Knowledge And Decisions

Even within the area of race, it is by no means clear that all historic grievances have a remedy, or who specifically should pay the cost of such remedies as might be attempted. If the purpose is to compensate the pain and suffering of slavery, those most deserving of such compensation are long dead. If the purpose is to restore their descendants to the position the latter would now occupy “but for” the enslavement of their ancestors, is that position the average income, status, and general well-being of other Americans or the average income, status, and general well-being in their countries of origin? The former implicitly assumes what is highly unlikely — a voluntary immigration comparable to the forced shipment of blacks from Africa — and the latter raises the grotesque prospect of expecting blacks to compensate whites for the difference between American and African standards of living. If what is to be compensated is the unpaid economic contribution of slave ancestors to American development, this is an area in which controversies have raged for centuries over the effects of slavery on the American economy — not merely over its magnitude, but over whether slavery’s contribution was positive or negative.¹⁷⁹ Without even attempting to resolve this continuing dispute among specialists, it can be pointed out that the case for a negative effect can hardly be dismissed a priori. The South was poorer than the North even before the Civil War, and those parts of the South in which slaves were most heavily concentrated have long been the poorest parts of the South, for whites as well as blacks. Compensation based on the economic contribution of slavery could turn out to be negative. Would anyone be sufficiently devoted to that principle to ask blacks to compensate whites? Or is this simply another “results-oriented” principle, taken seriously only when forwarding some other purpose?

If the basis for special or compensatory treatment of blacks is simply a desire of some segment of contemporary white society to rid itself of guilt for historic wrongs, the question arises as to why this must be done through institutions which extend the cost to other — perhaps much larger — segments of the society whose ancestors were not even in the United States when most of this happened, or were in no position to do anything about it. Even the argument that they or their ancestors were passive beneficiaries of racial oppression loses much of its force when it is unclear that there were any net social benefits beyond the immediate profits of a tiny group of slave owners. If there were ever any net social benefits, it is questionable whether they survived the Civil War, whose costs seemed to confirm Lincoln’s fear that God’s justice might require that the wealth from “unrequited toil shall be sunk” and “every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be repaid by another drawn with the sword.”¹⁸⁰

Individual compassion or a sense of social responsibility for less fortunate fellow men does not depend upon theories of guilt or unjustified benefits, but without such theories it is harder to justify compulsory exactions upon others. Nor do the others accept such exactions without resentment: some “find it just a bit ironic when they demand that we feel guilty for what their ancestors did to the blacks. ...”¹⁸¹ Moreover, specific compensatory activities may be opposed by the intended beneficiaries themselves — as in public opinion polls which have repeatedly shown a majority of blacks opposed to quotas.¹⁸² So it is not clear that guilt-reduction activity is a net social gain. The reduction of guilt, or the expression of social and humanitarian concern, can take place through any number of voluntary organizations, which have in fact made historic contributions to the advancement of black Americans.¹⁸³