How Much Does The US Owe African-Americans For The Unpaid Work They Did?

[Consider this post more like notes about a concept.]

I came across this Newsweek  article about how much reparations for African-Americans would cost if they were reimbursed for the work they did as slaves.

". . .[Craemer]  also has come up with what he says is the most economically sound estimate to date of what reparations could cost: between $5.9 trillion and $14.2 trillion.

Craemer came up with those figures by tabulating how many hours all slaves—men, women and children—worked in the United States from when the country was officially established in 1776 until 1865, when slavery was officially abolished. He multiplied the amount of time they worked by average wage prices at the time, and then a compounding interest rate of 3 percent per year (more than making up for inflation). There is a range because the amount of time worked isn’t a hard figure. 

Previous estimates of reparations have ranged from around $36 billion to $10 trillion (in 2009 dollars), Craemer says. Those calculations mostly looked at wealth created by slaves as opposed to services provided, resulting in underestimates. Craemer believes that “the economic assumptions underlying [his method] are more sound” than those used in previous papers."

It's really hard for people to give back what they stole, especially after enjoying it for a long time and assuming that it was rightfully theirs.  My step-mother told me stories about getting back to her home after being in Nazi work camps.  Neighbors had taken over her family's home and she saw her family furniture and other belongings in the houses of other neighbors.  But it's not simply the labor of black slaves that allowed many white southerners get rich and pass that wealth on to their heirs for generations.

From American Slavery: Separating Truth From Myth,  Daina Ramey Berry writes:

Myth Four: Slavery was a long time ago.
Truth: African-Americans have been free in this country for less time than they were enslaved. Do the math: Blacks have been free for 152 years, which means that most Americans are only two to three generations away from slavery. This is not that long ago.
Over this same period, however, former slaveholding families have built their legacies on the institution and generated wealth that African-Americans have not had access to because enslaved labor was forced. Segregation maintained wealth disparities, and overt and covert discrimination limited African-American recovery efforts. [emphasis added.]

Some of those covert discriminatory practices included red-lining, restrictive covenants, unequal school, job discrimination, and internalized racism that still causes people to make discriminatory assumptions about black Americans.

War reparations are not anything new.  The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law defines them this way:

"1 War reparations involve the transfer of legal rights, goods, property and, typically, money from one State to another in response to the injury caused by the use of armed force. While often considered a sub-category of reparations obligations existing under the classical theory of internationally wrongful acts and State responsibility law, the practice of claiming and paying war reparations in fact dates back to ancient times and presents several specific features."

International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTA) puts reparations into a larger context of transitional justice:

"Transitional justice is rooted in accountability and redress for victims. It recognizes their dignity as citizens and as human beings. Ignoring massive abuses is an easy way out but it destroys the values on which any decent society can be built. Transitional justice asks the most difficult questions imaginable about law and politics. By putting victims and their dignity first, it signals the way forward for a renewed commitment to make sure ordinary citizens are safe in their own countries – safe from the abuses of their own authorities and effectively protected from violations by others."

Reparations do take place.  Most recently in the US, reparations were paid to Japanese-American survivors of WWII relocation camps.  But such efforts are ongoing around the world. The International Center for Transitional Justice lists seven countries where they have worked to get reparations for victims:

The Philippines: Aided by many years of active engagement by ICTJ, legislation was passed that granted reparations and recognition to victims of human rights violations committed during the Marcos dictatorship. We also advised a joint commission of the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front on approaches to transitional justice that the state should adopt as part of implementing the peace process, including on reparations for victims of violations, marginalization, and historic grievances.
Sierra Leone: Our advice helped to improve the accessibility of the reparations registration process for victims of the civil war. We advised on how to staff and schedule the interview and statement-taking process, to ensure that more victims in rural and hard-to-reach areas of the country could register.
South Africa: With our technical support, we helped the largest apartheid survivors’ group in South Africa to challenge the government’s limited post-Truth and Reconciliation Commission reparations policies.
Sudan: In relation to the conflict in Darfur, we analyzed the extent to which the right to reparations of victims has been incorporated into the different attempts to create a peace agreement. We used our presence in negotiations to disseminate our findings to relevant stakeholders.
Timor-Leste: We worked with parliamentarians to enact legislation to implement the reparations recommendations of the two truth commissions (the Commission for Truth, Reception and Reconciliation and the Commission on Truth and Friendship) that were established to investigate abuses that occurred during the Indonesian occupation.
Tunisia: After the overthrow of President Ben Ali in 2011, we assisted government agencies and officials to design reparations policies that would be effective and relevant to the needs of victims of the dictatorship.
Uganda: In response to long-running civil conflict, particularly in the north, we provided relevant state agencies with critical information about the reparative needs of victims, and helped to identify capacity gaps and resources that would be required to design and implement effective reparations programs. We supported civil society organizations, especially women’s organizations, to provide reparations policy proposals to submit to state authorities.

A major reparations model to individuals in the 20th Century is how the Germans calculated and paid reparations to victims of the Nazis.  My own mother got reparation checks - called Wiedergutmachen, or "making good again"- in recognition of the loss (as I understand this) of her family's business and house, her parents, and her lost education.  I'd note that despite these payments, Germany is still one of the strongest economies in the world.


Here's an article that focuses on legal history of reparation rights, particularly in the context of German reparations. .  From  "A Legal History of International Reparations" by Richard M. Buxbaum in the Berkeley Journal of International Law:

To explore these two cases in the European reparations context, five strands of thought-three general and two specific to Germany-need to be separated and then rewoven. One: whether state claims for reparations encompass compensa- tion for particularized harms suffered by a subject of the claimant state. Two: may that subject make a claim directly against the other state? Three: do claims, either by the state or its subjects, encompass compensation for harms caused by non-state actors of the offending state? This issue also raises the question of whether those private actors may be sued directly, either by the claimant state or, more typically, by the victim-subject of that state. Four (an issue historically specific to World War II): the temporary disappearance of Germany as a sover- eign state actor and the substitution of the Occupying Powers as that sovereign. Five (again, historically specific): the nature of the atrocities committed by the Third Reich against both its own persecuted subjects and those of other states that was qualitatively different from those known to modem warfare.

Japanese-Americans were given a token amount that did not reflect the total loss of property or what they might have earned during their years of incarceration.  For many, more important than the money was the acknowledgement by the US government of the wrong that was done.  Craemer's figures - into the trillions - means that African-Americans will, at best, never get more than a token reparation.  Particularly if you consider the debt the US has to Native Americans on top of the debt to African-Americans.  This is an injustice that is a stain on the US until it is reasonably resolved.