance of the government, those people and their descendants have been deliberately excluded. The case isn't built on the wrongs of slavery or the wrongs of Jim Crow or the wrongs of discriminatory anti-poverty programs... it's built in to all of them working in series.
"
...and then they reply, "Here are a few ideas which might be better; I think the government should fund a committee which investigates whether they would address the problem and make recommendations accordingly."
That would, at least, provide a lot more than I've usually seen.
On “Morning Ed: Society {2016.01.28.Th}”
Babylon 5 had a Neil Gaiman scripted episode[1], and he's also written for Doctor Who. And speaking of William Gibson, he wrote an episode for The X-Files[2].
I actually can imagine Gibson writing a DS9 episode. John Shirley wrote one, and I thought it was pretty decent.
[1] Very weird, but IMO, weird in a good way.
[2] Which was pretty lousy, TBH.
"
Can, but given the known pattern of racism in police stops, it is not a race neutral way of doing so. It's already bad enough that being stopped for DWB is a thing at all; it's worse to aggravate it by making it a bar to college admissions.
"
Yes, asking students if they've been arrested (as opposed to convicted) is wrong. Being arrested is no proof of wrongdoing--"innocent until proven guilty" means something--and there's a great deal of evidence that shows that African Americans get hassled by cops a lot more than white people.
Did you have an actual argument here, or was your incredulous tone supposed to be enough?
On “The Argument for Reparations, and the Question of Justice”
My sense is that TNC believes something along the lines of, "Might as well be hung for a sheep as a goat."
Still, this is where I think his argument about the necessity of reparations--which has indeed gotten more strident over the last couple years--really falls apart. Maybe we really do need reparations, but we've haven't tried all the alternatives yet. We haven't even come close.
"
Nope. I'm replying specifically to an objection that CK Reynolds presented:
Those problem are often put as questions: How is it just for a descendant to pay for the crimes of a a remote ancestor?
On “Are kids more economically literate than adults: Snow Day edition”
FWIW, I'll pay kids about $30 to shovel our driveway and sidewalk if they volunteer. Usually they do an OK job, and I think it's definitely worth that much to be the one who gets to sit on a comfy couch in a warm house and play video games.
That's just under $19 in 1995 dollars. I'm getting a good deal!
On “The Argument for Reparations, and the Question of Justice”
This is, actually, kind of nonsensical, and not properly responsive to TNC's case for reparations. Some of that is his fault, because he doesn't devote enough attention in his writing to what scope of reparations should be considered, beyond a bill to form a committee to study the question and make recommendations. Such a committee wouldn't seem to entail anything like what you're describing.
He also mentions the possibility of extensive race-neutral anti-poverty program[1], which also wouldn't entail anything like the expulsion of everyone who isn't of Native American descent.
Finally, he mentions the possibility of making direct cash payments to bring the per capita income for black people up to the per capita income of the country. This is, I think, the sort of thing that people think of when they hear "reparations", and there are many problems with it, including deciding who might be eligible for payment, extreme political challenges, and expense. I think it would cost something like $500 billion a year to accomplish this, and TNC suggest that it would appropriate to make these payments for ten years.
Still, even that doesn't come anywhere close to what you describe. There are 3-5 million people of Native Americans descent in the US[2], depending on how you answer the question of who qualifies. Even assuming their average per capita income is zero, we're talking maybe $200 billion dollars a year. It's, again, an eye-wateringly huge amount, but it's hardly "confiscate everything from everybody".
I really think the problem here isn't that TNC isn't thinking seriously about this, but rather people not reading what he's written about it with sufficient charity.
[1] One of the most persistent problems with race-neutral anti-poverty programs is that they get attacked and then stigmatized as "reparations" to black people. TNC actually spends a fair amount of time reflecting on this in his original essay on the subject.
[2] If Wikipedia is anything to go by.
On “The Dark History of Liberal Reform | New Republic”
That's a really good point.
On “The Argument for Reparations, and the Question of Justice”
Yeah, and given one line of argument that TNC entertains, we're facing a debt even bigger than $100 billion!
I actually am skeptical of a lot arguments in favor of reparations, and the more I think about it, the more legitmate I think Sanders' appeal to politica is. I just think the specific line of argument I'm trying to refute is a weird bust.
On “The Dark History of Liberal Reform | New Republic”
Yeah. I think I like it because it mostly allows me to talk to people. I have little defense against getting things wrong because they cut against my intuitions, but I'm not sure I'm convinced any approach to morality that I've seen has a convincing record of doing otherwise.
On “The Argument for Reparations, and the Question of Justice”
“so what” is that debt doesn’t have a moral component; and it does have objective measures of its magnitude and repayment.
I don't really see how this makes anything better for the people (i.e., us) who are expected to pay it off (i.e., pay taxes) regardless of the fact that we didn't have any say in the processes that incurred the debt in the first place. The amount we're on the hook for is beyond our control either way.
(Also, it's not like we don't have precedent and tradition for the idea that one can be owed a debt based on the fact that one was wronged.)
"
Um, I hate to be so blunt, but so what? I'm really not seeing what the relevance of this line of argument is at all.
The precise details of the political process which produced government debt doesn't change the fundamental fact that contemporary Americans are, through their government, responsible for past obligations that were incurred in ways that they had no input into. All of the debts we're discussing here, no matter how they were created, would ultimately have to be paid by taxes. Any decision to pay or not pay those debts is ultimately political (as demonstrated by the fairly recent debt ceiling debacle).
"
I'm not sure I see the relevance. Either way, people are being held responsible for decisions that they had no say in, ones that may have been made before they were born, or their parents were born, or before their parents came into the country, or whatever. The fact that the debt it's all laid out in terms of a contract doesn't seem to change the key point.
"
I don't think that's right, given what he just wrote about her recent debate answer on Reconstruction.
"
I think the more telling and relevant argument is, "How is it just for a descendent to suffer because their ancestors (often not so remote) were victims of crimes?"
If the effects of those crimes really are still being felt today, someone is paying for them.
"
Those problem are often put as questions: How is it just for a descendant to pay for the crimes of a a remote ancestor?
The most obvious answer is, I believe, the correct one: it isn't.
However, I think this is a much less serious problem than most people who object to reparations[1] believe. Reparations, even in its crudest form, argues that the United States, which is a nation state that has a continuity of existence beyond the life span of any individual, owes the descendents of slaves a debt based on past wrongs that the United States committed directly or enabled. The idea that the US is liable for debts incurred by past governments, despite the fact that many people currently alive had no input into them[2], is not a particularly exotic one, and is essential to the government functioning at all.
This also applies to corporate entities that exist now and existed then. The idea that a firm has an existence independent of the lifetimes of its owners, managers or employees is fundamental to the functioning of our economy, as is the idea that current owners of that corporation may find their stake become drastically less valuable due to circumstances beyond their control.
I think there are a lot of problems with Coates' position, specifically in regard to Sanders, and of course the fact that I believe one common objection to reparations is not valid doesn't actually mean I support any given program of reparations[3]. Nonetheless, I think it's interesting that the perhaps the most common objection to any concept of reparations seems to be arguing that the question should be treated as a special case.
[1] Or even support reparations!
[2] Why should I be responsible for the trillions of dollars of government debt racked up before I was born? If the answer is just that that debt was racked up on behalf of less distant ancestors, we're really just negotiating price.
[3] In his long Atlantic piece from a couple years back, Coates laid out a few possible forms a program of reparations might take, so I think it's important to be very clear what we're talking about. That's one of my major objections to his response to Sanders.
On “Dissecting Paul Krugman’s Bernie backlash: Being a Sanders skeptic doesn’t make you a hack – Salon.com”
Yes, and that seems to be more than enough to raise concerns about quid pro quo arrangements between politicians and donors.
My prefered alternative is to restrict corporations from making "electioneering communications" independently of a candidate's campaign, which was the status quo prior to Citizens United. I suppose that fits under your option (2) if you squint at it:
Yeah, it priveleges media corporations, but I think that's a reasonable trade-off in light of the importance of maintaining both the reality and appearance of a government that's free of corruption. "The freedom of the press only applies to those who own one," worked pretty well for a couple centuries.
On “The Dark History of Liberal Reform | New Republic”
@Jaybird:
What, exactly, lets us figure out what is good? What is bad? What is indifferent?
I don't know if the problem with this question is that it's too hard to answer, or that it's too easy to ask. :D
Less facetiously, I usually rely on a blend of emotional reactions and a very half-assed sort of rule-based utilitarianism. I find that this rarely puts me so far out of step with people that I'm actually talking to that communication becomes impossible.
Can I back up moral statements that strike me as axiomatic in a way that will convince anybody else? Doubt it.
Do I find myself having to convince anybody else of the truth of moral statements that strike me as axiomatic? Less often than I'd expect.
(Have I welcomed you to the board, Pillsy? Please, let me rectify that. Welcome to the board.)
Thanks!
"
I don't know which kind of observation it is, though ease of travel made a lot of the things racism was used to justify viable.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.