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The single biggest problem with reparations, is that it would bankrupt several of Europe's leading economies, those that were responsible for hundreds of years of slavery and the forced transport of millions of African slaves to North and South America. As the nation most responsible for African slavery, the UK would be effectively economically destroyed by reparations. Europe would do everything it could manage, to refuse and dodge its overwhelming responsibility for slavery, including refusing to pay the trillions of dollars it would properly owe under reparations.

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> The single biggest problem with reparations, is that it would bankrupt several of Europe's leading economies, those that were responsible for hundreds of years of slavery and the forced transport of millions of African slaves to North and South America.

Yes. To add to that: the mere fact that the current European economy cannot exist but for the spoils of centuries of imperialism and exploitation should itself give us pause.

For how reparations may play out, look to WW1. Heavy reparations were demanded from Germany. Its effects produced WW2, a much worse war.

That's largely a myth.

Very heavy reparations were demanded from France after the 1870-1871 war. Guess by who? Germany. France paid in full, quite quickly, despite the reparations being very large and the French economy being smaller than the German one in 1918.

Germany didn't really want to pay and it also fell into disarray due to other reasons, not related to the reparations.

Eh, it may be a myth that that the financial effect of the reparations led to the war, but what about their effects on public opinion? It doesn't seem surprising that heavy reparations might make it easier for populist leaders to win elections.

I know this is a sort of twisted morality, like not punishing a bully because he might beat you up, but as many have discovered, the moral high ground is not a shield.

> a myth

It is controversial, but not a myth:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_reparations

I don’t think this is true. I’m of the impression that the wealth difference between the western world and the rest of the world is primarily a biproduct of the industrial revolution. I imagine imperialism contributed, but most places in the world were imperial at the time or even more recently including Asia and the Middle East, and pretty much all places (including the precolonial Americas) practiced colonialism and slavery centuries earlier. Colonialism seems to be much less significant than industrialization, and of course European colonialism also drove industrialization in its colonies.

> I’m of the impression that the wealth difference between the western world and the rest of the world is primarily a biproduct of the industrial revolution

You cannot separate the effects of the Industrial Revolution on Europe from their imperialist practices.

The Industrial Revolution was principally fueled by resource extraction, labor extraction and genocide committed in the colonies.

> and of course European colonialism also drove industrialization in its colonies.

This is literally a standard white supremacist talking point. So I'm not really going to engage with it further, other than to point that out, and to mention that "trickle down" industrialization of the colonies doesn't justify the massive exploitation that European colonialism hinged on.

> The Industrial Revolution was principally fueled by resource extraction, labor extraction and genocide committed in the colonies.

This is patently false, and we know it’s false because the end of slavery and colonialism didn’t slow the pace of industrialization. Certainly some of the initial investment came from wealth created by slavery and colonialism, but it was by no means the principal fuel however much activist revisionist historians might like us to believe otherwise.

> This is literally a standard white supremacist talking point.

Maybe so, but “white supremacy” doesn’t logically follow, so the point remains valid. I’m not content to yield the truth to white supremacists, since their conclusion is incompatible with the truth. Of course this one benefit doesn’t justify colonization; injustices can have some positive outcomes—we can recognize this while acknowledging that the positive outcome doesn’t justify the injustice.

The single biggest problem with repatriations is that slavery in the US did not exist in isolation. It existed in West Africa before and existed afterwards. It existed legally at all times in human history until quite recently.

That is not what article is about.

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