—–Original Message—–
From: ST
Sent: Monday, August 29, 2016 1:03 PM
To: wblock@loyno.edu
Subject: Reparations question

Good afternoon, Dr. Block. I know you are busy and this inquiry is not urgent, but I’ve been following some of your reparations conversations and I’m wondering about the following: There is an argument that all white people owe collective reparations to all black people because all whites benefit, and all blacks suffer, from the “legacy of slavery.” If I assume, for argument, that this is the case, then it would seem logical that those reparations could only flow from the more successful to the less successful. In light of that, wouldn’t it seem that affirmative action, hiring quotas, and any other welfare that flows in this direction *already* constitutes a reparation of sorts? If the point of all these programs is to compensate for any unfair advantage/disadvantage that stems from injustices perpetrated by the ancestors of economically and socially successful people, then isn’t that a kind of reparation? After all, few argue that any individual taxpayer is directly responsible for a welfare recipient’s misfortune, rather that “we” are collectively responsible for the recipients because *someone* has to be and it’s no fault of theirs that they’ve fallen on hard times. Signed, ST

Dear ST: Two words of what you say jump out at me: “of sorts.” Real reparations stem from the grandchildren of slave owners who were given property by their grandparents that properly belongs to the grandchildren of slaves. Affirmative action is only very distantly related to that, if at all. Have you read my pubs on this sort of thing?

Alston and Block, 2007; Block, 1993, 2001, 2002; Block and Yeatts, 1999-2000

Alston, Wilton D. and Walter E. Block. 2007. “Reparations, Once Again.” Human Rights Review, Vol. 9, No. 3, September, pp. 379-392; http://tinyurl.com/2b75fl

Block, Walter E. 1993. “Malcolm X,” Fraser Forum, January, pp. 18-19; http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/5361.aspx

Block, Walter E. 2001. “The Moral Dimensions of Poverty, Entitlements and Theft,” The Journal of Markets and Morality, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 83-93; http://www.acton.org/publicat/m_and_m/2001_spring/block.html; http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=922087; http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCcQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.marketsandmorality.com%2Findex.php%2Fmandm%2Farticle%2Fdownload%2F587%2F577&ei=lBn9UuLIOtDOkQe1toHwBw&usg=AFQjCNF2MZ5XoFKKMF5UcOfOT5Kv-HQgZA&sig2=VVYWZhyl0ZmAWRAKXtkxWw

Block, Walter E. 2002. “On Reparations to Blacks for Slavery,” Human Rights Review, Vol. 3, No. 4, July-September, pp. 53-73; http://www.walterblock.com/wp-content/uploads/publications/reparations_slavery.pdf

Block, Walter E. and Guillermo Yeatts. 1999-2000. “The Economics and Ethics of Land Reform: A Critique of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace’s ‘Toward a Better Distribution of Land: The Challenge of Agrarian Reform,’” Journal of Natural Resources and Environmental Law, Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 37-69; http://www.walterblock.com/publications/ethics_land_reform.pdf

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