I think any discussion regarding reparations has to diagnose exactly how much of the problem is caused by a legacy of colonialism, and how much is caused by other factors. In the time since decolonialism, dozens of once-colonized nations in other parts of the world have developed to as high, or even higher standards of living than the west, yet the standards of living across Africa (with the exception of oil rich countries, and those with more mixed populations) have not risen nearly as much, often despite more significant aid per-capita.
If the argument for give-directly is "It's an effective way to be charitable" that's one thing, but if it's "Your national wealth is the result of stealing the prosperity from others" you'll need to come up with a much more convincing case. Otherwise, while I might not give money to GiveDirectly since I'm not a charitable person, I can't hold pretensions that this I'm doing the good thing. Whereas if I don't give because I disagree that the current prosperity in Africa is the result of colonialism, I have absolutely no obligation to donate.
> I think any discussion regarding reparations has to diagnose exactly how much of the problem is caused by a legacy of colonialism, and how much is caused by other factors.
You seem to be confusing the two arguments. The argument from compensatory justice is that we need to give because we committed atrocities against the colonized, which we objectively did, irrespective of how they're doing now. So for example, if I kick you and steal your wallet, compensatory justice would demand that I say sorry and give you your wallet back, even if after the incident you'd happen to win the lottery and are doing very well. The utilitarian argument is that it's an effective charity, irrespective of what caused the charity to be necessary. That aid must be conditional on both the effectiveness *and* compensation, is not advanced by either theory.
> yet the standards of living across Africa (with the exception of oil rich countries, and those with more mixed populations) have not risen nearly as much, often despite more significant aid per-capita.
Empirically we observe the opposite. African countries with a lot of oil tend to do worse (check the wikipedia page for "resource curse" and "exploitation colonialism"). I don't know what you're referring to with "mixed populations" but given who you're subscribed to I'll assume you're talking about race and genetics. To be clear, Africa has more genetic diversity than the rest of the world combined, so they're actually way *more* mixed, and the "race scientists" who lump africans or black people under one genetic category, haven't cast the most cursory glance at the scientific literature and are probably trying to convince you otherwise for racism reasons.
You'd do well not to make assumptions about people you've never met, as you're almost certainly going to be wrong. It immediately indicates you're hostile to discussion, as rather than dealing with what a person is saying, you're literally seeking any way you can to dismiss them based off who they subscribe to.
I don't even know what you're referring to in my subscription list. Cremiux maybe? Besides that I don't see any of my 70 or so subscriptions that could be considered a "race scientist". I assumed it's needless to say that "Subscription/Following does not equal endorsement", but I guess when people look for every angle to discredit your statements you can, that's necessary.
My statements on "mixed populations" was in reference to South Africa, and a few micronations with significant European and Southeast descended-peoples. I did NOT say that this has anything to do with genetics.
My problem isn't with the utilitarian argument, it's your conflation with the argument for reparations.
I don't think anyone would disagree as to your thought experiment, but the problem isn't that "is compensation is owed" it's "how much?", "by whom?", and "How much has already been paid?" If my ancestor stole your wallet, and compensation was never paid, on what metric should restitution be made? If it's "so long as I'm richer than you compensation is owed", which is usually the implicit assumption in arguments for compensation, then I'm going to strongly disagree. Unless a justification for compensation is made where that compensation has some predetermined limit, there is no stopping point where you can determined "Yes, we have reached a settlement for past wrongs."
It's further complicated by the fact that no one who committed the past wrongs is even alive. Very few people would even be able to trace their ancestry to someone who participated in colonialism or the slave trade. Many people in the west were even extremely removed from the slave trade (Say, the entire population of Finland), and it's hard to relate a direct connection between the current prosperity of Finland and exploitation in Africa, or if you could it can't be very direct.
I'm not trying to argue in bad faith, and I think it's not right for you to try and seek any angle you can find to discredit me personally.
> make assumptions about people you've never met [...] Subscription/Following does not equal endorsement
Please read my comment again, I didn't say you believed that, I said to be wary of those people and what they're trying to convince you of. I don't want you falling down some unfortunate rabbit hole, and since I've seen you commenting on related topics on the ACX substack, I thought I'd warn you. I'm really worried about the turn the ACX community has taken since the days I was subscribed to SSC.
> My problem isn't with the utilitarian argument, it's your conflation with the argument for reparations.
I thought I had separated them:
> Reparations are, as mentioned, often rooted in compensatory justice, whereas cash transfers are typically justified through a utilitarian lens
You say:
> the problem isn't that "is compensation is owed" it's "how much?", "by whom?", and "How much has already been paid?"
I already addressed this in the post:
> the idea raises complex questions: Who pays: governments, or also complicit companies/organizations? Who receives: citizens, or also the state? What about countries like Ethiopia that weren’t colonized but are still deeply impoverished? Should reparations be a one-time transfer or a recurring payment? How do we calculate the right amount? Should they replace traditional development aid?
The purpose of the post wasn't to give an amount etc etc, which is why I haven't done that, the purpose was to outline the common arguments for cash transfers and reparations and where they overlap (which I did do).
> If it's "so long as I'm richer than you compensation is owed", which is usually the implicit assumption in arguments for compensation, then I'm going to strongly disagree.
Please read my comment again:
> if I kick you and steal your wallet, compensatory justice would demand that I say sorry and give you your wallet back, even if after the incident you'd happen to win the lottery and are doing very well.
If you've won the lottery you're doing better than me, but compensatory justice still says I should pay you back. This is not my opinion either, click on the "compensatory justice" link in the post, or google it, to see for yourself.
> It's further complicated by the fact that no one who committed the past wrongs is even alive.
That's not true, e.g. if you check the story about Belgium being forced to pay reparations ("small step" link) you'll see that both many perpetrators and many victims are still alive today. The harms we inflicted upon the world may be more recent (and ongoing if you want to check the first four links) than you might think. But also, according to compensatory justice, it doesn't matter, because we're still benefiting from it. So say I steal your wallet, give it to my son, then die of a heart-attack. According to compensatory justice, my son still needs to give it back to you, even if he wasn't the one that stole the wallet, because otherwise he would still be profiting off of it.
> I'm really worried about the turn the ACX community has taken since the days I was subscribed to SSC.
I'll give you that one. There has been a swing towards "innocent HBD acknowledgement" that doesn't explicitly answer the question "So what?" Usually, obviously the implication i "So... We should do something very racist and terrible because [insert race here, probably white people] are superior."
> I thought I had separated them:
Bad wording on my part. I think the utilitarian "We should be effective in the things we do" argument is fair and is a given, and if it's determined that reparations are a good idea, being effective at those is also a good idea. I am not convinced that we should give as reparations though, as I do not know the terms on which the reparations are being determined. Should they be "Until previously/currently oppressed people reach parity with the previous exploiters", I think this is essentially an infinitely large olive branch that is fundamentally unsustainable, and a 1-way ticket to significant resentment.
> That's not true, e.g. if you check the story about Belgium being forced to pay reparations ("small step" link) you'll see that both many perpetrators and many victims are still alive today.
I'll give you that, but I'm not a Belgian. As far as my ancestry goes, my ancestors are all peasants from countries or regions of countries that were on the bad end of an oppressor/oppressive regime, so for many (most?) people, the question of reparations isn't even a question of 'My dad stole the wallet from your dad" but "People who look like me have a great, great grandfather who stole the wallet of your great great grandfather." At which point the discussion of reparations departs from the problem of original wrongdoing and enters the field of "Current relative differences in wealth is evidence of oppression, and therefore restitution is offered" which is a position I disagree with.
My comment on mixed populations was mainly aimed at the success of South Africa. If I had to explain their relative success, it wouldn't be due to European-descended people's spreading their genes, but European-descended people spreading their culture/institutions which are uniquely good at producing prosperity.
My main gripe with your post is that it implicitly assumes that reparations are due, suggesting directly how one can give reparations, without specifying "by whom" and "how much?" Personally I'd likely place myself in the middle ground, having no ancestors who participated in the slave trade or colonization of Africa that languished in poverty until the 20th century, although perhaps benefiting from a system that rewards people with my skin color over others. There are many cases of people who equally, or even more than I do, benefit from Western systems, yet would be relatively foolish to suggest they owe reparations I can think of though.
> I think the utilitarian "We should be effective in the things we do" argument is fair and is a given [...] "Until previously/currently oppressed people reach parity with the previous exploiters"
This is not the target for either theory. So according to compensatory justice it would be, until you've compensated the harms you did to them, and for utilitarianism it would be until it no longer increases utility. For both theories it *may* turn out that it overlaps with that point, but that point in itself isn't the goal.
I didn't give a utilitarian case for advocating for reparations in the post, but if you want one it would be something like:
Premise 1) A large sum of money going from rich countries to people in sub-saharan africa will increase utility (see, give directly research)
P 2) We can guilt-trip some governments of rich nations into giving millions to people in sub-saharan africa, using the reparations argument (see, belgium and germany)
Conclusion: We should advocate that certain rich governments owe millions in reparations to people in sub-saharan africa on the basis of reparations.
> so for many (most?) people, the question of reparations isn't even a question of 'My dad stole the wallet from your dad"
So here we must separate the moral theory of compensatory justice (CJ) with the political project of reparations. CJ is used to justify the political project of reparations, but they're not the same thing, since CJ is much broader and also applies to things like me saying sorry after I kicked you. The political project of reparations is focused on governments (and sometimes organizations that perpetrated crimes and are still around). It's not aimed at individuals for a host of reason, the most immediate being that it's just plain impractical.
> "Current relative differences in wealth is evidence of oppression, and therefore restitution is offered"
Rest assured that neither theory says this, nor is it a necessary component of either theory.
> My comment on mixed populations was mainly aimed at the success of South Africa. [...] yet the standards of living across Africa (with the exception of oil rich countries, and those with more mixed populations) have not risen nearly as much, often despite more significant aid per-capita.
I think this isn't true, or at least not obviously so. Substack has decided that we can't use hyperlinks in comments, so to prevent this next section from becoming an unwieldy mess of urls I'm going to be leaving them out. If you can't find a source for all/some claims, feel free to ask and I'll make it a separate comment for them.
If we e.g. compare south africa with its landlocked neighbor botswana, which had wayy less "mixing", we see that the latter has higher gdp per capita, higher lifer expectancy, lower economic inequality, lower lifespan inequality, higher economic growth per capita etc etc. All this despite the fact that botswana had fewer white people, inherited fewer social/physical infrastructure from white people, and has received less foreign aid than south africa.
And maybe for the former two it isn't actually "despite", it might be "because" of it. I'm no expert on (neo)colonialism (though I am writing a post on philanthropy and neocolonialism and have developed an interest in the topic so I know at least a little bit) but many scholars of (neo)colonialism have written books on how the physical and social infrastructure the colonizers left behind actually hurt the natives.
That most common example is the railway systems. Although they're sometimes presented as evidence of colonial "development," they were primarily designed to serve colonial economic interests. Rather than connecting local communities or supporting internal markets, the railways mainly linked resource-rich areas to coastal ports, making it easier to extract and export raw materials to Europe. As a result, after independence, many newly formed nations were left with transportation networks that were poorly suited to fostering internal economic growth or national integration.
Another example is the colonial education system. In many colonies, Western-style schools were introduced, but their purpose was often limited: they trained a small elite to serve in low-level administrative positions within the colonial bureaucracy. Education was rarely aimed at fostering broad critical thinking, technical skills, or leadership abilities among the wider population. After independence, this left many countries without the professional classes they needed to run governments, industries, or public institutions effectively.
A similar pattern can be seen in colonial healthcare systems. Medical infrastructure, when it was developed, was often intended to protect European settlers, soldiers, and key workers, rather than to improve the health of the native populations. Healthcare was usually concentrated in cities or plantation areas, with rural or indigenous communities left underserved. This created deep inequalities that persisted long after independence.
I've touched on some of the problems economic inequality creates in my post on co-ops and social trust, but suffice to say, it's a long list. And much of the physical infrastructure promotes "extractivism/exploitation colonialism" first by the western colonizers and now by western private companies. I think this aspect of colonialism is often neglected. When we talk about colonialism we tend to talk about the "flashy" evils, like the slave trade, while the more "boring" evils are rarely discussed.
> There are many cases of people who equally, or even more than I do, benefit from Western systems, yet would be relatively foolish to suggest they owe reparations I can think of though.
Again, the project of reparations is aimed at governments and sometimes at institutions, not at individuals.
Mine, and all governments get their taxes from individuals. I don't see much difference in you saying "Your government owes reparations" and "You owe reparations," there's just an extra layer of extraction.
My main point is that you have implicitly assumed that reparations are due, without specifying the most important thing "By whom" and "how much." My understanding is that the argument is based on current inequities as evidence of un-restituted past harms, is that so long as current inequities exist, they will continually and forever be referenced to as evidence of unresolved past harms. Thus, reparations are bottomless. It seems to me that any discussion about reparations that tries to tip-toe around the issue of specific claims is vulnerable to the same legitimate concern.
If there was a flat amount of reparations that, when paid, would absolve the west forever of inherited guilt, I think there would be a lot more interest in paying them. That's how restitution works at an individual level. If I stole your wallet, and we collectively decided that I had to make right, and the criteria for when restitution is offered is "whenever the victim is satisfied" or "whenever the victim is as wealthy as you" I wouldn't call that justice, but a shake down.
I think any discussion regarding reparations has to diagnose exactly how much of the problem is caused by a legacy of colonialism, and how much is caused by other factors. In the time since decolonialism, dozens of once-colonized nations in other parts of the world have developed to as high, or even higher standards of living than the west, yet the standards of living across Africa (with the exception of oil rich countries, and those with more mixed populations) have not risen nearly as much, often despite more significant aid per-capita.
If the argument for give-directly is "It's an effective way to be charitable" that's one thing, but if it's "Your national wealth is the result of stealing the prosperity from others" you'll need to come up with a much more convincing case. Otherwise, while I might not give money to GiveDirectly since I'm not a charitable person, I can't hold pretensions that this I'm doing the good thing. Whereas if I don't give because I disagree that the current prosperity in Africa is the result of colonialism, I have absolutely no obligation to donate.
> I think any discussion regarding reparations has to diagnose exactly how much of the problem is caused by a legacy of colonialism, and how much is caused by other factors.
You seem to be confusing the two arguments. The argument from compensatory justice is that we need to give because we committed atrocities against the colonized, which we objectively did, irrespective of how they're doing now. So for example, if I kick you and steal your wallet, compensatory justice would demand that I say sorry and give you your wallet back, even if after the incident you'd happen to win the lottery and are doing very well. The utilitarian argument is that it's an effective charity, irrespective of what caused the charity to be necessary. That aid must be conditional on both the effectiveness *and* compensation, is not advanced by either theory.
> yet the standards of living across Africa (with the exception of oil rich countries, and those with more mixed populations) have not risen nearly as much, often despite more significant aid per-capita.
Empirically we observe the opposite. African countries with a lot of oil tend to do worse (check the wikipedia page for "resource curse" and "exploitation colonialism"). I don't know what you're referring to with "mixed populations" but given who you're subscribed to I'll assume you're talking about race and genetics. To be clear, Africa has more genetic diversity than the rest of the world combined, so they're actually way *more* mixed, and the "race scientists" who lump africans or black people under one genetic category, haven't cast the most cursory glance at the scientific literature and are probably trying to convince you otherwise for racism reasons.
You'd do well not to make assumptions about people you've never met, as you're almost certainly going to be wrong. It immediately indicates you're hostile to discussion, as rather than dealing with what a person is saying, you're literally seeking any way you can to dismiss them based off who they subscribe to.
I don't even know what you're referring to in my subscription list. Cremiux maybe? Besides that I don't see any of my 70 or so subscriptions that could be considered a "race scientist". I assumed it's needless to say that "Subscription/Following does not equal endorsement", but I guess when people look for every angle to discredit your statements you can, that's necessary.
My statements on "mixed populations" was in reference to South Africa, and a few micronations with significant European and Southeast descended-peoples. I did NOT say that this has anything to do with genetics.
My problem isn't with the utilitarian argument, it's your conflation with the argument for reparations.
I don't think anyone would disagree as to your thought experiment, but the problem isn't that "is compensation is owed" it's "how much?", "by whom?", and "How much has already been paid?" If my ancestor stole your wallet, and compensation was never paid, on what metric should restitution be made? If it's "so long as I'm richer than you compensation is owed", which is usually the implicit assumption in arguments for compensation, then I'm going to strongly disagree. Unless a justification for compensation is made where that compensation has some predetermined limit, there is no stopping point where you can determined "Yes, we have reached a settlement for past wrongs."
It's further complicated by the fact that no one who committed the past wrongs is even alive. Very few people would even be able to trace their ancestry to someone who participated in colonialism or the slave trade. Many people in the west were even extremely removed from the slave trade (Say, the entire population of Finland), and it's hard to relate a direct connection between the current prosperity of Finland and exploitation in Africa, or if you could it can't be very direct.
I'm not trying to argue in bad faith, and I think it's not right for you to try and seek any angle you can find to discredit me personally.
> make assumptions about people you've never met [...] Subscription/Following does not equal endorsement
Please read my comment again, I didn't say you believed that, I said to be wary of those people and what they're trying to convince you of. I don't want you falling down some unfortunate rabbit hole, and since I've seen you commenting on related topics on the ACX substack, I thought I'd warn you. I'm really worried about the turn the ACX community has taken since the days I was subscribed to SSC.
> My problem isn't with the utilitarian argument, it's your conflation with the argument for reparations.
I thought I had separated them:
> Reparations are, as mentioned, often rooted in compensatory justice, whereas cash transfers are typically justified through a utilitarian lens
You say:
> the problem isn't that "is compensation is owed" it's "how much?", "by whom?", and "How much has already been paid?"
I already addressed this in the post:
> the idea raises complex questions: Who pays: governments, or also complicit companies/organizations? Who receives: citizens, or also the state? What about countries like Ethiopia that weren’t colonized but are still deeply impoverished? Should reparations be a one-time transfer or a recurring payment? How do we calculate the right amount? Should they replace traditional development aid?
The purpose of the post wasn't to give an amount etc etc, which is why I haven't done that, the purpose was to outline the common arguments for cash transfers and reparations and where they overlap (which I did do).
> If it's "so long as I'm richer than you compensation is owed", which is usually the implicit assumption in arguments for compensation, then I'm going to strongly disagree.
Please read my comment again:
> if I kick you and steal your wallet, compensatory justice would demand that I say sorry and give you your wallet back, even if after the incident you'd happen to win the lottery and are doing very well.
If you've won the lottery you're doing better than me, but compensatory justice still says I should pay you back. This is not my opinion either, click on the "compensatory justice" link in the post, or google it, to see for yourself.
> It's further complicated by the fact that no one who committed the past wrongs is even alive.
That's not true, e.g. if you check the story about Belgium being forced to pay reparations ("small step" link) you'll see that both many perpetrators and many victims are still alive today. The harms we inflicted upon the world may be more recent (and ongoing if you want to check the first four links) than you might think. But also, according to compensatory justice, it doesn't matter, because we're still benefiting from it. So say I steal your wallet, give it to my son, then die of a heart-attack. According to compensatory justice, my son still needs to give it back to you, even if he wasn't the one that stole the wallet, because otherwise he would still be profiting off of it.
> I'm really worried about the turn the ACX community has taken since the days I was subscribed to SSC.
I'll give you that one. There has been a swing towards "innocent HBD acknowledgement" that doesn't explicitly answer the question "So what?" Usually, obviously the implication i "So... We should do something very racist and terrible because [insert race here, probably white people] are superior."
> I thought I had separated them:
Bad wording on my part. I think the utilitarian "We should be effective in the things we do" argument is fair and is a given, and if it's determined that reparations are a good idea, being effective at those is also a good idea. I am not convinced that we should give as reparations though, as I do not know the terms on which the reparations are being determined. Should they be "Until previously/currently oppressed people reach parity with the previous exploiters", I think this is essentially an infinitely large olive branch that is fundamentally unsustainable, and a 1-way ticket to significant resentment.
> That's not true, e.g. if you check the story about Belgium being forced to pay reparations ("small step" link) you'll see that both many perpetrators and many victims are still alive today.
I'll give you that, but I'm not a Belgian. As far as my ancestry goes, my ancestors are all peasants from countries or regions of countries that were on the bad end of an oppressor/oppressive regime, so for many (most?) people, the question of reparations isn't even a question of 'My dad stole the wallet from your dad" but "People who look like me have a great, great grandfather who stole the wallet of your great great grandfather." At which point the discussion of reparations departs from the problem of original wrongdoing and enters the field of "Current relative differences in wealth is evidence of oppression, and therefore restitution is offered" which is a position I disagree with.
My comment on mixed populations was mainly aimed at the success of South Africa. If I had to explain their relative success, it wouldn't be due to European-descended people's spreading their genes, but European-descended people spreading their culture/institutions which are uniquely good at producing prosperity.
My main gripe with your post is that it implicitly assumes that reparations are due, suggesting directly how one can give reparations, without specifying "by whom" and "how much?" Personally I'd likely place myself in the middle ground, having no ancestors who participated in the slave trade or colonization of Africa that languished in poverty until the 20th century, although perhaps benefiting from a system that rewards people with my skin color over others. There are many cases of people who equally, or even more than I do, benefit from Western systems, yet would be relatively foolish to suggest they owe reparations I can think of though.
> I think the utilitarian "We should be effective in the things we do" argument is fair and is a given [...] "Until previously/currently oppressed people reach parity with the previous exploiters"
This is not the target for either theory. So according to compensatory justice it would be, until you've compensated the harms you did to them, and for utilitarianism it would be until it no longer increases utility. For both theories it *may* turn out that it overlaps with that point, but that point in itself isn't the goal.
I didn't give a utilitarian case for advocating for reparations in the post, but if you want one it would be something like:
Premise 1) A large sum of money going from rich countries to people in sub-saharan africa will increase utility (see, give directly research)
P 2) We can guilt-trip some governments of rich nations into giving millions to people in sub-saharan africa, using the reparations argument (see, belgium and germany)
Conclusion: We should advocate that certain rich governments owe millions in reparations to people in sub-saharan africa on the basis of reparations.
> so for many (most?) people, the question of reparations isn't even a question of 'My dad stole the wallet from your dad"
So here we must separate the moral theory of compensatory justice (CJ) with the political project of reparations. CJ is used to justify the political project of reparations, but they're not the same thing, since CJ is much broader and also applies to things like me saying sorry after I kicked you. The political project of reparations is focused on governments (and sometimes organizations that perpetrated crimes and are still around). It's not aimed at individuals for a host of reason, the most immediate being that it's just plain impractical.
> "Current relative differences in wealth is evidence of oppression, and therefore restitution is offered"
Rest assured that neither theory says this, nor is it a necessary component of either theory.
> My comment on mixed populations was mainly aimed at the success of South Africa. [...] yet the standards of living across Africa (with the exception of oil rich countries, and those with more mixed populations) have not risen nearly as much, often despite more significant aid per-capita.
I think this isn't true, or at least not obviously so. Substack has decided that we can't use hyperlinks in comments, so to prevent this next section from becoming an unwieldy mess of urls I'm going to be leaving them out. If you can't find a source for all/some claims, feel free to ask and I'll make it a separate comment for them.
If we e.g. compare south africa with its landlocked neighbor botswana, which had wayy less "mixing", we see that the latter has higher gdp per capita, higher lifer expectancy, lower economic inequality, lower lifespan inequality, higher economic growth per capita etc etc. All this despite the fact that botswana had fewer white people, inherited fewer social/physical infrastructure from white people, and has received less foreign aid than south africa.
And maybe for the former two it isn't actually "despite", it might be "because" of it. I'm no expert on (neo)colonialism (though I am writing a post on philanthropy and neocolonialism and have developed an interest in the topic so I know at least a little bit) but many scholars of (neo)colonialism have written books on how the physical and social infrastructure the colonizers left behind actually hurt the natives.
That most common example is the railway systems. Although they're sometimes presented as evidence of colonial "development," they were primarily designed to serve colonial economic interests. Rather than connecting local communities or supporting internal markets, the railways mainly linked resource-rich areas to coastal ports, making it easier to extract and export raw materials to Europe. As a result, after independence, many newly formed nations were left with transportation networks that were poorly suited to fostering internal economic growth or national integration.
Another example is the colonial education system. In many colonies, Western-style schools were introduced, but their purpose was often limited: they trained a small elite to serve in low-level administrative positions within the colonial bureaucracy. Education was rarely aimed at fostering broad critical thinking, technical skills, or leadership abilities among the wider population. After independence, this left many countries without the professional classes they needed to run governments, industries, or public institutions effectively.
A similar pattern can be seen in colonial healthcare systems. Medical infrastructure, when it was developed, was often intended to protect European settlers, soldiers, and key workers, rather than to improve the health of the native populations. Healthcare was usually concentrated in cities or plantation areas, with rural or indigenous communities left underserved. This created deep inequalities that persisted long after independence.
I've touched on some of the problems economic inequality creates in my post on co-ops and social trust, but suffice to say, it's a long list. And much of the physical infrastructure promotes "extractivism/exploitation colonialism" first by the western colonizers and now by western private companies. I think this aspect of colonialism is often neglected. When we talk about colonialism we tend to talk about the "flashy" evils, like the slave trade, while the more "boring" evils are rarely discussed.
> There are many cases of people who equally, or even more than I do, benefit from Western systems, yet would be relatively foolish to suggest they owe reparations I can think of though.
Again, the project of reparations is aimed at governments and sometimes at institutions, not at individuals.
Mine, and all governments get their taxes from individuals. I don't see much difference in you saying "Your government owes reparations" and "You owe reparations," there's just an extra layer of extraction.
My main point is that you have implicitly assumed that reparations are due, without specifying the most important thing "By whom" and "how much." My understanding is that the argument is based on current inequities as evidence of un-restituted past harms, is that so long as current inequities exist, they will continually and forever be referenced to as evidence of unresolved past harms. Thus, reparations are bottomless. It seems to me that any discussion about reparations that tries to tip-toe around the issue of specific claims is vulnerable to the same legitimate concern.
If there was a flat amount of reparations that, when paid, would absolve the west forever of inherited guilt, I think there would be a lot more interest in paying them. That's how restitution works at an individual level. If I stole your wallet, and we collectively decided that I had to make right, and the criteria for when restitution is offered is "whenever the victim is satisfied" or "whenever the victim is as wealthy as you" I wouldn't call that justice, but a shake down.